were talking about him––they were buying mace now and one girl had even bought a gun.
Now she wished she’d listened to them.
She tried to move her limbs again, but to no avail, sending a cold terror through her.
The burlap sack he’d stuffed her in before he’d carried her to the car was suffocating. Through the tiny holes in the fabric, she had seen a hint of the sun as he’d hauled her to his car. Ever since he’d taken her, she’d been in and out of consciousness, stirring when a camera flashed. The twisted creep was taking photographs of her.
His words echoed in her head. It was your fault, Cathy. I have to teach you a lesson.
Who was Cathy? He was deranged.
Then he’d forced her on all fours with that dog collar and chain, dragging her until she begged for him to stop.
God help her. She had too much living to do to die.
The engine burst to life, tires grinding, and the vehicle bumped along a graveled road, then began winding back and forth. With each turn, her body bounced against the interior of the trunk, her stomach recoiling from the movement. The sounds of traffic whizzed past her and, along with the wind, she inhaled the scent of gasoline.
The car suddenly screeched to a stop, and fear choked her as he yanked opened the trunk of the car. He lifted her and threw her over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing, then began walking. She struggled to regain movement, frantic to fight back, but her hands and legs were useless.
The scent of his sweat and some kind of strong aftershave nauseated her. He grunted as he climbed a hill, occasionally halting as if to draw a breath. Twice, she’d heard him muttering like a mad man about someone, about why she’d done this to him.
Summoning every ounce of courage she possessed, she opened her mouth to scream, but her voice emerged as nothing more than a whisper. He threw her on the ground, dragging her across it. Her body bumped along, hitting rocks and tree stumps and tree limbs, slogging through damp ground and mud. Pain ricocheted through her.
The drug must finally be wearing off, as she felt sharp needles stabbing at her skin through the burlap. The mistakes she’d made returned to taunt her. But even with those, she didn’t deserve to die alone in the woods at the hands of a monster.
Suddenly, he stopped.
His loud breathing rattled in the air, mingling with the fluttery sound of the breeze and tree branches creaking somewhere in the forest. She felt him kneeling beside her, untying the sack and sliding it down over her body.
Determination and panic drove her, and she finally moved a finger. Just one. Then another.
Tears blurred her vision as she struggled against the numbing drug to make her hands work so she could fight him. “Please,” she managed to whisper. “Let me… g-go.”
His sinister laugh bounced through the pine trees, his evil black eyes boring holes into her.
Dragging her over to a cluster of weeping willow trees, he propped her against a trunk. Her fingers and toes were starting to tingle as the feeling returned, but they were still bound. Cold air brushed her face. Something was crawling on her, too.
Fear seized her as he stripped her clothes, then took a gray dress from his duffel bag and pulled it over her head. His fingers felt ice cold as he buttoned the buttons and tugged the skirt down over her bare legs.
Next, he pulled out a lipstick, rolled it from the tube and smiled as he held it up to the light. “Red lipstick––the color of blood,” he muttered.
He gripped her face tightly, and pain shot all the way from her jaw to her ear as he slowly began to trace her lips with the lipstick. He filled them in, running the makeup above her lips and below them, smearing it with his fingers.
Tears blurred her eyes and trickled down her cheeks, and he wiped them away with a white handkerchief.
“No, no, you mustn’t cry. I’m going to make you pretty, you’ll mess up your face.” A dark chuckle rumbled from him as he used a makeup brush and smudged red rouge all over her cheeks.
A cry lodged in her throat as he strewed daffodils on the ground beside her. Darting her eyes around the area, she prayed for a hiker to come by and find her, to save her. But except for the rustle