Page 16 of Ravaged
CHAPTER 5
Teagen
Darkness enshrouded my vision. Ethan gripped his arms tightly around me. Leaves and twigs crunched as the two others came towards us. I thrashed. Iris was right. Iris was always right. There was a reason Ethan was after me, and it had nothing to do with me. A gut instinct told me it had everything to do with my dad. What had he done this time?
I cried a blood-curdling, toe-curling scream, my voice turning hoarse. My throat ached. Ethan laughed in my ear.
“No one will listen to your screams. It’s just us, little one.”
“You fucking pig!”
“Ah, I’d watch that tongue if I were you.” He pressed his nose into my neck, the thick canvas hood a barrier between us. The heat of his skin penetrated the fabric. “You remember I still have the cattle prod now, don’t you?”
He grabbed my ass, rubbing where he had zapped me. The feelings came rushing back. It had hurt like hell, but adrenaline had made me forget about the pain for a few moments. He massaged the muscle.
“This wasn’t the plan,” a coarse male voice said.
“Ah, come on, Axe. Let him have a little fun,” another male said. I recognized it—Wil Adler. He had been to the Dahlia District a few times. “A little game of chase in the woods never hurt anyone.”
I kicked my legs as far as I could, knocking into something hard. “Fuck off!” I hissed.
“Except this won’t be easy,” the other male said.
“It will,” Ethan murmured. He leaned in again, tightening his grip on my arms. “We can either do this the easy way or the hard way, Teagen. It’s your choice.”
I twisted as hard as I could, and lifted my leg, swinging it back to kick him in the shins, my shoe meeting his bone. A snicker erupted from Wil, and the shift of Ethan’s grip on me made a chill go down my spine. Then the electrifying current seized the back of my thigh, making all of my muscles instantly tighten. He let me fall to the ground.
“Hard way it is,” he said.
A twig was jabbing me in the ribs. I pushed myself up but realized that unless I could get this hood off of my head, I wouldn’t be going anywhere. Running with my wrists tied was one thing, but now I couldn’t even see. How was I supposed to escape without any sight?
Iris was right. She was so damn right.
“Be careful, little one,” Ethan said. “There’s more where that came from. And this isn’t a game you want to lose.”
I lowered my head. My stomach curled in knots. What did Dad do to these men?
Hands grabbed my ankles, pulling me down flat on my back once again. Tied my ankles together, tight enough that it would be impossible to escape. Then two muscular arms reached underneath me, rolling me into their hold. That spicy, musky scent—I knew it was him. Ethan, the predator, had to be the one to galavant through the fields with his prey, showing off his find. Ethan had conquered me like I knew he would.
A car door opened and he dropped me inside, letting me fall onto the cold metal. Right. I had seen a van through the trees but hadn’t paid attention to it. Figured it was abandoned. There were plenty of abandoned cars in Cresting Heights; why wouldn’t there be some in the outskirts of Sage City? But that should have been my first red flag.
The door slammed shut. Then the muffled voices started:
“—tell him now, or later—”
“—he won’t care, he’s—”
“—fuck it, let’s go.”
The car doors opened in the front and slammed shut again. Another engine sputtered to attention in the distance. They had multiple cars then. The engine in our car rumbled awake, and we drove steadily. What would they do with my car? Would it become atrulyabandoned car?
This was my problem. I always believed in the best of people. Iris was the pessimistic everyone-is-out-to-get-you type, and I was the stupid one who only saw dollar signs, the one who thought a guy like Ethan might have had the one fantasy that couldn’t be fulfilled without a particular landscape.
Because using a cattle prod to abduct me wasn’t a fantasy. It was the reality.
No light penetrated the fabric. The turns blended into one another and I couldn’t figure out where we were going. The gravel under the tires, the asphalt, the hum of the engine were so loud that I couldn’t hear any sort of conversation they might be exchanging. There was nothing to latch onto.
The car stopped. The engine drowned out. I sucked in a breath. Iris had said she was sending someone to follow me, in case Ethan turned out to be a predator. She had gotten one of the off-duty security guards from the Dahlia District to watch over me. I hoped that she hadn’t forgotten. That someone would know where I was.
