Page 3 of Satan's Naughty List
“Sounds like a plan.” Putting the phone on speaker, I inform her of the email, giving her the rundown on what it contains. She curses the men who can’t keep it in their pants, curses men in general, then curses only men who are douchebags. Since, you know, I’ve got a cock too.
“Send your coordinates, I’ll be there soon,” I respond, hanging up without another word. What a start to a holiday season.
Chapter Three
“We’renotheretohurt you,” her voice calls, it’s soft with an edge in it. My feet hurt from the run, my lungs threatening to seize as I move. My thighs are barely covered with the oversized shirt I stole, but it keeps the essentials covered, no less.
Twigs snap under me as I scour through the trees, the sharp edges on the small branches pushing splinters deeper into my skin. Ice is mixed into slush as I’m chased. I may be depleted of any sort of nutrients, but adrenaline may as well be my source right now. I can’t remember the last time I’d eaten anything that wasn’t just slop or had a capsule of poison stirred into it.
They can’t get me.
I can’t let them.
I won’t risk it.
“Please leave me alone,” I whimper quietly. A few entwined branches slow me down. Scaling them, I realize they’re a lot more slippery than they look.
“Don’t!” One of them shouts. They can’t catch me. The shouts of men can be heard for miles, but I don’t care. I get higher and higher. My feet scramble below me to gain traction, the moss giving away the higher I get. Their grumbling fades as I move, sliding around with each branch I scale. Stepping on a thinner branch, it gives.
I drop several inches, the force of air billowing the shirt slightly as my foot is shoved into a hole. I hear it before I feel it. A raging inferno roars in my bone as I fall backward, the shirt covering my eyes as my ankle breaks and holding me up. I dangle in silence, the urge to scream is swallowed by my will to live. I have to get out of this, I can’t let them get me. I won’t survive it.
“Shit, she’s caught!” Another harsh voice calls. I flinch as a hand touches my shoulder, and I thrash. Nothing else makes sense besides survival. If I can dislodge myself, I can run. I can slam my bone back into place and run. “Woah, easy girl, I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, his tone softening.
It’s a trick, a ploy to get me to surrender. I refuse.
Another sharp snap shoots through my ankle, into my foot and up my leg. I can’t feel my toes, the freezing air helping with the pain. Tricking ice drops down my leg toward my bare crotch before I’m falling again. The hard ground is further than it looked as I slam into the soil, a pained and restrained groan pushing free from my lungs. Taking a moment to gather my bearings, I see several figures approach me. Hands high like a surrender, they form a circle.
I have to get out before they can stop me…
I scream.
A blood curdling, horror show scream.
They flinch and step back in shock, giving me enough time to raise my leg and slam it on the ground, setting the bone where ithopefullyshould be. Blood pounds in my ears like a white water tides, but I know from their flinches that it probably didn’t sound good. A few gagged sounds surround me, but I pay them no mind. If they vomit, that slows them down. Dropping forward onto my hands, the skin catches on rough edges below them. Like a runner on a starter block, I take off.
Adrenaline surges through my veins as I dodge man after man, shouts ringing around me as they tumble to catch up. They’re all double, if not triple, my size. I slink through knocked-down trees, holes between the roots and the trunk. My heart hammers in my chest as my head grows light from the lack of food. I can’t run forever. I just have to run long enough.
Risking it all, I swivel my head behind me to see three men chasing me down, their hands outstretched and ready to catch me. I turn to look ahead just in time to miss a low hanging branch.
“Shit,” I hiss, my balance becoming uneven, the sudden overwhelming pain enveloping my leg as I stumble to the unforgiving earth. The men behind me are still running full speed, barely registering that I’m below them as they pound over me, falling into a dog pile above me. One of them smashes into my skin, thesnapof the bone loud enough for me to hear over the rushing in my head.
I can’t hold the agony any longer, the overwhelming understanding that I’m going to go back. No matter how much I run, I can’t escape them. I feel nothing besides the burning inferno that is my leg as they move off of me. My body is smashed into the ground, my head cradled by a rock as I focus to stay awake.
I can’t give up like this. I won’t.
I can’t.
“Please leave me alone,” I sob, crawling backwards. It takes the rest of my strength to move the weight of my leg, the feeling lost in my foot all together. “Don’t take me back there, please.” My begs go unheard as the three men circle me, keeping me in place as one of them puts a phone to his ear.
He doesn’t listen to me. None of them do. The story of my fucking life. “Just fucking kill me or let me kill myself,” I scream, thrashing in a final effort to get them to back off. Before I can even blink, my arms drop. My body is like a heavy sack as my head clobbering on a sharp point, dulling the rushing around me.
“She’s…I won’t…it’s not…” his words are muffled as a shaking hand touches my cheek. I can’t even flinch. I don’t know what to even do anymore.
Maybe if I let myself go…
“We’re…she’s not…too much blood…” the guys huddle around me, their blurry figures taking off articles of clothing and pressing them tightly around me. A whimsical giggle leaves me as I think about the times where my parents would fuss over me just like this. How they’d see a slight scratch and act as if I’d almost died.
Who would have thought that they were the ones who sold me into this?
