“I suggest you don’t find out,” he said just as the cold clamp of metal on my ankle moved. A second later the familiar snick of a knife echoed against the white tiles and all the ropes fell away.
It was like the gunshot of a race and I shot up, ready to find the door and hightail it out of there. But, of course, I had grossly exaggerated my abilities. I was up, on my feet, and moving. And then I was flailing just like that giraffe with a rocket strapped to its ass I always was. And then, just like that giraffe, I was down just as fast. I hit the tile floor with a smack so loud the sound bounced around in my head like a ping pong ball.
The world was suddenly spinning as if I was back on that big wooden platform, but faster. Like my rocket ass was propelling us in tight little circles. The tiles on the walls were dancing as I stared at them, the utter lack of contents in my belly threatening to turn itself out.
Okay, so running was out. Staking was out. Fighting with my boobs was out.
I was running out of options.
“They never learn, do they?” the same girl as before said, she and another figure scooping me up by the arms and dragging me back to the table.
“At least this one made it halfway. I’d say you owe me a twenty,” the other responded, all of them coming into focus as they sat me back on the metal table.
Four women and one man, all of them lean, beautiful and absolutely covered in Synian bites. The two-sided wounds covered their necks like diamonds, they dripped down their arms like precious gems. The bites were everywhere, which I could clearly see thanks to the transparent robes they all wore. Their bodies, and their bites, were clearly visible as though they were taunting those around them. Something that was more obvious considering there wasn’t a scrap of hair on them from their top lip down. They had been completely shaved.
As had I.
“What the fuck?” I screamed, clamping my legs together even though I really wanted to inspect just how much waxing and shaving had occurred down there. It shouldn’t have mattered, I had nothing to hide anymore seeing as I had been on full display to them just seconds before, but I was closing down this peep show.
“We did that while you were knocked out. It’s easier that way, trust me. They don’t like hair blocking their access and the first time is always the worst,” one of the girls, a blonde with green eyes said, flipping her hands to the side as she walked back to the robes, grabbing the closest one off the hook.
“They like to see their property too,” she whispered as she held the ghost skin out to me.
She had another think coming if she thought I was just going to slide that on. I folded my arms like the stubborn princess Jett always told me I was, and crossed my legs, but not without taking a glance at my lady bits.
Yep. There was no hair down there. At all. I would never admit it, but I was kind of glad I had been asleep for that.
“Look, you don’t have another choice,” she continued, waving the robe at me. “Those contracts are ironclad. You signed. You can’t get out of them, and you can’t get out of here. You got lucky before, but that’s not happening again. Not with who owns you now.”
She had that same panic in her voice as the guy.
By the moon, my insides might as well have been made of soup from the nerves.
“And who owns me?” I asked the question before I could stop myself, my stomach doing a paranoia tango as the image of those shadowed men drifted back into my mind. The way they were all looking at each other in a panic wasn’t helping that.
How could everything have gone so horribly wrong?
Oh yeah, because saving your brother from the Synians when you had no fighting skills was never going to work. That’s how.
“Nevermind. Look,” I continued before anyone could answer that. “I’m just here for my brother. He signed a contract too. He said he would come out but--”
“He’s gone, just like you. No one gets out, those six months are as much of a lie as everything else,” the girl said as she shook the robe at me. “He was right when he said nothing good was here. Now you are as trapped as he is. There is only one future now.”
I stiffened, staring at the girl who was still shaking the robe at me as she smiled. She smiled wide, her eyes digging into mine as though she knew exactly what she had just said.
I had read the note Jett had sent me enough to have it memorized.
And this girl did too.
My body felt heavy, the thundering rush of blood clear in my ears as I reached forward and took the robe from her.