Page 3 of My Three Mountain Men

I wouldn’t feel so much agony in a dream, would I?

“A-Aimee?” I moaned weakly. “W-where am… I?”

I couldn’t be sure if I even spoke my questions aloud, or if they had simply been thoughts.

More freezing wind blasted across my face, perking me up again, and I blinked rapidly, looking toward the snow again, struggling to sit up. The effort only sent me spiraling back into blackness.

He was back.

He sat next to me on the springy sofa, his filthy hand on my leg. I pulled away, but he grabbed me back. “Don’t be a fucking tease, Simmy. You know why you’re here.”

His fingers tightened on my bare knee, and I cringed, nausea rising in my gut. “Yer daddy gave you to me fair and square.”

I managed to pull away this time, standing as I shook my head.

“No! Daddy wouldn’t,” I breathed, stupidly. “He said you needed my help with something!”

He laughed.

“Yep. I need help with something right here.” He rose and grabbed his crotch, leveling himself up against me at the trailer wall. I turned my head away as he crushed his pasty but oddly chapped lips to my face.

“Eddie, stop!” I yelled, tears filling my eyes. I pushed him back, but he grabbed my wrist.

Suddenly, his hands were under my armpits, pulling me up, and I wasn’t wearing the flimsy sundress.

“Stop it!” I mewled as he picked me up, my head falling back. Snow whirled around my face, legs dangling as I floated through the air. “I don’t want to!”

Again, I wasn’t sure I was speaking, but when I tried to open my eyes again, the task was impossible. My eyelids felt glued together. Where was Eddie taking me?

Something wasn’t right. That was not what happened. He never took me away.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Heavy, even steps on snow grounded me for a moment, giving me a few seconds of clarity.

I’m outside. I’m not in Shady Freaks… it’s not called Shady Freaks. That’s just what the kids at school call it, because that’s where all the freaks live. Freaks like me.

The even, rhythmic steps of my captor’s footfalls lulled me back to sleep, but I fought against the effects of my drug-addled brain.

“W-why are y-you doing this… Aimee…?” I mumbled. “Daddy wouldn’t do that…”

Abruptly, the movements stopped. The stranger spoke and confirmed what I had already suspected, despite my fuzzy mind—my kidnapper was a man. As much as a brute as Aimee was, I couldn’t imagine her carrying me through all that snow. She was working with someone.

“Are you awake? Did you just say something?”

I fluttered my eyes and mumbled again, but the attempt rendered me too weak, and I went limp in his arms.

I stumbled from the trailer, disheveled and dazed. I felt nothing as I tripped down the steps, trembling.

Loud music blasted from the nearby units, neighbors calling out to me as I rushed through the park, my bare feet cutting on the broken beer bottles strewn through the yard.

Run, run, run!I yelled to myself, but I would never be able to outrun this.

Heat brought me out of my dream state this time. I managed to crack my eyelids slightly, but I couldn’t fully open my eyes. I lay at the back of an SUV, vents blasting directly on my face from several different sources.

The night’s darkness made it impossible for me to see the driver, his tense jaw illuminated by the low lights of the dashboard. Moaning quietly, I tried to reach out to him, but if he heard me, he made no indication, his head fully focused on the road in front of him.

My head throbbed, enhancing my already sorry state, but for the first time since I had regained consciousness, my head was somewhat less foggy. Were the effects of the drugs wearing off?

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