Keva went a little weaker as she heard it. She had known, it was impossible for there to be any other explanation for her not being able to feel her the way she could the rest of her pack. But hearing the casualness of the stated fact from his lips made the fires of rage inside her gut override all other emotions.

  She screamed and lunged forward, yanking her face to the dirt as the chain bonding her wrists to the floor held fast. She stared at Paley as she struggled and pulled on the chain and the metal plate with every ounce of her being. She felt no physical pain, only rage, and the need to end this man’s life. She even felt the metal plate move, just a little, a fraction of a centimeter maybe, but it moved. Her whole body was tense and straining against the restraints trying to get to the murderer who sat only a few feet from her.

  Paley stood up and the back of his hand flew out and cracked against her face. The solid thud of the connecting strike resounded against the earthen walls of the room. Keva shook off the strike and kept trying to get to him, willing the chain to let her go. Paley struck her again, Keva kept struggling.

  Paley sneered at the woman, “Youse not polites at all!” He curled his hand into a fist and punched the woman across the face, again and again.

  Keva saw black splotches and stars invade her vision but she didn’t feel the impact of those punches, she felt only rage and the guilt that she had failed her pack.

  Paley struck her again before raising his foot and kicking her squarely in the gut. Keva couldn’t breathe and fell to the floor, gasping for air. Paley kicked her again, and again. Keva tried to protect herself, moaning and gasping for air under the onslaught. Paley stopped and gripped her chin with his thumb and forefinger. He stared into her green eyes and leveled a hard-backhand strike to her face. Keva slumped unconscious to the floor.

  *   *   *   *   *

  Michelle woke up with a start. Her head was pounding and it took a while for her eyes to adjust to the almost total darkness that surrounded her. She tried to get more comfortable, but the chains that held her were so short she couldn’t get into any position where she was relaxed. He shoulders ached and her body was sore from sleeping on the hard ground. Her neck was tense and sore and she had to duck down uncomfortably just to allow her hands to massage the muscles there.

  She was exhausted, her stomach rolled in on itself in hunger, not something that she was completely unused to. She had gone days without eating before, like that one time she had to get ready for the beach. She didn’t want to be fat in her new bikini. Besides Jason was going to be there and she had to look better than Suzie, that skank.

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  Jesus, what the hell was she thinking about? She shook away the memory. This wasn’t high school and it wasn’t vanity that was causing these hunger pains or her migraine. She had heard of people starving to death, she guessed that is what was going to happen to her if she didn’t eat soon.

  She managed to get up in a kneeling position. It wasn’t much, but it allowed her to stretch a little. Her neck was so sore. She had to get out of here. She didn’t know how close the walls were to her, but she was pretty sure she was in the middle of the room. She knew the walls were earthen because she could smell it. But other than that, there was nothing that she could see or sense that gave her any clue about where she was.

  She had to lay back down; kneeling was just too much of an effort. She breathed shallow breaths to try and ease the pain in her gut. It didn’t help, but deep breaths didn’t help either. It was easier to just not breathe. Could she die from choosing not to breathe? Her body would breathe again if she passed out. That might make this pain go away. She knew that this problem was not going to get any better by just sleeping and wishing that someone would come and save her. People had a habit of disappointing her in that regard.

  Like that asshole Steve who had taken her out and professed his love and want to be with her and close to her. Close in ways that only sex could make people close. She told him that she was only fifteen and not ready to have sex. He said he was ‘cool with that’ only to find him getting a blowjob from Suzie under the bleachers. Yeah, cool with her not doing it but totally fine getting it from someone else.

  OK, Michelle focus! You have got to stay focused. She tried kicking her legs out carefully reaching her legs out for anything that might help her. Every movement made her gut wrench and she had this odd feeling of wanting to throw up. She knew she didn’t have anything in her stomach to throw up, but the feeling was there.

  Her toes reached out and felt something hard. She couldn’t see anything so, she brought her legs up to her bound hands and undid her boots and slid off her dirty socks. The feeling of getting her feet out into the air, even though it was not warm, it wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t warm either, felt really good.

  She stretched her leg out again and let her toes run up along something wooden. She was careful not to get any splinters from the rough surface as she moved her toes up. It was a shelf of some kind. She reached out her leg as far as she could, stretching her body away from the chain that held her wrists. She felt something cold and hard, was that glass? She tried to move her other leg behind her, if she could just reach it.

  The glass shifted on the shelf, it moved sideways, not towards her. Not for the first time in her life she cursed her short body and short legs. Well, she actually had fairly long and nice legs for her height. It was her four foot eleven-inch frame that she cursed. She tried hooking the glass with her toe, pushing it back onto the shelf but also just a little bit towards her. She wasn’t making any progress, but at least the jar was still within reach.