Then suddenly, Cain reached my way with his free hand.
What is he about to do?
Freaking out, I jerked away.
That didn’t help me.
Cain touched the side of my face.
I shivered under his fingertips.
No. No. No. Please don’t hurt me.
He slipped his fingers a few inches up my cheek. Then, he grabbed the end of the duct tape and yanked it away fast. Pain ripped along my cheeks and mouth.
“Ah!” I trembled.
“Oh, you’ll scream more than that.” With his other hand, he put the joint to my mouth.
No way.
I pursed my lips together.
He growled, “Open them.”
I remained still. Marijuana made me crazy paranoid. I swore it altered time. If I didn’t have to smoke it, I wouldn’t.
He kept the joint in front of me.
I stayed stiff.
“Trust me when I say this. This joint is mercy.” Cain curved that sadistic mouth into a sick smile. “With what I have planned, you’ll need this.”
Fuck.
Not seeing the lie in those eyes, I parted my lips.
He pushed the joint a half an inch into my mouth. “There you go.”
I sucked in warm, earthy smoke. My mouth filled. I swallowed smoke down, racing to intoxication and yearning for some form of escape.
I didn’t know what grade of marijuana he put in the joint, but the leaves were expensive—high-grade potency. Instantly, mind-numbing sensations rippled and waved over me.
I sucked in more, needing the euphoric rescue. An altered state.
“Good job.” He took the joint back and smoked it more. The whole time his gaze remained on me.
He’s going to fucking kill me.
I wished I could figure out what was going on in his mind.
I’m getting the fuck out of here.
I turned my head to the truck’s back window.
Where are we?
Only an empty, dark road trailed behind us. I saw not one building or house. Not a traffic light or sign. We were somewhere out in the fucking woods—far away from Glory.
Dear God!
Even if I escaped, where the hell was I going to run? I’d have to camp out by the trees and watch out for bears or whatever lived out in these godforsaken woods.
Where the hell are they taking me?!
I turned to the other side, scanning the front of the truck. The road ahead was also dark, only the vehicle’s lights illuminated the path in two lines that gave me no true glimpse of the area.
This is some out in the fucking racist woods shit!
Terror spun like a monsoon through my body, rapidly blowing away any sense of calm.
The only way I could see myself on a dark road like this was if there was a zombie apocalypse. Always, I remained in the city, never venturing out of the boundaries of crowded neighborhoods and bustling sidewalks.
Calm down. Calm down.
I assessed Cain, trying to figure out what sort of guy had captured me. It was clear he was psycho, but what type? Was he rope a black woman from the branches, rape, and let her hang from a tree psycho? Was he cut a bitch up and make her eat her own body parts psycho?
If it was like that, I might as well try and open the door and push myself onto the road while we were still moving. There was no reason to stay alive just to be tortured to death.
I’ve survived a lot. I can survive this.
I thought back to earlier tonight.
Cain flirted with me in the club. I’d also seen him smile at other dancers in their earlier jobs. Each dancer represented all races, ages, and sizes.
Probably not the racist white psycho.
The song shifted to more electric guitar, more erratic drums, more screaming about Satan. The music made me wonder if they were into some satanic shit. I listened to some of the lyrics, catching a few screamed words about death and mutilation.
Are they human sacrifice psychos?
It couldn’t be.
All their jobs had resulted in no loss of life. Psychos relished in death. My ex, Chris, was like that. He went erect at the sight of blood and death. The few times he had the balls to do a job, he harmed the person for no reason, cutting their face or shooting them in their arm just to see the blood gush out of the hole.
I looked at Cain as he studied me.
He’s not as bad as Chris, but those eyes are still dark. Still menacing.
I gulped down fear.
The truck turned into another dark road.
Shit. Where’s this?
Part of me didn’t want to get to the destination yet.
I tilted forward and looked out the front window.
We drove toward what looked to be a circular opening in the middle of the dark woods. It was six feet tall. Tons of trees rose high in the air, curled, and hovered over. Tons of branches connected to each other. Shrubs ran thick like a dense wall.
And there loomed the opening—circular and massive—in the middle of the wooded expanse like a gate into another world. A portal. An interdimensional hole. An unseen barrier between reality and some hellish dimension.