Ryan was suddenly excited. “You were my best. I’ve had bondage requests before. And some pretty gruesome S&M. I had a viewer pay just to see a girl kept tied up until she starved once. I faked that one though. Once she passed out and looked pretty dead, I sold her to my current ‘artists’. They helped me out for a portion of the proceeds when I got some recent requests in which people wanted to see a hot chick get fed on while having sex. Coincidentally, this group of artists wanted to feed on a girl while she was having sex. Bonus! I filmed everything for the site with this,” he said, pointing his thumb to the camera. “And filmed the parts I wanted you to see with the phone. Notice how you never saw any higher than your stomach?” Ryan chuckled. “Your body was a bit of a mess most nights, which was a trip to watch on replay, because you can’t see the fuckers through a lens. You’d see bite marks on your neck being made and opened up from nothing, blood pouring out and scratches running across your tits.” He chuckled incredulously. “I needed to keep my show going, so they glamour you to forget, luckily one of them could, and then we’d all have another go in a couple of days. Sometimes I wasn’t sure it was going to work. I didn’t think anyone could scream that hard and actually forget the pain they were in. Man, three guys feeding on you at once, while getting fucked.” He shook his head in what seemed to be amazed appreciation. “But still, they healed you up, and even though it wore off a bit tonight, the glamouring worked well enough. You earned me a shit-load of money, and for that I thank you. The website has gotten loads of hits and has now been noticed by the right, shall we say, people. Why just yesterday, Julian Kent contacted me with the names of a couple who want a child. My luck just keeps getting better and better. Bad guys finish first, see? And while women are as fucked in the head like you are, they always will.”
Lauren watched Ryan’s crazed monologue and realised in that moment there would be no getting out of this. “You’re gonna let some people kidnap me? You fucking psychopath.”
“I may well be a psychopath, but I’m a rich psychopath.”
“Enough talk,” came a voice from behind Ryan.
“Help! Help me, please!” Lauren screamed.
“Silence the whore,” the voice said.
Ryan stuffed a pair of his underwear into Lauren’s mouth with a shrug. “Sorry. I like that sexy voice of yours, but they are paying customers. Duty calls.”
Ryan got up, set the video camera to record, and gestured to Lauren with both hands as a man and woman of equal height stalked slowly into the room. Even in the dim light of the bathroom, Lauren thought the man looked much older than the woman, his hair thinning, his skin sallow and sagging. The woman had a young face, with big, frizzy, unkempt hair. They both ignored Lauren’s muted sobbing.
“She’s all yours.”
Chapter Eleven
Sorry Is The Hardest Word
The man and woman knelt on either side of Lauren and got to their knees. They placed both sets of hands directly over Lauren’s heart.
“I honour you with this gift.”
“As I honour you.”
Lauren’s panic rose in her mind, and she believed she was hallucinating. The couple’s canines extended and they slowly turned in unison to face her. The woman lowered herself first, smelling Lauren’s neck and kissing the wound on her forehead, licking her lips and moaning with appreciation.
“You have nothing to worry about, my dear,” the man said, doing the same. “Except that this is really going to hurt.”
Lauren couldn’t suppress a whimper. She had never before known what terror was. And then she jumped when a frantic pounding sounded on the front door.
“Ryan? It’s Alex. Get your arse out here now!”
*
Alex had flung the door open and torn off out of the still-moving car as soon as Matt pulled up outside Ryan’s apartment. On their way over, Matt had played her the voicemail Lauren had left on his phone. Alex didn’t say anything. Her senses numbed her with bristling fear. She merely leant her elbow on the door, trying not to panic, watching the world go by, until Matt turned into Ryan’s street.
Upstairs in the hallway, she caught sight of a small indentation in the wall and bloodstains on the floor. Full of rage and fear she balled up her fist and hammered the door again.
“I’m not leaving. I know she’s in there. Get the fuck out here!”
Matt finally caught up to her. “Alex, this is ridiculous.”
“What?” Alex asked, fury burning her cheeks. “How dare you. You heard that voicemail. You heard it.”
“Yeah, I heard it. And like I told you then, I thought it sounded like
she was having a bad trip. You’re being hysterical.”
“Bullshit. That wasn’t a trip. She was petrified!”
Alex was about to pound the door again when it opened, and there stood Ryan, holding it ajar. Alex was ready to push him aside when out of the corner of her eye, she saw Matt reach around his pockets, pulling out his phone and turning his back on her to take the call he’d been expecting. She decided against pushing her way in if Matt wasn’t going to have her back.
“You wanna take it up a notch, Alex? I could barely hear you in there.”
His tone was light, his voice was cold, but Alex could see through it. She wasn’t Lauren. Whatever charm he had had never worked on her. She saw the shift in his stance, the twitching in his
