I licked my lips, swallowing again. I really needed to find some water.
“Why am I not locked in my room?” he asked me, coming out of the darkness and stepping into the faint moonlight streaming through the windows.
He cocked his head, his hair disheveled and the tail of his wrinkled Oxford hanging out. “We’re not allowed around the women,” he said, sounding just as confused as me. “Are you with the doctor? Is he here?”
What the hell was he talking about? ‘We’re not allowed around the women.’ Did I hear that right? He sounded out of it, like he was on drugs or had been locked in a cell for the past fifteen years.
“Where am I?” I demanded.
He took a step in my direction, and I took one backward, scrambling to get my shoes on as I hopped on one foot.
He closed his eyes, inhaling as he inched closer. “Jesus,” he panted. “It’s been a while since I smelled that.”
Smelled what?
His eyes opened, and I noticed they were a piercing blue, even more striking under his mahogany hair.
“Who are you? Where am I?” I barked.
I didn’t recognize this guy.
He slithered closer, almost animalistic in his movements with a predatory look on his face now that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
He looked suddenly alert. Fuck.
I searched for some kind of weapon around me.
“The locations change,” he said, and I backed up a step for every step toward me he took. “But the name stays the same. Blackchurch.”
“What is that?” I asked. “Where are we? Am I still in San Francisco?”
He shrugged. “I can’t answer that. We could be in Siberia or ten miles from Disneyland,” he replied. “We’re the last ones to know. All we know is that it’s remote.”
“We?”
Who else was here? And where were they?
And where the hell was I, for that matter? What was Blackchurch? How could he not know where he was? What city or state? Or country even?
My God. Country. I was in America, right? I had to be.
I felt sick.
But water. I’d heard water when I woke, and I perked my ears, hearing the dull, steady pounding of it around us. Were we near a waterfall?
“There’s no one here with you?” he asked as if he couldn’t believe that I was really standing here. “You shouldn’t be so close to us. They never let the females close to us.”
“What females?”
“The nurses, cleaners, staff…” he said. “They come once a month to resupply, but we’re confined to our rooms until they leave. Did you get left behind?”
I bared my teeth, losing my patience. Enough with the questions. I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, and my heart was pounding so hard, it hurt. They never let the females close to us. My God, why? I retreated toward the staircase, moving backward, so I didn’t take my eyes off him, and started to descend as he advanced on me.
“I want to use the phone,” I told him. “Where is it?”
He just shook his head, and my heart sank.
“No computers, either,” he told me.
I stumbled on the step and had to grab the wall to steady myself. When I looked up, he was there, gazing down at me and his lips twitching with a grin.
“No, no…” I slid down a few more steps.
“Don’t worry,” he offered. “I just wanted a little sniff. He’ll want the first taste.”
He? I looked down the stairs, seeing a cannister of umbrellas. Nice and pointy. That’ll do.
“We don’t get women here.” He got closer and closer. “Ones we can touch anyway.”
I backed up farther. If I bolted for a weapon, would he be able to grab me? Would he grab me?
“No women, no communication with the world,” he went on. “No drugs, liquor, or smokes, either.”
“What is Blackchurch?” I asked.
“A prison.”
I looked around, noticing the expensive marble floors, the fixtures and carpets, and the fancy, gold accents and statues.
“Nice prison,” I mumbled.
Whatever it was now, it clearly used to be someone’s home. A mansion or…a castle or something.
“It’s off the grid,” he sighed. “Where do you think CEOs and senators send their problem children when they need to get rid of them?”
“Senators…” I trailed off, something sparking in my memory.
“Some important people can’t have their sons—their heirs—making news by going to jail or rehab or being caught doing their dirty deeds,” he explained. “When we become liabilities, we’re sent here to cool off. Sometimes for months.” And then he sighed. “And some of us for years.”
Sons. Heirs.
And then it hit me.
Blackchurch.
No.
No, he had to be lying. This place was an urban legend wealthy men told their kids to keep them in line. A secluded residence somewhere where sons were sent as punishment but given free rein to be at each other’s mercy. It was like Lord of the Flies but with dinner jackets.
But it didn’t exist. Not really. Did it?
“There are more?” I asked. “More of you here?”
A wicked smile spread across his lips, curdling my stomach.
“Oh, several,” he crooned. “Grayson will be back with the hunting party tonight.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, lightheaded.
No, no, no…
Senators, he’d said.
Grayson.
Shit.
“Grayson?” I muttered, more to myself. “Will Grayson?”
He was here?
But Taylor Dinescu, son of Dinescu Petroleum Corporation I now gathered, ignored my question. “We have everything we need to survive, but if we want meat, we have to hunt for it,” he explained.
That’s what Will—and the others—were out doing. Getting meat.
And I didn’t know if it was the look on my face or something else, but Taylor started laughing. A vile cackling that curled my fists tight.
“Why are you laughing?” I growled.
“Because no one knows you’re here, do they?” he taunted, sounding delighted. “And whoever does, meant to leave you anyway. It’ll be a month before another resupply team shows up.”
I closed my eyes for a split-second, his meaning clear.
“A whole month,” he mused.
His eyes fell down my body, and I absorbed the full implication of my situation.
I was in the middle of nowhere with who-knew-how-many men who’d been without any source of vice or contact with the outside world for who-knew-how-long, one of them who had a great desire to torture me if he ever got his hands on me again.
And, according to Taylor, I had little hope for any help in the next month.
Someone went to great lengths to bring me here and make sure my arrival went undetected. Was there really no attendant on the property? Security? Surveillance? Anyone with control of the prisoners?
I ground my teeth together, having no fucking idea what the hell I was going to do, but I needed to do it fast.
But then I heard something, and I shot my eyes up to Taylor, barks and howls echoing outside.
“What is that?” I asked.
Wolves? The sounds were getting closer.
He shot his eyes up, looking at the front door behind me and then back down to me. “The hunting party,” he replied. “They must be back early.”
The hunting party.
Will.
And how many other prisoners that might be just as creepy and threatening as this guy…
The howls were outside the house now, and I looked up at Taylor, unable to calm my breathing. What would happen when they came inside and saw me?
But he just smiled down at me. “Please do run,” he said. “We’re dying for some fun.”
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The horsemen will return!
Did you know Will’s cousin, Misha, has his own story? It can be read as a complete stand-alone and is available through Kindle Unlimited. Turn the page to sample the first chapter of Punk 57!
Dear Misha,
So, have I ever told you my secret shame?
And no, it’s not watching Teen Mom like you. Go ahead and try to deny it. I know you don’t have to sit there with your sister, man. She’s old enough to watch TV by herself.