Startled so badly that her phone clattered to the ground, Danny spun around. All that long blonde hair went flying, whipping around her as she turned to face him.
As it settled away from her face, ZZ looked her up and down. Tight black leather jacket and pants, her lips painted a bright red, and her eyes lined in black. This was not Danny. Forget that she was far too young, even younger than he’d thought. Now that he was standing directly in front of her, he could see the subtle differences between this woman and Danny. Her body wasn’t as slim, was more curvy than athletic; her bright blue eyes were bigger, almost too big for her face; and her lips were thicker, the bottom one curving in a sexy way reminiscent of…
Eva.
The young woman’s surprised gaze dropped to the gun in his hand and then back to his face. Just as she opened her mouth, a scream forming in her throat, he lunged forward.
? ? ?
My eyes blinked open. A sharp throbbing pounded in my head, and my first thought was that I’d drank too much.
It was dark wherever I was, and I was lying on my side. The air was stale, thick with heat, but the floor beneath me was smooth and cool.
When I reached to touch where it hurt, my hand came away sticky and wet. I brought my fingertips in front of my face, trying to see in the darkness.
What the hell had happened to me?
That’s when I noticed the extra weight at my wrists, making my arms heavy. Steel manacles wrapped around them, connected by a thick chain.
I sucked in a sharp, startled breath, tried to think past the pain in my head. The last thing I remembered was—
Clang. Clang. Clang.
A sharp clash of metal on metal caused the throbbing in my head to worsen.
Confused and disoriented, I tried to push myself upright only to have my arms buckle. I tried three more times before I managed to sit up. Limbs made of jelly folded beneath me and my back bumped something hard. A bolt of fear followed by a spurt of adrenaline made me flail in the darkness, and I scooted myself backward across the floor. Gripping the length of chain beneath me, I crawled alongside it, following it to wherever it might take me.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
What was that awful noise?
The crown of my head smacked against something hard and I cried out softly, pain radiating through my skull. With tears in my eyes, I clenched my teeth and reached blindly in front of me until my shaking hand closed around a doorknob. Gripping the handle, I pulled myself to my knees. I paused to breathe with my forehead pressed to the door.
Where is Devin? Where am I?
It came back to me in fragments.
“Danny,” a voice had growled.
I remembered being startled, whirling around, and—
Something familiar nagged at my memories. A voice, a face, something I couldn’t quite remember—like a sense of déjà vu or a remembered dream, or—
Clang. Clang. Clang.
I turned the knob slowly, surprised to find the door unlocked. A sliver of light broke through the darkness, and I squinted as it highlighted a nearby… toilet?
The realization that I was in a bathroom calmed me for a moment until I remembered the manacles on my wrists. Swallowing hard, I pulled the door open.
Bright light poured inside the small room, temporarily blinding me. I blinked several times, trying to see past the spots dancing in front of my eyes.
I was in a house, as far as I could tell, although it lacked the creature comforts that usually made up a home. A ragged old sofa appeared haphazardly shoved against the corresponding wall. Beside it stood a floor lamp without a shade. The wood-paneled walls were blank aside from several large holes, giving the impression that something once hung there but had been ripped away.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
With the door open, the noise was louder, worsening the pain in my head.
My tongue darted out, licking my dry lips. Thirsty and dizzy, I swayed, and the ankle tucked beneath me rolled painfully over the hard floor.
My boots, I realized, were gone. As was my jacket.
As I shifted onto my backside, I lifted my hands to inspect the heavy black cuffs encircling my wrists and the rusty chain looped through them. Blood coated my fingertips. My blood. The pain in my head doubled at the realization I was injured.
Slowly shifting around, my gaze followed the length of chain to where it was looped around the bars of an old-fashioned heat radiator.
It hit me then—really, truly struck me—what had happened to me. What was happening to me.
“Danny,” the man had said, snarling my sister’s name as if it were an accusation.
I’d spun around, seen the gun, and…
And I’d woken up here. Chained inside an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar house.
You see it in the movies and on television. You read about it in books, and even occasionally hear about it on the news—the unfortunate people in real life who’ve had the bad luck to have something truly terrifying happen to them.
Terrible things had happened in my family, to my own mother even. Horrific, gut-wrenching things that no one ever talked about because of the deep emotional scars they’d caused.
But even knowing all of that…
You still don’t expect it to happen to you.
My head spun and I shook it, seeing spots again that had nothing to do with the shade-less lamp in the other room. Where was Devin… and the rest of the guys?
Again and again, I gulped in warm air, each inhale faster, noisier, until I was hiccupping. Panicky, I clutched at my chest as if that could somehow help me to remember how to exhale.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Air rushed from my lungs. Adrenaline danced along my skin, making it tingle.
What was that noise?
Rather than remain in the doorway and envision one horrifying possibility after another, I forced myself forward. Holding my breath and with my pounding heart lodged in my throat, I peeked around the doorjamb.
Scanning the area, I saw more of the same. A sparsely furnished room, colorless and unremarkable, its remaining furnishings a small metal table, a lone bottle of water on top of it, and a sad-looking folding chair beside it.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
I dragged myself another inch forward. The door to a nearby room was open, and the view inside caused every hair on my body to stand to attention. A chill skittered up my spine.
The man inside wore only a pair of black sweatpants. His back and arms were sculpted muscle beneath colorful skin—a veritable mural of ink. Up he went, rung by rung on a salmon ladder affixed to the wall. He moved effortlessly, as if pulling his considerable muscle mass up over the metal bar in his grip and then jumping up through the air, hooking the bar into the next rung, was the easiest thing in the world.
As terrified as I already was, witnessing the sheer strength of this man managed to instill even more fear in me.
Down he came, rung by rung, until his feet slapped to the floor. Releasing the bar, he turned to grab a towel off the back of another folding chair.
That’s when I saw it, the bold black lettering inked vertically along his right arm that read HELL’S HORSEMEN. A gasp escaped me before I could swallow it back.