Page 17 of Bend & Break
I look around. The entire room has been torn apart. The drawers are open. Boxes turned over and emptied.
Clothes spilled out, some crumpled on the floor, some kicked halfway under the bed. Whoever did this wasn’t careful—they weresearching.
How thefuckdid I sleep through this?
A sick twist of realization punches through the panic: I’m not in my dorm anymore.
No building security, no RAs. Just me and Mads in a shitty team-issued apartment, with a key card opening front door that apparently isn’t too hard to bypass.
The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind until now.
My legs are free, but the rest of me is trapped—sweat sticking to the sheets, heart thudding so hard I feel it in my ears. I twist, trying to see my phone.
"Hey, phone—call Mayson." Nothing happens. There’s no way to use the voice controls without it in range, so where the fuck is it?
It only works if the phone’s nearby, and I don’t see it on the nightstand where I left it. Not on the floor, either. I twist, scanning the room with as much range as I’ve got, but there’s nothing. No screen glow, no lifeline.
Just me. Alone. Zip tied to Mads Keller’s bed.
My first thought—my gut-deep, knee-jerk reaction—isthat fucker. He did this. He thought it’d be funny. He probably left me here so he could waltz onto the field and play clueless when I didn’t show up.
But the second thought is clearer, more logical.
No. He wouldn’t do that. Mads is an agent of chaos, sure, but he wouldn’t screw with my practice schedule. Not with how seriously I take it. Not with how seriouslyhetakes it.
He also wouldn’t trash his own room.
My alarm didn’t go off. And this isn't a prank.
It’s something else.
Something worse.
I twist my wrists again, harder this time, ignoring the way the plastic digs into my skin.
No give.
The zip ties are pulled so tight that I can barely rotate my hands. I try to shimmy up the bed, thinking maybe I can slide the ties higher, shift the angle, get some leverage—but the metal creaks, and all I manage to do is knock my thigh into the headboard and give myself a charley horse.
If throwing my full weight into these restraints while contorted in some half-assed backflip isn’t enough to snap the plastic, I’m not sure what is.
“Goddamn it,” I mutter, wincing.
I roll to the side, try hooking my foot under the blanket to fish around for my phone. Nothing. I reach with my toes, desperate and clumsy.
There’s nothing sharp nearby, not that I can get to without my hands anyway. Just the frame beneath me, the flat sheet tangled around my waist, and a mounting sense of dread clawing up the back of my throat.
I don’t scare easily. I don’t panic.
But this is bad.
Every creak of the apartment feels amplified, like footsteps just outside the bedroom door. Not on the stairs outside—inside. My heart slams against my ribs. The doorknob doesn’t move, but I swear I can hear someone crossing the living room.
I know it’s all in my head, but someonewashere and I don’t know where they are now.
I suck in a breath and hold it.
It’s daylight now. Too late for Mads to still be here. Which means I’m alone. Tied up. Helpless.
