Chapter 3

I stumble. Shrinking away from the cool metallic thing grazing the outside of my arm.

Only to collide against a solid figure.

My nervous system has gone haywire, emergency mode activated, and paranoia has completely taken over at this point.

Not only that, but I still can’t see a fucking thing.

My usually reliable, dependable, grounded senses have all but abandoned me. Lights on all floors have been turned off, and sanity has vacated the premises. Meanwhile, all the blood feels like it has drained out of my head.

Somewhere in my consciousness, I remember being told once that it’s a bodily mechanism to send all your blood rushing to your heart in order to help you escape the predator threatening to eat you alive.

All I’ve got to show for myself is numb extremities and feet glued to the floor.

I’m incapable of doing anything except gape as I try to draw ragged breaths.

“Fear smells wonderful on you, little flower.” A deep voice, slightly muffled by the presence of a mask, appears on my left side. Another stroke of cold metal accompanies those words, running along the back of my upper arm from elbow to shoulder.

I clap both hands over my mouth to prevent myself from screaming. Or maybe to try and stop myself from hyperventilating.

There’s more than one of them crowding my body, that much I can tell.

“Check her band.” That same voice in the dark instructs.

There’s another body, heat that towers over my head and just to the right. I can feel the steady rise and fall of the chest that I’m still pressed up against, although it isn’t him speaking.

My right hand is yanked roughly away from my face, with calloused fingers easily capturing my wrist. A small clicking noise precedes the appearance of a faint glow of a black-light torch. It casts an eerie shadow, highlighting the map of veins on my wrist and a brief glimpse of the floor.

He angles it downward so the light doesn’t reveal much except how badly my hand is trembling.

What it does showcase is a marking. A symbol now glowing a ghostly purple color under the UV.

A single crown flanked by three skulls.

My sucked-in breath is greeted by a menacing chuckle, from the direction of the only voice that has spoken thus far. Yet, the two bodies surround me on both sides. While I’ve only been able to discern two figures, from what I can tell, that certainly doesn’t mean there aren’t more men lurking in here. Assholes who silently laugh to themselves as they watch me fall apart here in the inky black void I’m trapped in like a spider’s web.

“Get the fuck off me.” I manage to find words without swallowing my tongue, and attempt to wrench my hand away from the light. A pathetic attempt to hide the evidence of my decision.

My. Foolish. Fucking. Decision.

Although it is far too late for that now. They’ve both seen the truth. I could try to keep lying to myself and say that I didn’t know, that I wasn’t paying attention, or that I made a mistake. Some tiny part of me could maybe feign innocence and pout and put on a show of pretending, but that would be complete bullshit. A certain, extremely adventurous part of my brain was fully aware of my choice when I grabbed that band upon entry.

The part of me that enjoys lurking in the darkest and most depraved of fantasies.

We’re still enclosed in pitch black, and I can’t see anything, except I can feel the heat of their bodies. Their proximity is an undeniable sensation, and the longer we stand here like this—with me as their captive—I begin to pick up on the mix of scents. The faintest hints of whiskey, spices, cedar… and something else that tugs at my memory from earlier, but I can’t quite identify.

“Pathetic little sluts don’t get to talk to us that way.” There’s humor behind the man’s crass words, but he’s laughing at me. This is the one to my left who keeps running whatever metal object he’s holding up and down my arm. I can feel him raking his gaze over me even though nothing can be seen inside this claustrophobic blackout. Or maybe they have some sort of night vision behind their masks?

A shudder goes through me at the thought, making me feel even more helpless. At their mercy.

To make matters worse, I’m vaguely aware that I’m squeezing my thighs together.

Do I want them to see the obvious power they have over my body?

“Better show some respect. Don’t you know where you are, little flower?”

I feel the one behind me shift his weight, but it’s clear now he’s in no mood for talking. His role is much more grab her and hold her down as I get the sense he’s there to prevent me from trying to run back to where I came from. A giant wall of man that dwarfs my frame.

Another squeeze of my thighs comes on involuntarily, and I can feel wetness gathering in the silky material of my panties.

“I know you’re all sick freaks.” The fear is talking for me now. Making me mouth off in a way that I would never normally do. But I’m so far down this terrifying rabbit hole now I can’t stop myself. “People disappear from this place every year because of people like you.”

I can almost hear the cocky smirk beneath the mask of the one at my elbow.

“Do you want to disappear?” His voice dips lower now, taunting me as if gravel and velvet combined when his words hit my ear. “Isn’t there just a little part of you that is curious to feel what that might be like?”

Fuck this man and his way of working into my brain. In fact, fuck both of them. Because now my mind is captivated, lunging at the bait and hooking onto the idea of escaping my shitty apartment and my awful minimum wage job and the reality that I’ve always felt like I was supposed to do something better with my life.

Yet, my foolish pride flips her hair and refuses to give them the satisfaction of thinking it's because of him and his alluring invitation that I want something different for myself.

From the sound and feel of it, they’ve got egos big enough to fill an entire county. Or maybe that’s just their big dick energy filling this room. Either way, they don’t need to have their sense of self-importance given any more of a boost. Being untouchable as they already are is bad enough, never mind thinking they can take whatever they want and damn the consequences.

“Let me go.” For whatever reason, I’m still buzzing with enough adrenaline to have me ready to bolt at the first opportunity. Despite the allure of these men and the lingering danger inherent in being trapped in here alone with them—knowing I have a safe word that I can only fucking pray they would listen to if I needed to use it—some primal part of me still wants to flee.

Jesus, I hope my legs don’t give way on me if I do get the chance to escape.

My voice must be filled with just enough hesitation because I hear the one behind me breathe a little closer to my ear. It’s raspy and heavy through the mask all these men wear in this place. Leaning down, he hovers closer still, and the fine hairs all stand on end like I’ve been electrified.

It’s the exact move a guy would make if they were about to kiss your neck in that sensitive spot, and my body turns molten in an instant. Heat floods through my core, and I feel my nipples tighten.

But he lingers achingly close. Not making contact.

“The slut is curious.” The one who keeps talking sounds so smug I want to kick him in the ankle.

Even though the other figure remains silent, hovering behind me, his rhythmic breathing through the mask is so close to the side of my face that it’s the faint brush of the mask where it grazes the tip of my ear, making me jump.

All that does is leave my body pressing up against him more, and I can’t help but think that was his plan all along.

“Such an inquisitive little flower,” the other one murmurs.

Hearing him keep on calling me that sends a spike of fear mixing with my arousal. He surely doesn’t know my name… does he? Is it too much of a coincidence that he’s using that nickname when my actual name, Posey, is so unusual?

To be honest, I fucking hate my name. The thing never felt like it suited me and always conjured up images in my mind of old ladies’ cloying perfume and ugly dried flower arrangements gathering dust on a shelf.

Rot and decay.

Not the things you necessarily want to think about every time you hear your name called.

No, I quickly reason with myself, he couldn’t know who I am. They might be a secret society, but they’re not interested in someone like me.

I’m not on a VIP guest list. I’m a nobody who won my ticket by accident because I just so happened to be in the right place, swiping my overdrawn card at the right time.

“I’m not. Just give me back to my friends.” God, this encounter has stretched my sanity to its limits.

Fingers grip my chin now and dig in painfully tight, partially squeezing my cheeks in order to drag my face upward, demanding I tilt my unseeing eyes toward whoever is lingering over me in the inky darkness.

As my throat swallows down, I blink several times, but still can’t make out a fucking thing, and another flood of arousal makes an appearance. Is there a link to being trapped in the dark with two strangers? Apparently, my pussy has discovered a new interest, and she’s one highly alert bitch. At the rate my chest is heaving, they can probably hear every thud against my ribcage, alerting them to the chaos raging beneath my exterior.

“Wonder what she’ll do for us?”

Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

“Maybe that band on her wrist is all for show, and she doesn’t want that at all. I bet she’s lying, and we’ll be hearing her safe word in another two minutes.”

The man at my front is talking about me like I’m not here. From the way he keeps going and doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest that the other man hasn’t said a word, maybe this is what it’s always like between them.

Two hunters working in unison.

“How badly does the slut want to be returned to her friends, do you think?”

I am not being turned on by this. I. Am. Not. Repeating those little syllables to myself surely might strengthen my resolve. Surely, I can cling to hope that by saying it over and over again in my mind, there’s a possibility it will make it true.

A wicked chuckle floats between us. Another roaming glide of metal against my arm.

Those words to myself do fuck all. It doesn’t have the desired effect. In fact, it would seem I definitely have a kink for being used, and these two invisible figures in a dark room just illuminated that in my mind’s eye. There is now an illuminated runway complete with a baton-waving attendant guiding this aircraft to land straight into horny-ville inside my brain.

My mouth feels like it has been filled with sand as I try to swallow.

Cold and sharpness of a deadly edge—the kiss of a blade against delicate flesh—chases the movement of my throat in an instant, and my body lights up at the point of contact. This time, it feels sharp-tipped and leaves an unmistakable indent in my skin.

Two things register in my equally aroused and scared brain at the same time. First, that they must be able to see everything, even though I’m blinded by this void of blackness. Second, is that this psycho is pressing the tip of a knife against my throat.

A whimper falls from my mouth. I really try to fight it, I do, but it tumbles out and I immediately know that I’m done for. They know I’m locked in their sights and their jaws are already closing in around me.

I’m no longer prey to be hunted.

I’m the meal they’re preparing to devour.

Now, the only decision that remains is how long they’re going to take while they pick my bones clean.

Will they go about it slowly and methodically? Or will they tear me apart like bloodthirsty creatures who’ve been starved for months?

“Bet if we turned her around, the bitch would be humping your leg already. Pathetic.”

The one behind me doesn’t do or say anything, and it’s so damn unnerving. It’s as if he’s disgusted with me. As if he can tell just how my body is burning up on the inside and feels completely twisted upside down by the other man’s words.

“Hmm. Desperate to be choking on cock aren’t you, love… I can smell it on you.”

His crude words are muffled by the blood pounding relentlessly inside my ears, and the place where my thighs rub together is slick with wetness. Fuck. The longer I’m trapped here, the more turned on I’m becoming, and I’m not sure what that says about my tastes or predilections toward masked men and the prospect of being forced.

They’ve barely touched me, which is unnerving in itself. I don’t know what I was expecting once they caught me like this, but something in me expected them to be rough and demanding with feeling me up.

In fact, other than dragging what feels like a knife over my flesh and briefly holding onto the point of my chin, that is the only real contact I’ve had with either of them.

This should feel different than it does, but somewhere in my mind’s eye, it becomes opposites day, and all that does is have me imagining exactly what it would be like to choke on both their cocks.

Or to be filled by both of them at the same time.

Is that what they want… with me?

Why me?

That question immediately short-circuits my brain just long enough to be doused by what feels like a bucket of iced water.

My mind drifts back to the array of beautiful women that I know are roaming around inside this mansion, all seeking pleasures of the flesh, and I immediately concede that there is no way these two men would choose me over the likes of them .

Not to mention my friends who were alongside me only moments ago.

They are all glamourous and polished and can afford to purchase their tickets to attend this event year after year, dressed in head-to-toe designer labels.

So, whatever these men want with me must be an alternative option.

This surely means they’re only after one thing, and that is likely to be about as far from orgasms and pleasure as possible.

It potentially means I’m about to go missing.

Fear rises up with long, bony fingers to clutch my throat, and I begin to shake uncontrollably. Within an instant, I feel consumed by terror at the prospect that I might not make it out of this place alive.

Christ, how could I be so stupid?

“We don’t have all night.” I realize the irritation in the man’s voice means he’s already asked me a question I didn’t hear because I’ve been too busy writing my own eulogy. Now, I have no idea what to say that isn’t going to result in having my throat slit from ear to ear.

“I don’t know.” My lips are trembling. My whole body is trembling. I’m fucking pathetic, and my imagination is running vividly through scenarios, all ending with a gaping hole sliced through my stomach or windpipe at any moment.

That’s when a different voice—not the silent man behind me, no, this is a third person lurking in the sea of blackness—speaks low and smooth for the first time, and my knees nearly give out on me.

“Since you can’t answer, we’re going to make the decision for you.”

Oh, shit. My fingers go numb.

There is another man in here. Have they been here this whole time? They must have been. My ears are deafened by the sound of my own heartbeat, so it feels almost impossible to discern where his voice is coming from, but it sounds like he could be standing directly in front of me. Only a little further away than the others, as if he’s a few paces further back, watching this scene unfold.

Overseeing the slaughter of their sacrifice.

That’s when I hear his cool, indifferent voice cut through my panic.

“If we catch you, we get to do whatever we want with you. Screw your stupid little safe word.”

A single red bulb flickers on and illuminates a doorway on the far side of the small room. Dark wood set against thickly padded black walls. Roughened hands push my shoulders so hard I nearly tumble to the floor.

“So you’d better fucking run for your life.”