“No! Not a dress. Wear pants. Thick pants.”

Dexter snatches the dress out of my hand before moving to a closet in the far corner of the room. It is stocked with an assortment of women’s clothing. His father must have bought out an entire boutique, as these outfits are for all shapes and sizes.

After handing me riding pants, a long-sleeve shirt, and a blazer, Dexter heads for the bathroom I just exited. My body is well-pampered, but the soothing oils Charles placed in the water did nothing to ease the knot in my stomach.

Dexter’s dad is a handsome man, but something about him is off. His greeting. . . let me just say, I’ve never been greeted like that, not even after spending five years in a mental asylum for the criminally insane.

“Where are your panties?” Dexter asks after a quick search of the bathroom floor fails to locate them.

I shrug, unsure. They were there five minutes ago.

“Are they in your dress?” The urgency in his tone shocks me. He’s acting as if my underwear is a priceless treasure.

“Then check!” he shouts when I once again shrug.

I jump to his command, my wish to please him so dire, my towel falls from my body.

Air hisses through Dexter’s teeth when I spin around to face him a few minutes later. It isn’t my nudity sparking his response. It is showing him my empty hands.

“He’s so sure he is going to win, he’s already claiming trophies.”

Dexter’s words aren’t for me, so I don’t reply. When a deep scowl mars his handsome face, I move toward him, wanting to ease his pain as I have several times the past twenty-four hours.

“Don’t,” he warns, stopping my steps midstride. “Get dressed. Please.”

His unusual plea floods me with worry, but it doesn’t stop me from following his command.

Once I am dressed, sans underwear, Dexter guides me out of the room. His family estate is beautiful. The hall is lined with paintings. They are artistic pieces that need more than a quick glance to adequately appraise them. I think they are nudes, but the women’s bodies are contorted in odd angles.

“Did you drink the bottle of water I sent to your room?” Dexter asks when we are halfway down the hall, drawing my eyes from a painting of a woman without a head.

I nod.

“And the pills? Did you take them?”

This nod is harder to deliver than my first one. I hate lying. I took two of the four tablets Charles offered me. The other two are stashed under the pillow in my room.

My eyes shoot to Dexter when he guides me outside. When he said we were going to play a game, I figured it would be held in the den I walked by earlier.

“We play outside. Zip up your coat.”

He tugs up the zipper before I get the chance. I jump out of my skin when his father arrives at our side two seconds later. His steps were so agile, I didn’t hear them. He smiles as if pleased by my skittish response.

Dexter’s father is attractive with platinum blond hair and dark, dangerous eyes. He is fit for a man of his age, which I guess would be early sixties. Unlike the buttoned-up shirt and black trousers he was wearing earlier, he has on a plaid shirt, dirty jeans, and boots covered with vibrant splotches of blood.

I stop trying to decipher if the blood is human or animal when I’m overcome with a bout of dizziness. I clutch my temples, circling the throb there. It doesn’t begin to stop me from swaying. If anything, it makes it worse. I feel like I am moments away from collapse.

Sensing my unspoken worry, Dexter scoops me into his arms. I only know it is him because of his virile, manly scent. The wooziness inflicting my head is so blistering, it has blurred my vision beyond recognition.

“Where is Charles taking her?” Dexter asks, his words juddered by his gallop down a set of stairs. His hurried movements double the throb in my skull and force my eyes to taper closed.

“That is not how this game works, son. Locating the target is half the fun.”

Target?

When I am placed down on a cool, plastic surface, I beg my eyes to open. No matter how hard I fight their heaviness, they refuse to budge. They feel like they are being taped down with the same sturdy material currently binding my wrists together.

“She can’t run if you tape her ankles. I thought you liked taking down your targets when they’re on the move?”

Dexter’s words sound like they are delivered underwater. They are barely audible.

“Who is that. . .? What are they doing here. . .? This hunt was supposed to be just me and you. You didn’t say you were bringing in additional hunters!”

A scuffle sounds through my ears before Dexter’s dad replies. I can’t hear a word he is speaking. A black hole is creeping over me, swallowing me whole. I can’t move or scream. I can barely breathe through the weight on my chest.

Horrible thoughts bombard me—none of them are pretty. I’m scared and feeling oddly alone considering I am surrounded by people. I can hear their footsteps, smell the adrenaline slicking their skin, but I am the loneliest I’ve ever been.

A tear stops trekking down my cheek when a callused finger sweeps it away. “Remember what I told you, Megan. You didn’t escape hell to give up now. Gods fight. Cowards weaken. No matter what you hear or see, remember who you are.”

Dexter’s deep timbre fades when a motor kicking over vibrates through my body. My stomach lurches into my throat, the sound of tires rolling over an uneven surface activating an alerted response from my body.

Where am I going? And why isn’t Dexter coming with me?

We travel for several miles. I can’t tell you exactly how many. With my mind precariously balanced between irrationally panicked and borderline psychotic, keeping count of the number of tire rotations was impossible.

With the dampness in the air growing as rapidly as the heaviness of my eyelids, I can only assume we are in the forest Dexter steered us through earlier today. Although my eyes are shut, I know it isn’t as pretty as it was earlier. The leaves will no longer be wilted and orange; they’ll be dead and lifeless. I won’t misunderstand the moss woven through the willow trees as an extension of their beauty; I’ll see it for what it is: vermin sucking the marrow straight from the trees’ core. I am imagining it as a scary and dark place, similar to a graveyard at midnight.

Rain taps on metal when we come to a stop, but it is scarcely heard over the buzzing of bugs and the hoot of an owl. I twist my neck to the side when the creak of a car door sounds through my ears. It is virtually impossible to do since my head feels the weight of ten bowling balls.

“Come on, sweetheart, time to go home,” says a voice in the distance, one I immediately recognize. It is Charles, the man who served me sparkling wine and stuffed olives for supper.

His leathery hands curl around my wrist so he can drag me off the tarp-like material Dexter laid me on. With a grunt and a heave, he tosses me over his shoulder. Other than the stomps of his boots on the rain-sodden ground, I hear nothing else. We are in isolation, my screams utterly pointless.

“I laid down a blanket for you in case you wake before he is ready.”

Charles isn’t talking to offer me comfort. My limbs are so heavy on his shoulder, I doubt he knows I am awake. He is doing it to distract his thoughts from the remorse in his tone, to ensure he doesn’t give in to temptation.

“There is a bottle of water for you as well. I left on the seal so you can be assured it hasn’t been tampered with.”

He lays me down with a groan. Blanket fibers scratch my neck and face. It isn’t damp like Charles’ shoulder. It must be protected from the rain by a shelter.

“The sedatives will wear off within an hour or two. I suggest you run before they do. It will be best for you to be unaware of what is coming. Don’t run for the manor. No one there will help you. Not even Dexter.”

The bang of a trapdoor being slammed shut makes my bones jump out of my skin.

“I’ll set the timer for an hour. It isn’t as long as Mr. Leicester requested, but he’ll enjoy the hunt more if he actually hunts you instead of lying in wait. You have no bragging rights to a stuffed bear carcass if you aren’t the man who caught it.”

He chuckles as if amused. Well, I assume it is a chuckle. The wooziness in my head has me missing half his words. I’d have no trouble filling in the gaps if I could just open my eyes.

Unfortunately, my fight to stay out of the blackness is lost within seconds of Charles leaving me.