Chapter 1:Betrayed
“If love is a cage, I choose to stay.”
—Kane
The Duran Peninsula. Midsummer.
The sun hung high, scorching the earth.
The air was so dry and hot that every breath felt like swallowing sand on a burning wind.
Elise had no idea how long she had been running. Her stomach cramped again and again, but she did not dare stop.
Her lips had cracked and begun to peel. Dark red blood seeped from the splits.
Her throat burned as though she had swallowed live coals.
The same barren ground stretched in every direction. Farther off, she thought she could see a dense forest, but she had no idea which way to run.
She wanted to cry. But after two days and two nights without a drop to drink, her body had no water left for tears.
Elise was nineteen, a sophomore at one of Altairia’s leading universities.
She should have had a bright, beautiful life ahead of her.
Instead, three days ago, a single phone call had dragged her into the depths of hell.
The caller had been her father’s brother, Marcus Hathaway.
His voice had been frantic. Her parents had been in an accident while doing business abroad, he told her. They were fighting for their lives. She had to come at once.
Her heart clenched. She immediately called her parents, but all she got was the automated message saying their phones were switched off.
Too frightened to question anything, she rushed through an emergency visa application and caught the earliest flight she could.
A man who said he was her uncle’s friend greeted her warmly at the airport. He would take her to her parents, he said, in a place called Duran.
Then she took a sip of the water he offered, and everything went black.
When she woke, she was in a dark room that might as well have been hell.
Her passport, her phone, everything of value she had carried—all gone. All she had left was a slip dress, torn so badly it barely covered her.
Hell really did exist.
And her own uncle, Marcus Hathaway, had put her there himself.
The betrayal hurt worse than anything her body had endured. That someone so close to her could do this left her more hopeless than the pain.
Elise pushed herself upright and looked around from where she sat on the floor. The room was dark, with only a little light filtering through a small window in the door.
Three other girls huddled in the corner, their faces terrified, their sobbing relentless.
Elise was just as frightened. She knew she was in terrible trouble, but she had no idea where she was. She was about to ask them when—
“Get the fuck out here! Move!”
“Wake up! Stop dragging your feet!”
Crash!
A mud-caked combat boot kicked the door open.
The slam made every girl in the room flinch. They cowered and sobbed like frightened birds.
Two men in camouflage stood in the doorway, their expressions brutal. They drove the girls outside into an open yard.
A third man, just as repulsive, stepped forward as if to give them instructions.
Suddenly, a loud bang came from the far side of the compound. Figures scattered in confusion, and shouts broke out.
All three guards turned toward the commotion.
In that fleeting moment, the girls exchanged a glance—and ran in different directions.
Two were unlucky. Before they reached the gate, the guards caught them and dragged them back.
Another guard went after the third girl.
With no one watching her, Elise put everything she had left into a desperate sprint through the gate.
She could not tell how long she had run. The vicious sun seared the earth, and hunger and thirst sent wave after wave of dizziness through her. Her body was almost finished.
Then her foot caught on something, and she hit the burning ground hard.
Before she passed out, she dimly saw two SUVs speeding toward her.
Someone leaned out of one of the vehicles and shouted.
“There! Don’t let her get away!”
The vehicles stopped. Several men strode over.
One bent to check her, then spoke contemptuously in broken Altairian.
“Found her at last. Skinny little thing, but she can run. Take her back.”
“Pretty, though.” A man brushed the hair off her forehead and leered.
“Then take her to that room when we get back. Same as always,” another said.
Darkness swallowed the last of Elise’s awareness.
Here, being pretty did not seem to be a blessing.
There was no telling what waited for her next.
