Page 1 of Hellbent
CHAPTER ONE
I COULD DIE out here.
It’s the one thought I can hold on to in this blur of cold and pain and blind animal panic. A tether. A knife-tip of reality pressing into my ribs, keeping me from slipping under completely.
I don’t know how long I’ve been running. I don’t remember when my legs started to burn or when the cold started to dig into my skin like sharp little teeth. But I knowwhy.
The memory keeps looping: the back seat of the senator’s limousine, his gnarled hand sliding up my thigh, the wine Billy handed me thickening in my veins and making my mind go woozy. Then the shock of night air in my lungs as I spilled out of the car and stumbled into the trees—running before my brain could catch up. The memories slip and blur, but the fear stays. It thrums in my chest, pulsing against the creeping numbness taking hold of my limbs.
Billy wasn’t always a monster in leather, cutting deals withmen who see girls as currency. For years, he was my protector, scaring off any man who so much as looked at me. Once, the burn in his eyes meant I was his to love, not his to trade.
But tonight I saw the truth. Myprotectordrugged me so that a lewd, entitled old man could climb on top of me without any resistance. It’s what keeps my legs moving, even though whatever was in that wine is trying to pull me under.
I have no plan, nowhere to land, but I can’t go back. Iwon’t. I’d rather die here in this forest than give myself up, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left of me anymore.
My shoes crunch through the crusted snow. I have no idea if I’m running fast, or if I’m just careening, disoriented and loose, but my lungs burn from the effort. My bare legs are tingling from exposure. I can’t feel my fingers anymore. My body is shutting down, but the cold helps fight off the sedation. I can’t stop. I have to go…somewhere.
I don’t realize I’ve fallen until I’m staring at the night sky, a fresh stinging sensation blooming across my forehead. The trees loom overhead, bare branches like skeletal fingers pointing upward. One branch still swinging, right at forehead height.
But it feels so good to lie here. The ground has caught me with gentle hands, the frozen earth is a bed beneath me. My eyelids are so heavy. I don’t even feel the cold anymore…
A sound rips through the stillness. A car.
It cuts through my fog, yanking me back from the edge of oblivion. A car means a road. A road means somewhere. And giving in now means dying here.
Somehow I manage to grit my teeth and haul myself up, gripping a tree trunk for leverage. The world sways, my vision tunnels, but I hold on. One step, and then another, and I resume my uncoordinated stumble toward the sound of the car.
In only a dozen or so steps, the woods fall away and I’m on the precipice of a large cleared space. In the distance, a dark house breaks up the grey, moonlit horizon.
I’ve made it.
Somewhere.
I cross the lawn, staring at the house like it’ll disappear if I let it out of my sight. I trail my fingers along the clapboard, looking for a way in, and then I’m fumbling for the porch railing, tripping up the stairs. My hands are useless, barely able to grasp the latch of the screen door, and my knees buckle before I can even pull it open.
My world narrows to one instinct: find shelter.
The last thing I see is a rattan couch tucked against the porch wall, its faded cushions beckoning. A blue tarp lies crumpled beside it, half slid off a stack of patio chairs. I manage to grab it before collapsing onto the couch, pulling it over myself like a blanket, and then my consciousness drops, sinking like a stone.
I wake up warm.
I blink, trying to bring my vision into focus. Above me, wooden beams stretch across a vaulted ceiling, honey-colored and smooth.
I try to sit up, but my limbs feel slow, my head stuffed with cotton. I was dreaming. About a Viking—big, blond, and rough-handed. But as I shake off the remnants of sleep, the memories crash back.
Billy saying, “Drink it,” as he handed me a glass of white wine. “It’ll help you relax.”
The smug, smarmy smile on the senator’s face. The darkness of the woods. The cold.
Adrenaline spikes through me, clearing my head fast.
Where the hell am I?
I push up on shaky arms and take in my surroundings. I’m on a brown leather sofa underneath a wool blanket, a fireplace crackling beside me. To my left, tall picture windows frame snow-laden pines, sunlight cutting through them in long, golden streaks. Beyond the sofa is a long dining table and an arched doorway. Beside the fireplace, a staircase climbs to a lofted second floor, and just beyond it is a tiled foyer.
It’s a cozy space. Sparsely decorated, but warm and inviting.
And I have no fucking idea who it belongs to.
