Princess•

I’m singing.

Loud. Off-key. The kind of singing where you don’t care because nobody’s in the car except you and the road, and the mountains are doing that thing where they look like a painting you could walk into. I’m honestly so happy I could scream.

“Just a small-town girl, livin’ in a lonely world—”

I drum my fingers on the steering wheel, windows down even though it’s December in Colorado and Maya’s going to tell me I’m an idiot for driving five hours with the heat on full blast and the windows cracked. But the air smells like pine and cold and something sharp that makes me feel awake for the first time in months. I needed this trip. Finals kicked my ass, my apartment feels like a shoebox full of anxiety, and Maya’s dad already promised trout fishing when I get there. Real fishing. Waders and everything.

I pass a sign. *Frisco — 45 miles.*

Almost there.

I glance at the gas gauge. Quarter tank. Not gonna lie, I’d rather push through and just get there, but the last thing I need is to be that girl stranded on the side of a mountain pass with her hazards on and no cell service. There’s a gas station coming up. I’ve stopped there before. It’s one of those tiny places with a single pump and a handwritten sign for firewood and the cashier who doesn’t look you in the eye.

I pull off the highway.

The gas station is empty except for a beat-up truck parked at the far end and a van near the air pump. I barely register the van. Why would I? It’s just a van.

I kill the engine and hop out, shoving my hands into my jacket pockets. The cold bites my cheeks, and I jog toward the store, boots crunching on frozen gravel.

Inside, fluorescent lights. The smell of old coffee and hot dogs that have been spinning on that little roller grill for probably three days. I grab a bag of sour gummy worms because Maya’s going to say I’m a child and I don’t care, and a bottle of water because I’m an adult who hydrates.

My phone buzzes. Maya.

I swipe it on and press it to my ear. “Tell me you didn’t start the chili without me.”

She laughs, that big barking laugh that makes everyone in a ten-foot radius smile. “Girl, I’ve been guarding the pot with a wooden spoon. Dad tried to sneak a taste while I was setting the table. I smacked his hand so hard he dropped the spoon.”

“Good. He deserves it. The man has zero patience. Remember last year when he ate half the cornbread before you even brought it out?”

“Don’t remind me. He called it ‘quality control.’ Quality control, Judy. I’m still mad.”

I’m grinning, holding the gummy worms up to the light like a prize. “I got you the sour ones.”

“You’re a saint. Okay, drive careful. The pass gets icy when the sun goes down. Text me when you’re close and I’ll start the cornbread.”

“Deal. See you soon.”

I hang up, pocket the phone, and carry my junk to the counter.

The cashier is a guy maybe in his fifties, reading a paperback with a cracked spine. He doesn’t look up.

“Just this,” I say, setting the stuff down.

He rings me up. I pay. I don’t think about him. I don’t remember his face two seconds after I leave.

Back outside, the cold hits again, and this time it feels sharper, like the temperature dropped while I was inside. I pump gas, watching the numbers tick up on the old analog display. The van is still there. The back doors are open just a crack. I don’t look at them. I’m thinking about chili and cornbread and Maya’s dad telling his fishing stories, the ones that get longer every time he tells them.

I finish pumping and climb back into the driver’s seat. The gummy worms go on the passenger seat. My phone says 4:52 p.m. The sun is already low, bleeding orange through the trees.

I put the key in the ignition.

A hand covers my mouth.

My brain doesn’t catch up for a full second. I think it’s a joke. A prank. Somebody’s in my backseat, and this is a prank, and any second now someone’s going to laugh and I’m going to scream and then punch them in the arm, and Maya’s going to call me dramatic and tell me I watch too much true crime.

But the hand is too big. Too rough. It smells like dirt and something chemical, bitter at the back of my throat. I can’t breathe through my nose because he’s pinching it shut, and my lungs are burning, and I’m clawing at the arm across my chest, my nails digging into flannel, and my scream is just a muffled nothing against his palm.

“Shh,” a voice says. Right behind my ear. Close. Calm. “Don’t fight.”

I fight.

I twist and thrash and try to bite his hand, but his fingers dig into my jaw, forcing my mouth open, and then there’s a cloth. Wet. Sickly sweet, like overripe fruit and rubbing alcohol. I try to hold my breath, but my chest is already heaving, and the smell floods in, and my arms are so heavy, and Maya’s text is still glowing on my phone, and my foot kicks the dashboard and the horn blares for half a second before the world tilts sideways.

The radio is still playing. I can hear it, faint and far away, and then I can’t.

I wake up on my side.

Something soft under me. Thick. Foam. A blanket, maybe, but I’m cold in a way that feels like I’ve been lying on ice for hours. My head is pounding and my mouth tastes like I licked a battery.

I try to move. My arms, my hands. Everything works, but I’m slow, like I’m swimming through cold syrup. I push myself up, and something clinks.

Metal on metal.

I reach up and my fingers touch leather. Thick, stiff leather, wrapped around my throat. A D-ring at the front. A tag jingling against my collarbone.

I’m wearing a collar.

I scramble backward, my bare feet slipping on rough wood floor, until my spine hits something hard—a wall, a crate—and I’m gasping, and my breath sounds like a wounded animal. The room spins and then settles.

Fireplace. Crackling orange light. A log shifts and sparks pop against the screen.

I’m in a cabin. The windows are dark, either boarded or buried in snow, I can’t tell. The only light is the fire, and it stretches shadows across the floor like fingers.

I look down. My clothes are gone.

I’m wearing nothing except my bra and underwear, and a thin, tattered blanket someone draped over my shoulders. My jeans, my sweater, my jacket, my boots—gone. I pull the blanket tighter, and my hands are shaking so hard I can barely grip the fabric.

The collar clinks again.

A tag. I look down, and it catches the firelight. Engraved.

*PRINCESS.*

“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no.”

I’m not Princess. My name is Judy Foss. I’m supposed to be at Maya’s. I’m supposed to be eating chili and laughing at her dad’s fishing stories. I’m supposed to be anywhere but here.

Footsteps.

Heavy. Deliberate. From somewhere behind me, a door I didn’t see, a hallway I can’t make out. The sound of boots on wood, and my whole body goes rigid.

I can’t run. I don’t even know where the door is.

He walks into the firelight.

He’s not what I expected. Older, maybe late thirties, early forties. Flannel shirt tucked into jeans, hair combed flat like he’s going to church, and his eyes—

His eyes are calm. Pleased. Like he’s just opened a present he’s been waiting for.

“You’re awake,” he says, and his voice is soft. Almost kind. “Good. I was starting to worry.”

I open my mouth, and what comes out isn’t a word, just a sound. A croak.

He crouches down, elbows on his knees, and smiles. “Welcome home, my pet.”

“I’m not your pet.” My voice is thick and hoarse, and it cracks on the last word. “My name is—”

He backhands me.

Not hard, not like he’s trying to hurt me, more like correcting a puppy that chewed a shoe. My head snaps to the side, and my cheek stings, and I’m too shocked to even cry.

“Your name is Princess,” he says in the same soft tone. “And when you speak to me, you will call me Master. Do you understand?”

I don’t answer. I’m staring at him, my hand pressed to my cheek, trying to make my brain work, but it’s like a circuit got fried.

He waits. Patient. Like he has all the time in the world.

And then something clicks. Something cold and survival-driven, something older than fear.

If I don’t answer, he’ll hit me again. Or worse. And I can’t escape if I’m dead.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Yes, what?”

I swallow. The leather band presses against my throat, and I can feel my pulse thudding against it. “Yes… Master.”

His face lights up. For a second, he almost looks like a normal person. A dad whose kid just brought home a good report card.

“Good girl.” He crouches lower, forearms resting on his knees, and his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

He stands and walks toward the fireplace. I watch him, cataloguing everything. The poker by the hearth. The knife block on the kitchen counter I can just barely see. The lock on the front door. The two windows, both dark, both probably barred.

He picks up something from the mantel: a pair of scissors.

I flinch, and he notices. He shakes his head, almost gentle. “Pets don’t need human clothes.” He tests the blades against his thumb, slow, deliberate. “They get tangled. Uncomfortable.”

He crouches beside me, and I flinch again, but he just reaches for the strap of my bra. The scissors snip, and the strap falls away. Then the other. He cuts the back of my underwear, and I’m too frozen to move, too frozen to do anything except stare at the fire and pretend I’m somewhere else.

He tugs the ruined fabric away and tosses it into the flames. Then he picks up the tattered blanket and drapes it back over my shoulders.

“There,” he says. “Much better.”

He stands and walks to the corner of the room. I can’t see what he’s doing, but I hear a crinkle, a rustle, and then he’s laying something flat on the floor. White. Rectangular. Absorbent.

A puppy training pad.

My stomach drops so fast I think I might throw up.

“Pets don’t use human bathrooms either.” He stands back, admiring his work, like he’s arranging a display. “This is yours. You’ll use it when you need to go.”

I stare at the pad, and something inside me splinters. I don’t cry. Crying would mean accepting this, and I’m not accepting it. I’m just—I’m just storing it. Filing it away. I can fall apart later.

“Do you understand?” he asks.

“Yes, Master.”

“Good. Dinner in an hour. Rest now.”

He walks to the door and pulls a heavy lock across, then disappears into some other room. A bedroom, maybe. The door clicks shut behind him.

I’m alone.

I don’t move for a long time. The fire crackles. The wind presses against the windows. My whole body is shaking, but my mind is finally starting to clear.

Okay. Okay, Judy. Think.

I scan the room again, slower this time. Front door. Two windows. Kitchenette with a knife block. Fireplace with a poker. A small crate in the corner—metal, with a padlock hanging open on the latch.

The kennel.

That’s where he’ll put me tonight.

I crawl toward it, keeping the blanket wrapped around me, and I test the latch. It swings open. The inside is just big enough for me to curl up. There’s a thin mat on the floor and a single wool blanket. No pillow.

I could fight. I could scream. I could claw at the door until my nails tear off.

But I won’t.

I catalogued the room. I memorized the lock. I know where the knives are. I know the sound of his footsteps, the pattern of his breathing when he left.

I’m not just a pet. I’m not Princess.

I press the pad of my thumb against the raw line on my wrist—a thin slice, maybe from the scissors, I don’t remember getting it—and the sting clears my head. The cut is small but deep enough to bleed. I watch a single drop well up and slide down my arm.

I press harder, until my teeth clench.

“Judy,” I whisper. “Not Princess. Judy.”

Then I look at the front door. I look at the lock. I count the steps from the kennel to the kitchen knife. Eight steps, maybe nine if I stay low. The knife block is on the far counter, near the corner. The fire poker is closer. The windows are dark, but I can see the faint outline of bars through the glass.

I drag the blanket tighter around my shoulders and start counting again, slower this time, marking every sound in the room. The fire pops. The wind howls. Somewhere beyond the wall, the floor creaks under his weight.

Tomorrow he will test me. Tomorrow I will already know every inch of this room.