Page 5 of Burn

Ever.

I sacked up all the supplies and put them in the garbage, cleaned up what little mess I’d created and headed back to the car with my bag. I was a lot closer to Amorette’s place than I was mineandI had a key. Keeping my nerves in check, I used the audio book to distract me as I drove.

It was late by the time I got there. I found a place on the street to park. I’d have to move the car before six in the morning, but that was fine. The lack of responses from Amorette on the drive had my teeth on edge.

Key in hand, I went to open the lobby door but I didn’t even get the key into the lock. Something dark yanked over my head as a chemical smell invaded my mouth and nostrils. I couldn’t breathe or scream.

The plink of the key hitting the ground seemed to echo forever. As the world spun away. It was almost like being high, but not in a good way. I couldn’t focus and even as I tried to fight, my grasp on consciousness slipped away entirely.

It was darkness.

Then nothing.

Chapter

Three

GRACE

The sound of crying and skin slapping against skin woke me. The pounding in my head began to drown out the other noise almost immediately. My mouth tasted like ass. The sliver of light cracking my eyes open admitted drilled into my brain with fresh agony.

I tried to roll away from the noise. How much had I drunk the night before?

Sobbing penetrated the haze and I pressed my hands against the… floor? The cold cement against my hands finally made it past the fog of sleep. This was more than just tiredness. I’d been drunk enough to know the difference. This was more like someone slipped me a mickey.

More crying pulled me to the present and I made it to sitting upright and stared out into a nightmare. It had to be one, right? There were men pumping away between the legs of nearly a dozen women in similar situations to mine.

The smell of sex, urine, and sweat filled the air with a rank kind of miasma. The sobbing came from the girl closest to me. She had her head turned away from the man raping her.

Oh, fuck no.

I didn’t care how bad my head hurt. I pushed to my feet and lunged forward. He wasn’t looking at me—only a chain snapped taut as I made it a couple of steps and I fell.

My knee protested slamming into the floor. Worse, it sent a jarring pain all the way up to add a new turbulence to my headache even as the world swam around me. My stomach rebelled. I wanted to vomit.

Laughter drifted through the nightmarish sounds surrounding me. The sound jarred. Amusement didn’t belong in this house of horrors. Some distant part of my brain was desperate to believe I was locked in a bad dream and I’d wake up any minute.

Just too many dark books and wine. I knew better than to go to sleep after too much alcohol. Not even squeezing my eyes shut broke me out of this hell.

A masculine voice I didn’t recognize said something in Spanish. It wasn’t Castilian. I didn’t even think it was Andalusian. It was closer to Argentinian. Maybe.

Either way. I understood what he said.

“The beautiful doll is awake.”

Why wasn’t there something closer I could grab to throw at the asshole still pumping away on the poor girl? A hand grasped my chin as a scent of too strong cologne threatened to suffocate me.

I jerked my face away from his touch. Or at least I tried. He tightened his fingers, the force of them biting into my flesh as he forced my head back to look up at him.

The man wore a five-thousand-dollar suit, a silk tie, and had on Armani cufflinks. Disgust curled through me.

“Tell Ignacio,” the man continued in Spanish, as he rubbed his thumb over my lower lip. “He claimed her for himself.” Then he smiled at me. “But I plan to fuck this mouth after he’s sated himself.”

“¿De verdad?” I asked. Maybe it was the desire to throw up or the vicious pounding in my head. It could just be that I’d woken up in some inner circle of Dante’s hell surrounded by demons. Then the man smirked down at me and thrust his thumb into my mouth, I reacted.

I bit down so hard on his thumb, I drew blood, and I punched him right in the dick. He went from a shriek, to choking as he fell to his knees. I fisted his tie, pulling it taut and spat his blood back out at him.

His gasps turned to gargles and then he was trying to grab my hair. I jerked away from him. Even with the chain on my ankle, I managed to get behind him and I still had a hold of his tie.