Loud noises—boots against the floor. People yelling, and mask-covered faces looming over the bed. The sound of Pav’s pain and his last threat before he’d stopped talking altogether, and everything else went dark around her, too.
Had they hit her?
Given her something to knock her out?
She didn’t know.
Despite remembering that someone—several people—had taken her, a part of Viktoria’s mind was not actually willing to believe it. That part of her still wanted to pretend like she was in the bed with Pav, and nothing was wrong.
No, she’d just woken up to a little bit of darkness. The bed wasn’t as soft or as warm as it used to be, and he was too far away from her. That’s all that was happening, surely. She even tried to call out for him … to wake him up because Pav would make this better.
Didn’t he always make it better?
“Pav.”
Instead of her call of his name coming out clear and loud, it was muffled and quiet. Far too quiet for anyone to hear. That’s how she realized she was gagged as well as hogtied because wasn’t that just her fucking luck?
Of course, it was.
Viktoria had done her best not to panic in those immediate seconds after opening her eyes and realizing she couldn’t actually move. She’d tried to pretend like nothing was wrong even when her body was screaming at her that literally nothing was right about this, but she couldn’t do it anymore.
The panic came.
The fear rushed in.
It coated her whole body with a cold grip and squeezed tight. It took all of the air right out of her lungs and made her chest ache. The tears fell from her shut eyes, slipping past her eyelids and wetting her lashes despite the way she tried to hold them back.
The sob that fell into the gag was muffled, too. Like her scream for help. Like her choking when she gagged on whatever was stuffed in her mouth.
One part of her whispered, this is not good.
Another part screamed, get me the fuck out of here.
It didn’t matter that she was gagged and tied like an animal. She still tried to fight in the small, cramped space. She couldn’t see through the darkness, but that didn’t stop her from trying anything. She flipped back and forth and attempted to kick her legs free, even though her shoulders burned from the actions. She did her very best to get the gag out of her mouth, but the damn thing wouldn’t budge.
Fuck.
By the time she was done trying to fight her way free, Viktoria’s entire face was a mess of tears, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe again. It was as though she had used up all of the air that was left in the dark, tiny space and now she was going to die of suffocation.
More panic, she knew.
That was all.
Despite knowing that, it really didn’t help. It was yet another panic attack that she had to ride out because what else could she do at this point?
Nothing.
She was fucked.
It was then that whatever she had been put in seemed to move, or jump, rather. The swell of her panic calmed just long enough for her to realize she was actually rocking slightly. Not enough that it was noticeable, but every so often her confines would jump, and she would be rocked harder to one side than the other.
That’s when she knew.
A trunk.
She had been put in a trunk.
The panic was back.
The fear silenced her again.
Thick.
Visceral.
Raw.
Her body was tired from the last round, not to mention her attempt to escape, as fruitless as that had been. It didn’t seem to matter to her mind when it went through yet another war. She was ready to fight again—ready to try anything again.
Her fight renewed, and so did the tears.
Her shouts increased, and so did the pain.
Was it pointless?
Probably.
She still had to try.
Especially when every single time she closed her eyes in the darkness of that trunk, she continued to see bloody words written on the mirror in her bedroom. Words of a man who had clearly not had enough of her yet.
Who else would have done this?
No one.
Just the monster.
Only Boris.
She wasn’t going down without a fight.
Not for that piece of shit.
Never.
• • •
They’d shoved a goddamn hood over her head, and that more than anything else probably pissed Viktoria off the most. Wasn’t it bad enough that they’d tied and gagged her, but they had to cover her fucking head, too?
She cursed and fought against the people carrying her, not that it made much of a difference. Other than the occasional threat a man threw at her, and the mutter of someone else, they didn’t say anything to her.
Not even stop.
Not a quit it.
Nothing.
It was scary in the way that it felt like they had been prepping for this. It was as though they already knew what their job was with her, and how they were supposed to act once they had her in their possession.
Viktoria kept her struggle up as doors were opened, and more voices filtered to her through the thick, black hood they’d shoved over her head. She didn’t even get to see their faces when they did it—they opened the trunk, still wearing those ski-style masks, and in seconds, had her hooded and pulled out of the trunk.
Bastards.
Then, all at once, without any warning, Viktoria was dropped. She hit the ground hard, landing on her wrists and back. Her head cracked against the floor, too, but that
