other reason that I was his guest, that it was a matter of reputation.
Then I saw the flash, and had the moment of panic, knowing what was going to happen, before there was nothing else.
I woke up with pain pinging off every nerve ending.
My head, as I expected, was splitting. But there were other pains too.
It wasn't unusual to wake up with various aches and pains after a seizure. I tended to bang myself up here and there.
But this felt worse than usual. My head hurt, yes, from the migraine, but the side and back of my head hurt too, the way bruises hurt. And speaking of bruises, my shoulders, back, hips, and ass were aching. My arms and legs weren't feeling great either.
In fact, practically my entire body was hurt.
What had happened to me?
In a moment of blinding panic, my hands moved toward my lower body, feeling a small wave of relief when I found my shorts and panties still in place.
In fact, that whole area might have been the only part of me that wasn't sore. So that was one thing going in my favor.
I attempted to roll onto my back to try to look around at my surroundings, but the movement made a wave of nausea wash over me, making me move back to my side, taking slow, deep breaths to try to fight the bile rising in my throat. From the seizure, from the migraine that was forcing me to keep my eyes closed, too afraid of any light until the pounding lessened slightly. But a huge part of me knew that was a pipe dream, that the only thing that stopped the migraine was some medicine and sleep.
I didn't have medicine.
And I couldn't risk sleep.
I was just going to have to find the inner strength to work through it.
If there was ever a situation where I might be capable of finding that motivation, it was when I was being kidnapped.
Kidnapped.
The word felt awkward in my head. It was simply not something you ever thought you would experience. No matter how much true crime you consumed, there was always a certain level of detachment.
I'm careful. That could never happen to me.
Yet here I was.
Involved with a biker, and kidnapped by his enemies.
A low, pathetic whimper escaped me as I pressed the heels of my hands against my forehead, feeling a small bit of relief.
I couldn't let myself wallow for long, though, no matter how awful I felt. There would be time to cry about it when I knew I was safe.
Because, clearly, I'd been taken.
So Remy and Seeley either hadn't heard me, or they had been taken out.
My heart seized at that idea, making me work to push the thoughts away, not letting myself be any more negative than I already felt.
There was hope.
Maybe they hadn't heard me since they were a couple floors below, because they were banging around down there, and my shriek had been so short thanks to the flashing light.
Wait.
A flashing light?
It wasn't like it was by accident.
It was a special type of flashlight meant to strobe like that.
Why would some low-level criminal carry something like that? These people who did things like drive-by shootings? That didn't seem to match up.
I needed to force my eyes open, to fight through the nausea, so I could get my bearings.
Gritting my teeth, I let my eyes slit open, slow-blinking into darkness, finding no light source anywhere.
Which was great for my headache, sure, but not so much for figuring out where the hell I was.
I stayed there for a long moment, making sure I wasn't going to be sick, not sure I could take it if I was locked up with my own festering throw up for any length of time, before finally folding slowly upward, leaning back against a wall.
It took another couple minutes in that position before I could do anything but fight back the nausea and the crippling pain in my head.
I tried to keep my head still as I reached out, feeling around, finding a finished wall with nothing on it on both sides of my body as well as a thick pile carpet on the floor.
Wherever I was, it was finished.
I guess I had always imagined that should I get kidnapped, I would automatically be kept in a basement or something. That was what always happened in the shows, right?
But unless this basement was finished and completely lacking windows, it seemed like maybe I was inside of a walk-in closet