Page 8 of Beyond the Cottage

Open your goddamn eyes!

Her lids twitched and obeyed, and her pupils adjusted quickly to the dim lantern light. She lay strapped to a cot in a soaring room with stone walls. A hulking man with blonde hair crouched nearby, his face level with hers.

He broke into a grin. “Hi, sugar.”

Gretta knew that smile. She loathed it now more than before.

“You—” she coughed. “Pub.”

“Hey, good memory. Call me J.”

Chest rising and falling fast, Gretta tracked him as he sidled to another human man wearing an open lab coat over rumpled work clothes. That man’s hand clutched his dark hair. His eyes darted frantically, and when they connected with hers, something made Gretta’s heartbeat lurch.

Something out of place.

Instead of dread or fury, a deep wave ofsadnessconsumed her. Disappointment. It made no sense, since she’d never seen him before. He was obviously some random, depraved criminal, and she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Gretta’s fury finally showed up, along with feeling in her extremities. She struggled against the straps, screaming for help, but nobody came bursting in.

The man in the lab coat’s expression morphed into cold resolve as he turned his attention to the skinny tube in his hand. It had a hooked needle on one end, and it was connected to some sort of contraption. He squeezed the tube’s contents into an attached jar, and bright pink liquid dribbled out, transforming into powder as it dried. He held the jar up to the lantern—thensniffedit.

“Where the fuck am I?” Gretta croaked.

Neither man looked at her. They kept staring at the pink powder.

“Her dust is incredible,” Lab Coat muttered, holding the jar to J’s nose. “Thescent.”

J winced and pushed the jar away. “They smell like a goddamn lollipop factory.”

“Do youfeelthat, though?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you better not drop that jar. We’ll be stuck to the ceiling for a week.”

As Lab Coat capped the jar and nestled it in a box, a horrible certainty settled in Gretta’s gut. Whatever that pink shit was, they’d taken it from her volatus.

“What did you do to me?” she demanded.

Lab Coat’s attention returned to her. “You won’t be harmed. You need to calm yourself.”

“Calmmyself?!” She thrashed, making the cot squeak. “Are you fucking insane?”

Lab Coat handed the box to J. “Put it in the safe.”

“She seems like a handful. Sure you don’t want help wrangling her?”

“I’ve got her.”

“The fuck you do!” Gretta cried. “If you touch me, I swear I’ll cut off your cocks and shove them down your throats!”

J whistled low. “That’s some mouth you’ve got, sugar.”

“Go,” Lab Coat said, shoving his partner. J shrugged and disappeared into the shadows.

Gretta gave Lab Coat her best murderous glare, but her breath came in pitiful little gasps.

What could she actually do if he attacked her? When she wasn’t drunk and caught off guard, she was a decent fighter for her size. But how could she defend herself while strapped down? The air on her feet meant her boots were missing, and she had to assume they’d taken her dagger, too.

He could do anything he wanted to her.

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