I turn to try to see who just hit me, lifting my hands half in placation and half in defense. I don’t get the chance to look over my shoulder when I’m tackled hard from the side. Pain crackles like lightning down my body, lighting up every nerve ending from my skull to my fingertips.
The ground is unforgiving as I’m slammed down onto it, gravel scraping off layers of skin from my face and body. I whimper, the noise as pathetic as a little kitten, when a large hand wraps around the nape of my neck and pulls me up. Warmth spills down the side of my face, and arms come around me lifting me off the pavement before the world tilts, smears, and blinks black.
2
NOAH
A weary groan slips from my lips as I come to. I’m cold and my head’s pounding like it’s been used for batting practice by an entire baseball team. The heavy ache turns piercing when I try and fail to open my eyes.
The sound of dry skittering leaves scratching against the ground is too loud in my pain-filled skull. I lift a hand to my temple and moan weakly as my fingertips graze sticky, congealing blood.
Fuck.
My muddy thoughts clear and I recall someone attacking me from behind. I force my lids open, despite my pulsing headache, terror and dread pooling in my chest. Images of dank basements and torture rooms flash in my mind but, when my vision clears, I realize I’m outside in a forest and it’s dark out. Dense, towering trees surround the spot where I’m lying, and a flash of red catches my eye.
What the hell happened? Where am I?
I push up from the ground in an effort to sit, and immediately battle a wave of nausea that threatens to pull me under. I lean back against a large tree trunk, the rough bark digging into my spine as I close my eyes, blocking out the night as I breathe through the pain and queasiness.
Fabric slips off my bent knee, giving a cold gust access to the bare skin of my leg. Alarm bursts through me at the sensation. I look down and find rich crimson velvet piled on the ground next to the moon-bleached white of my thigh.
I’m naked.
Not completely. I’m wearing a heavy cloak, but the T-shirt and leggings I had on before are gone—along with my bra and underwear. I swallow the acid that starts to climb up my throat, and run my shaky hands over the soft fabric I’ve been draped in. The long deep-red cloak has a hood and a golden clasp. Someone attacked me, stripped me down, and left me out in the middle of a forest at night.
What the fuck?
A horrified whimper gets trapped in my mouth as I panic and take stock of my body. I pat myself over as hot tears start to slip down my cheeks. I bite back a relieved sob when all I sense is a sore hip and the weeping cut on the side of my head. I can deal with a little blood and bruises. Those are manageable. What’s not is the fact that I’m in the middle of nowhere, naked and hurt.
Is this some sick fuck’s idea of a joke?
Bile singes the back of my tongue, and I’m immediately pissed at myself for not listening to my gut earlier. Something about this town tripped my worry wires. Stupidly, I’d tried to slather my fears with excuses and second-guessing, just like foster mother number four always covered blackened toast with extra jelly. I know better and yet I let myself label my unease as misjudgment.
“Good job. Now you’re a dead woman,” I whisper to myself, teeth chattering as I cinch the edges of the cloak—my only protection from the elements.
At least it’s soft.
Quivering, I stand, using the tree next to me for support. I survey my surroundings, trying to breathe past the terror that makes me want to curl into a ball and cry until all of this is over, whatever this is.
But I need to get away. I need a plan. I don’t know what in the fucked-up Handmaid’s Tale is going on here, but I won’t sit around and wait for whoever did this to me to come back.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I curse with each step. Pine needles, sticks, and dead leaves scrape at the soles of my feet as I wobble unsteadily away from the tree I woke up next to. My left eye feels dry and is having trouble focusing. I’m pretty sure I have a concussion, maybe some bruised ribs to go along with my blackening hip, but I box up any concern about my injuries and shove it away.
Survive first. Then worry about the pain.
I picture the hospital bed I’ll be recovering in after I escape this shit, and I don’t know if I’ve ever longed for anything more.
Something in my periphery moves, catching my attention, and I snap my head in that direction, causing an ache to shoot down my neck. It takes me a beat to make sense of what I see, but when I do, I stop in my tracks.
Silent.
Frozen.
Terrified.
About twenty feet away, lit by the light of the full moon that’s peeking through the branches, is someone else wearing the same red cloak that trails along the ground behind them. A delicate hand emerges from underneath the cloak and raises a lantern, which glows as bright as a golden star in the dim, tree-cast shadows.
The lantern is shoved quickly onto a bare tree branch where it sways, the beams of light shakily painting stripes across the leaf-littered ground.
Surprise at finding someone else in the woods wearing a red cloak quickly morphs into wary distrust.
What are the chances…?
I squint, trying to focus on the other person, but a hood hides their face. They’re turned away from me, just standing there as though expecting something or maybe someone to appear from that part of the forest. Apprehension and unease skitter across my skin like insects as I watch the cloaked person, unsure what to do.
Is this my attacker?
Or were they ambushed and dumped here too?
I open my mouth to call out but then slowly close it.
What if it’s whoever took me, or what if they’re in on what’s happening? Why do they have a lantern and I don’t?
The cloaked person doesn’t look big enough to be a threat, but I also have some kind of head injury, and I don’t know if I’m thinking clearly. I huddle closer to the trunk of the tree behind me, hoping it will shield me if someone looks my way.
I look around, as though the trees and bushes will tell me what they know, when I spot another red-cloaked person on my other side. I tense, unease twitching through me, as foreboding slithers up my spine. Five huge pine trees separate us, the shadows dripping between them so dark that the person is nearly hidden from view. I worry they’re going to spot me, but just like the first mysterious cloaked figure, they’re staring into the forest in anticipation.
What the fuck is going on?
My mind slowly processes the scene, ticking along like an old wind-up watch at the end of its run. I’m sure I’m missing something, but my brain can’t increase its speed right now because every thought feels fuzzy.
Wait.
More red-cloaked individuals come into focus. They’re farther away than the two on either side of me, but each of them is clearly spaced out in a line. There have to be at least half a dozen others that I can see from where I’m standing, dabs of red painted across the deep blue darkness.
All of them are staring off in the same direction, just…waiting.
Shit.