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Using the momentum, I hefted my legs over the rim. They slipped over and I dropped like a stone on the other side.
    My legs dissolved beneath me. I slammed into the ground. I couldn’t do much more but suck air into my lungs. Move. Move. Move. I willed my limbs. I struggled upward, using the wall next to me as leverage. I stumbled, one foot in front of the other, kept going until the shadows engulfed me, deeper into the black so inky I couldn’t see where I was. Only then, when I thought I was safe and nothing could see me because I couldn’t see anything back, I slumped to the ground and let my body take the rest it so badly needed. Black, deeper than the shadows that washed my body and pooled in my mind.
    Nothing.

Chapter Five
    “She looks half dead.” The voice came from somewhere above my head. It was deep and guttural. Disappointed.
    “She’s still half alive.” Another voice mused.
    “Good enough for a play.” All male voices. Three of them surrounding me.
    My senses sat up alert, ignoring the slam of terror in my gut. Where had they come from? I hadn’t heard anyone approach. I was still panting with the exertion of leaping over the fence. I couldn’t show my weakness. Had to give the impression of strength. Weakness would mean that they could have me any way they wanted me.
    A man squatted close by. I heard his clothing move as he crouched down. A whiff of minted breath wafted across my face, and I nearly retched. The mint didn’t disguise the menace radiating from his body. “Now, how do you think she got over a fence like that?” The voice was softly spoken with a hint of intelligence behind it.
    A finger stroked my cheek. He lifted a strand of hair away from my face. “I know you’re awake.”
    I decided to play the game. I opened my eyes and focused on the face staring down at me. It might have once been a handsome face, but I saw the twisted scar that started at the side of the man’s eye and went to the corner of his mouth. The scar made the man’s mouth turn up in a permanent sneer on one side. He tried to smile and the sneer deepened.
    His eyes were dark. And blank. And cold. I knew that look. Saw it in the men I’d run from most of my adult life. My father’s assistants. My father himself. Something dropped as heavy as a stone in my stomach. A dreaded realization that things weren’t so different to the world I’d left behind no matter how stupidly desperate I was to believe it otherwise.
    “Well, hello sleeping beauty. It’s time to open your eyes and tell us how you did that miraculous acrobatic feat we just witnessed.”
    His voice was like his eyes, lacking in tone and dark and as ugly as the scar on his face. Every nerve in my body soared to life and tuned in to the threat of him. Adrenaline rocketed through my veins. Fight and flight. In that order.
    “Are you going to tell me, or do I have to ask a little less nicely?” The smile that curled his lips didn’t meet his eyes.
    “Go to hell,” I said.
    His hand snaked out, gripping my upper arm. His fingers dug into my skin sending a jolt of pain through it. “You’re kind of scrawny for a smart mouth.”
    “Fuck you.”
    He hauled me to my feet like I was lighter than a dry leaf. A wave of dizziness struck me, and I teetered on my toes. He bent my arm behind my back, pulling my wrist toward my shoulder. White-hot pain scorched through my muscles, stealing the breath from my lungs and vision from my eyes.
    “I don’t like to ask twice,” he whispered in my ear.
    “I don’t like to speak to arseholes.”
    “You’re right, Seth. She has got a bit of fight in her,” one of the men said. His interest on me sharpened.
    I watched the other men through the black dots that floated in my eyes. They were smiling, enjoying the show. They looked mean. Built. Broad shouldered. Standing as though they owned the ground they walked on with a casual assurance that they could fight for it and win if they wanted to. The type of