Rescued and Ruined

Chapter 3 - Raeni

Someone's brunette hair sweeps across my face while another woman's glazed green irises run along my periphery.

I've been kidnapped.

My memory resurfaces in sickening waves until my heart threatens to burst into tiny shards of misery.

Two alphas chased, caught, and drugged me.

Mean eyes, one pair blue and the other dark brown, ran along my body, shining with lust. They promised me my life would only get worse.

I don't want to, but I believe them.

A sinking sense of premonition settles in my guts.

My fate will be worse than the two women strung up in the cargo net.

***

My mind pops into awareness too fast. It hurts. Pain pulses deep in my head, beginning in the fissure of void between the hemispheres of my brain and spreading outward until my skull pounds in misery.

Something flops on my face before gravity pulls it downward. The relief I should feel at waking on my back wanes as the object slides downward, taking my nose with it until my neck tweaks.

A hand. Icy fingers trail across my face as the woman beside me goes lax. A moment later, she jerks again, arms flailing and smacking me once more.

My head pounds.

As though a thousand tons weigh my arms down, I struggle to raise them and push the hand off my face.

The floor under me doesn't so much as quiver despite the clomping of boots heading toward me.

A squeak sounds beside me as someone drags the woman who smacked me away.

Metal clanks against metal before ominous silence fills the room.

The stench of fear, urine, and bleach sear the inside of my nostrils, and a sob builds in my chest.

The eerie silence presses down on me, prompting a surge of yearning for the everyday noises my adopted family graced me with—Wallen's wheezing as he retold a story of his youthful travels, Andree's low humming as he returned from the streets, Zigna's happy chatter as she cooked dinner, and many other sounds I hold dear.

Boots stomp along the floor, but I can't pinpoint which direction they come from. The sound bounces off the walls and builds tension behind my sternum until a thick ball of emotion lodges in the base of my throat.

The glaring light from above me dims, the owner of the boots casting their shadow over my face. I tremble in terror, too frightened to open my eyes to see who it is.

Fingers wrap around my arms and lift them over my head, making my joints scream as they tug my sluggish body along the floor by my delicate wrists.

When I open my eyes, a strange beta smiles down at me, pushes a set of metal doors open with his back, and flings me through, giving me just enough momentum to not get trapped in the door.

I stop sprawled out, my reflexes making me flail.

Another beta male leans over me, speaking words I can't comprehend. He disappears only to return holding a pair of scissors.

Crouching down, he cuts my clothes from me, ignoring my weak attempts to ward him off. The scissors clatter to the floor as he grabs my wrists and drags me across the floor.

My heart seizes as I glimpse the showerhead hanging from the ceiling. The moment he steps out of reach, frigid water pelts my exposed flesh.

I scream and turn my head to the side, willing my body to follow suit. Shivers wrack me as I curl into a ball, my head pounding and muscles jerking as the heat seems to seep out of my bones.

Stinging disinfectant joins the water, dislodging the ball of emotion in my throat. With gritted teeth, I scream until my vocal cords freeze and my lungs struggle to take in oxygen.

The tortuous deluge ends, leaving me shaking in numbness.

Hands wrap around my ankles and yank me across the floor. Dripping and miserable, I sob as the beta male lifts me onto a bench, touching me however he pleases as he situates me into a sitting position.

Dazed and unable to get my bearings, I sit in mute shock as he tosses my clothes into a hole in the wall before grabbing my bicep and hauling me to my feet.

He guides me to another set of doors. Almost as though a switch flips, my brain wakes and begins screaming at me to run. To fight.

Pushing me into a new room, the beta slams the door and leaves me standing with two sets of familiar eyes staring at me.

Naked, dripping ice cold water, I scramble as far away from the two alphas as I can, my heels digging into the floor as my back presses against the locked door.

"Don't worry, Raeni. This is still the easy part."

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