I don’t need to think.

My muscles know the score. My body knows the fight even better than it knows coercive sex. I sidestep Reeve’s lunge before I even consciously notice, then flash back in his direction, knife in hand.

We dance like that for a time, with the campfire flickering between us. Far above, the Milky Way unfurls like a vast and indifferent banner. It’s a starry night, but a cold one. It’d be a pretty backdrop, if I was the ambusher. But it feels incongruous to the fact that this guy I’ve never met wants to rape me.

"Not bad," he says, "but let's make this interesting."

Reeve suddenly straightens, a strange smile spreading across his scarred face. With way over-dramatic slowness, he lifts his hunting knife, until it’s clearly visible in the firelight.

Then, he drops it to the ground.

"Won't be needing that," he says with a smirk. "Not to beat a girl."

I want to laugh in his face, to mock this pathetic display of machismo. What kind of idiot willingly disarms himself? But something in his eyes makes the retort die in my throat.

I am familiar with these theatrics, and with that confidence. It’s just that normally, I am the one doing the theatrics. It’s the show I give my female quarry before I rape them and drag them off to be brainwashed into animalistic docility for the rest of their lives. It’s my fucking performance.

It's unsettling, to see it directed at me.

"What's wrong, Larissa? No witty comeback? No scathing remark about how overconfidence is going to get me in trouble?"

I tighten my grip on my knife.

"Just trying to decide what to do with you after I destroy you. I can’t exactly take you to a re-education center, can I?"

His reaction to that is a mirthless laugh. "No more than I could take you. They wouldn’t accept you as a bounty. That’s fine, though. There’s always the rebel cell for my payout. Raping you is the icing on the cake."

"You’re right, sometimes you have to make your own fun." I make a show of contemplating the blade of my own knife. Two can play mind games. "Maybe I should decide which pieces of you I should cut off first…"

I pour as much venom in the words as I can, and it doesn’t come hard. It’s genuine. I’ve had to deal with so much bullshit since I first captured Mireia. The Warden and his threats. That bitch, Sophia, getting the drop on me. Marcus and his patronising advice - which of course was apparently correct, but that only makes the whole thing even more annoying.

And now, this interloper? Daring to challenge me?

I think back of something I once told Mireia. Men think women aren’t dangerous, because the world over, they have us in their power.

It’s time to show this fucker that we may be prey to men, but dangerous prey. And me, I’m the most dangerous of all.

I lunge forward, knife extended, aiming for his abdomen. I step forward with my right leg, arm extended downward to get beneath his guard.

His reaction is lightning-fast. His right hand clamps around my wrist like a vise, and he pulls me further along my own trajectory, simultaneously down and toward him. The unexpected force tips me forward. My body, committed to the movement, can't adjust quick enough. I'm suddenly off-balance, weight shifted too far onto my forward leg.

I’m in danger.

I have to lean harder against my right leg to stabilise myself. It's exactly what he wants. His right leg sweeps out, knocking my own right leg from under me.

I'm falling. The ground rushes up to meet me, but before I can roll or break my fall, he's on top of me, falling alongside me, his hand firmly clamped around my wrist. He uses my momentum and his weight to slam me onto my back.

The impact knocks the air from my lungs. Before I can recover, he's positioned himself perpendicular across my body, his sternum pressing painfully against my collarbone. His right hand still grips my wrist, forcing my knife hand immobile against the ground. His left hand finds my throat, pressing with just enough force to make breathing difficult without completely cutting off my air.

"You telegraph your moves," he says, his voice casual despite the exertion. "All that fancy training, and you still fight like a girl."

I struggle underneath him, but his weight and positioning give him all the leverage. "Fuck you," I snarl, trying to mask the growing panic with anger.

"Oh, you will," he replies, his smile widening. "That's a promise."

My left hand is technically free. I know this intellectually. Unfortunately, his body weight is pressing on my shoulder, depriving me of leverage, so all I can really do is try to uselessly claw at the general direction of his face.

"You know what your problem is, Larissa?" His voice is conversational, as if we're discussing the weather over drinks. "You think being the best woman in this game means something. It doesn't."

My legs kick uselessly as I thrash beneath him. His grip on my throat keeps tightening. Like my own grip once tightened around Sophia, as I whispered to her about the lethal eroticism of slow, relentless constriction…

In a world that runs on prevarication, predatory behaviour like that is just a normal human interaction. I constrict my female victims, to extract from them both pleasure and months of conditional freedom. Men as a whole constrict the female sex, subduing it, snuffing out the pride of every feminist. And now…

Now, a man is constricting me. Subduing me. Seeking to extract from me, to turn me into a prize, a conquest. Seeking to snuff out my own pride.

I. Won’t. Let him! He’s going to rape me, and I probably can’t stop him, but he can’t have my pride unless I let him!

"I want you to understand something," he says. "I'm not better than you because I trained harder or fought smarter. I'm better than you because I have a cock between my legs."

Reeve shifts position, rising to his knees while keeping his left hand clamped firmly around my throat.

"You are no man. Nor are you any man’s equal. You belong in the dirt, being fucked in every hole. You’re lucky that I’m the one teaching you this lesson. You could have run into someone far nastier."

The oxygen deprivation is affecting my cognition. Thoughts come in fragments, disjointed and incoherent. Need to... can't breathe... knife... where's my...

"There we go," Reeve says, his voice sounding distant despite his proximity. "Much better when you're not struggling so much."

My right hand. The knife. I still have it. Don't I?

I focus all my remaining attention on my right hand, trying to rotate my shoulder against the weight of Reeve’s body. But I’m pinned, and with oxygen growing scarcer, my fingers won't respond.

I feel the knife handle slip slightly in my grasp.

"Go ahead and drop it," Reeve says, applying slightly more pressure to my throat for emphasis. "We both know you're not going to use it now."

Darkness creeps in from every side. As my thoughts derail, emotions take their place.

That’s wrong. Emotions are for normies. For cattle. And this emotion, most of all, is one I never wanted to feel, ever again. One I thought I’d banished forever.

It’s fear.

I fear him. The act of taking my breath away has instilled fear in me, the flinch response towards the stronger.

The edges of my vision darken further, the world narrowing to a tunnel with Reeve's face at the end of it. His features swim in and out of focus, like looking through rippling water. I'm aware of a terrible sound—a wet, desperate gasping that I realize with detached horror is coming from me.

The knife slips further from my grasp. My fingers now lack the strength to hold a simple blade. I feel it slide across my palm, then fall away completely. The dull thud as it hits the ground beside me seems to echo with finality.

A man… a man has bested me…

Reeve eases the pressure on my throat.

I suck in breath like I’ve just emerged from underwater. I cough, I spatter, I suck in lungfuls of air which burn, and sting, and feel like pure physical bliss. My eyes are watery, my limbs are shaking… and I’m still in danger. I’m only breathing because he’s letting me.

"Good girl."

A wave of pure, incandescent rage crashes through me as I hear him call me "good girl." I'm not his fucking dog. I'm not some broken resistance bitch ready to lick his boots. I am the bounty huntress that stalks every feminist’s nightmares! I am the fucking apex predator!

Or I was. Until now.

Reeve rolls me onto my stomach, keeping one knee pressed firmly between my shoulder blades. I hear a rustling sound as he reaches for something in his pocket.

I feel something thin and plastic encircle my wrists—zip ties. The modern hunter's restraint of choice. Cheap, lightweight, nearly impossible to break once secured. I've used them countless times myself.

The irony isn't lost on me.

The touch of the zip ties triggers something primal in me—a surge of panic that briefly cuts through the oxygen-deprived haze. I renew my struggles, bucking weakly beneath him.

He laughs. Actually laughs. Then, he unceremoniously binds my wrists together behind my back. The plastic bites into my skin, secure but not tight enough to cut off circulation. He knows what he's doing. Of course he does.

"There we go," Reeve says, sitting back on his heels to admire his handiwork. "Much better."

I test the restraints instinctively. No give. No weakness. I'm well and truly caught.

This can't be happening. Not to me. I've spent years honing my skills, perfecting my craft. I've taken down so many women. I've broken so many rebels. I've made the most defiant feminists beg for mercy. And now I'm trussed up like a fucking turkey, about to be raped by some second-rate male bounty hunter.

I want to laugh and scream simultaneously.

"You look confused," Reeve observes, rolling me back over to face him. "Did you really think you were special? That being the Regime's pet somehow elevated you above other women?"

I spit in his face. It's not my most strategic move, but the satisfaction of seeing my saliva drip down his scarred cheek is worth whatever retaliation comes.

Reeve wipes it away slowly, deliberately, his expression unchanging. "Charming."

"Oh, you don’t know the half of it," I say, snarling like I’m a rabid dog. Trying to look scarier than I actually am. "Though I’ll be happy to show you when I get the chance!"

Reeve sits back slightly. "I actually think I do know," he says conversationally, "I've heard stories about you. The women you've brought in. How sadistic you are. How merciless." He runs a finger along my jawline, a mockery of tenderness. "They say you enjoy it. Is that true, Larissa? Do you enjoy hunting your own kind?"

"Do I enjoy it?" I laugh, low and sharp. "What kind of stupid question is that? Of course I enjoy it. I love every fucking second of it."

His eyebrows rise slightly.

"I love watching the light die in their eyes when they realise that a fellow woman is going to be the cause of their downfall," I say, my voice getting louder. "I love the sound they make when they break. That little gasp, that tiny sob when they finally accept what's happening to them."

It's the most exquisite sensation in the world, having that kind of power over another human being. Watching them crumble, piece by piece, until there's nothing left but an empty shell ready to be filled with whatever the regime wants to pour into them.

"The best part," I say, my eyes locked on his, "is when they start to enjoy it too. When their bodies betray them. When they cum from being raped, and the shame in their eyes... it's better than any fucking drug. It’s better than freedom itself."

Reeve’s expression doesn’t betray any thoughts. This man must be as cold as I am, unfortunately. "You really are a piece of work, aren't you?"

"I'm a fucking artist," I snarl. "And if you think this little routine rape of yours is going to break me like one of the feminist bitches we hunt, you're sadly mistaken."

"Well… as established, I can’t take you to a re-education center," he says, shrugging. "They wouldn’t take you… not now. But eventually, you’ll outlive your usefulness to the patriarchy. Eventually, you’re going to be in this position again… but it won’t be just rape, staring at you in the face. It’s obvious to anyone that you’re a pathological narcissist, but I think you love your mind even more than you love your body. You do know you’re going to lose it eventually, right? Like every other woman on this planet."

I roll my eyes. Does he really have to lecture me before he rapes me? Does he have to assume I won’t come up with a plan, that I won’t use the time I’m buying to figure out an exit strategy?

Fucking cunt, he sounds just like Mireia. And so it’s only fitting that I answer him the same way I answered her, the night I captured her.

"You think I don’t know that, buddy? You think I don’t know how my story ends?"

He shrugs. "Good on you if you do. And good for me, too. I like fatalism in women. I like female resignation."

He leans closer, smirking. "It turns me on like crazy."

Well then, I guess I’m going to deny a show of resignation to him. Or at least I’ll try.

"I'm going to kill you," I say, but even to my own ears, it sounds hollow. A toothless threat from someone who can't back it up, at least not yet.

"No, you're not," Reeve says simply. "You're going to lie there and take what I give you."

"Get the fuck off me," I hiss as he roughly yanks my trousers down over my hips. The night air hits my exposed cunt, a shock of cold that makes me involuntarily gasp.

Then, his fingers are on my cunt, and it makes me hiss in pure hatred.

"Not even wet yet. We'll have to fix that, won't we?"

I want to tell him to go fuck himself. I want to spit in his face again. I want to promise him a slow, agonising death when I get free—because I will get free, eventually. This is just temporary. A setback. Nothing more.

But the words die in my throat as his fingers find my clit, and start gently, gently rubbing it. A few hesitant strokes, probably for him to gauge my reaction. My body tenses against the unwanted touch.

"What's wrong, Larissa? Don't you like it rough? I thought that was your style."

I steel myself against his touch, trying to dissociate from the sensation. When he first tries to slide a finger inside my cunt, it hurts, and I can’t suppress a wince.

"Stubborn cunt," he mutters, withdrawing his hand. He spits into his palm, then returns to rubbing me. I clench my jaw, hard. He will not make me like it. I am not like the cows I bring in for brainwashing!

But, as skilled a liar as I am when it comes to other people, I can’t lie to myself that well. How many times have I weaponised the physiological reactions of my victims’ bodies, told them it meant they secretly wanted it?

It doesn’t help that the two concepts are so entangled with one another in my mind, at this point. Sex is rape, or else it barely counts as sex at all. If it’s not coerced, it doesn’t interest me. Real eroticism is taking from your unwilling subject, just because you can. I have rewired my brain so thoroughly that I only get off on sexual evil.

And for the first time in my life, I’m regretting it. It’s only a matter of time before… before…

Reeve increases the pressure slightly, his thumb making small circles around my clit. My body responds against my will. I’m starting to get… lubricated.

"Your cunt's finally figuring out what's happening."

His thumb presses more firmly, and this time, his index finger does enter me. My cunt parts for him, lets him in — such detestable weakness — and he starts sliding it back and forth, occasionally curling it inside me.

I hate him. I hate him with every fibre of my being. But I hate my body more as it begins to respond to his touch. It's just biology, I tell myself. Just nerve endings and blood flow. It doesn't mean anything.

He withdraws his fingers abruptly. I hear the sound of his belt buckle, then the rustle of fabric as he frees his cock. I don't look. I won't give him the satisfaction.

"I want you to remember this moment," Reeve says. "This is what you really are. Not a hunter. Not a predator. Just another hole to fuck."

I stare past him at the stars overhead, focusing on their cold, distant light. This is just physical. Just biology. I can disconnect from it. Go away inside, deep and far away enough that even my rapist can’t reach me there.

I can not look at him, but my other senses are firing on all cylinders. So, when he unceremoniously thrusts forward into me, I feel it all, and then some.

Pain lances through me. My body wasn't ready for him, not really, despite his efforts. The minimal lubrication I've produced is barely enough to ease his entry. I bite my lip so hard that I wouldn’t be surprised if I drew blood.

I won't give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream.

The pain subsides to a dull, throbbing ache as he begins to move. In and out.

"Look at me," he commands, his voice low and dangerous.

I keep my eyes fixed on the stars. This isn't happening to me, I tell myself. This is happening to a body. Just flesh. Not to Larissa.

But my mind keeps returning to the undeniable fact that I've been bested. Overpowered. Subdued. Like I’m cattle to be herded.

He slams his hips forward, faster now, one strong wiry hand descending over my cheek to press my face into the dirt, where he said that I belong.

He has me.

He’s beaten me, and he’s got me secure beneath him. He’s raping me, and he’s deprived me of any tools to fight back. He looks down on me like I’m dirt under his shoe, and he has me.

I wonder if Mireia is laughing, somewhere in her cell. I wonder if Ava and Sophia will hold out long enough against the relentless erosion of mind control and reprogramming to hear the news percolate down the grapevine, and chuckle at my expense one last time, before their minds are nuked into feminine docility forever.

The gender traitor’s gotten herself good and raped, did you hear the news?

Reeve's hand tightens in my hair, pulling my head back like he’s tugging at a set of reins, reeling in a recalcitrant filly not quite yet broken in to the saddle. "You still with me, Larissa? Don't go drifting off now. I want you present for this."

Present for my own violation. Present for my transformation from hunter to meat. From predator to prey.

I just stare emptily at him as his hips slam against me. Each thrust feels like it's driving me deeper into the dirt. Staking his claim on my sex. A message written in the language of flesh and sex and rape and power.

He's barely exerting himself. That's what strikes me most as he fucks me. He’s not even panting. He’s in great shape, better than mine.

He’s stronger,because of course he would be. He’s a man.

The zip ties bite into my wrists as I futilely test them again. My hands have gone numb. My mind, number.

My cunt feels disgustingly open to him now, slick, accommodating, submissive to his cock. I'm wet. I'm responsive. I'm everything I've accused my victims of being.

I feel nothing but contempt—for him, for myself, for my treacherous body. I'm not even a participating victim in my own rape. I'm just an object, a receptacle, a hole to be used.

Like the female sex is overall, in the new order.

"I could do this all night," he says. "Just keep fucking you until you can't remember what it was like to be anything but a cumdump."

His words shouldn't affect me, but they do. They slip past my defenses, worming their way into my mind. Because I know they're true. That's exactly what he could do, and there's nothing I could do to stop him.

Reeve shifts position slightly, hiking one of my legs up higher to get a better angle. His cock drives deeper into me, hitting spots that make my body respond despite my hatred.

A small, involuntary gasp escapes me. My hips twitch. My breathing quickens. My nipples harden against the rough fabric of my shirt.

"There she is," he says, gleefully. "The real Larissa. The hominid female animal you’re trying to hide with your huntress persona. One day, a re-ed centre will strip all those layers of personhood away from you, and expose you for what you really are… that’s it, fuck, give me that fatalistic look again, you look so resigned…"

Resigned.

I've always taken pleasure in that moment of surrender, that instant when the fight leaves my victims’ eyes and they simply… accept their fate.

And now, to my horror, I feel that same surrender washing over me.

His hand returns to my hair, grips it, twists, and pulls – much harder, this time. The pain is sharp and clarifying, a lightning bolt of sensation that cuts through the haze of humiliation. My scalp burns as he wrenches my head back at an unnatural angle.

I refuse to scream for him. I won't give him that satisfaction. I bite down on my lip until I taste blood, using the pain to anchor myself against the tide of sensations threatening to overwhelm me.

His other hand clamps over my face, his knotty fingers so wiry and strong as they wrap around my mouth and nose, muzzling me and mastering my breathing. Five fingers. One hand. That's all it takes for him to control the very air I breathe.

The instinctive fear of being strangled again makes me whimper in his palm. The sound is pathetic, animal, and entirely involuntary. I hate myself for it immediately.

My lungs begin to burn. His hand is restricting my breath just enough to make each inhalation a struggle, but not enough to make me pass out. He knows exactly what he's doing. He's done this before.

"I can feel you thinking," he says, his voice oddly distant through the roaring in my ears. "Always plotting, always planning. That's your problem, Larissa. You think too much. Women aren’t meant to think. They're meant to feel. To react. To submit."

Even if I could argue against him, what use would mere words be? He's stronger, and so he takes. I'm weaker, and so I yield. It's the law of nature, stripped of all civilised pretensions.

They belong to a world that died long ago, anyway.

"I want you to cum for me," Reeve says. "I want to feel your cunt squeeze my cock while you look me in the eyes and know exactly what you are."

His fingers find my clit again, rubbing circles with expert precision. My body arches involuntarily, seeking more contact even as my mind screams in protest.

"Every woman needs to learn her body isn't her own. Even you, Larissa."

That’s the final seal of domination. Not just taking a woman's body, but forcing her body to betray her mind. Making her come against her will proves the point — she has no control, not even over her own physical responses.

The tension builds, unstoppable now. My vision blurs. My muscles tighten. I'm right on the edge, teetering, about to fall—

"Look at me," he commands.

Against my will, my eyes lock with his. In that moment, as the orgasm crashes through me like a tidal wave, I see myself reflected in his gaze—small, helpless, conquered.

Woman.

I cum with a broken sob, my body convulsing around his cock, my wrists straining uselessly against the zip ties. Wave after wave of unwanted pleasure washes through me, each one stripping away another layer of what makes up me.

My body's response seems to trigger something in Reeve. His rhythm falters, his composure slipping. His eyes darken as he watches me come undone beneath him, my humiliation on full display.

"Weak whore. Accept your fate. Show me what you really are…"

With a guttural groan, Reeve thrusts deep one final time and holds himself there. His cock pulses inside me, flooding my cunt with his cum. The physical sensation is nothing compared to the psychological impact—the knowledge that he's marking me from the inside, claiming my body as conquered territory.

"Take every fucking drop."

I lie there, passive and used, as he empties himself. There's no point in struggling now. The deed is done. I've been thoroughly defeated, thoroughly violated, thoroughly owned.

When he finally pulls out, I feel his cum trickling down my thigh. The sensation makes me want to vomit. Some primal part of me recognises the significance of what's just happened.

Reeve tucks himself back into his pants, his breathing already returning to normal. He looks down at me with an expression that's almost contemplative.

He crouches beside me, studying my face with clinical detachment. "I'm not going to kill you. That would be wasteful." His fingers trace my jawline, almost tenderly. "And I'm not going to untie you, either. The wilderness will take care of you, or maybe you'll figure something out. You're resourceful, for a girl."

I still don't respond. I stare up at the stars, trying to reconnect with my body, my sense of self. It's like trying to gather scattered pieces of a broken mirror.

He stands, retrieving his pack and knife from where he dropped them. "I'll be taking that rebel cell, by the way. We can treat it as payment for the useful life lesson I’ve just imparted you. Seems fair, considering. I’m a professional, and I don’t work for free."

With a final contemptuous glance, Reeve turns and walks away, disappearing into the darkness between the trees. The sound of his footsteps fades until there's nothing but the crackling of the dying campfire and my own ragged breathing.

I lie there, unable to move, unable to think. My mind isn’t firing up. My body feels like a foreign object, something separate from me. Alien, disgusting, weak.

I don't know how long I stay like that. Minutes? Hours? Time loses all meaning as I stare up at the stars, watching them wheel slowly overhead.

I could identify the constellations, once. I learned that, long ago, in another life, before the end. Before everything changed. I must have forgotten along the way, because they just blur together now.

I realise I'm crying. Silently, but undoubtedly. I can't remember the last time I cried. It feels strange, like my body is betraying me yet again.

When did I become this weak and feminine?

The night grows colder. The fire dies down to embers, then to ash. Still, I don't move. I drift in and out of consciousness, but never fully surrender to sleep. My wrists are raw where I've half-heartedly twisted against the zip ties.

The darkness gradually gives way to a different quality of light. The stars begin to fade, one by one, as the eastern sky lightens almost imperceptibly. First a deep navy, then a lighter blue, then a pale, washed-out gray.

Pre-dawn. The liminal time. Neither night nor day, suspended between yesterday and tomorrow, between who I was and whatever I am now.

It’s almost peaceful.

I should move. I should try to free myself. I should do something, anything, to reclaim some shred of agency, of self.

But I remain still, watching as the first tentative rays of sunlight begin to paint the mountaintops gold. The light bleeds slowly down the slopes, illuminating the forest around me, revealing the details of my surroundings that were lost in the darkness.

The charred remains of my fire. My knife, lying uselessly on the ground just out of reach. My pack, untouched—Reeve hasn't bothered to take my supplies. He hasn't needed to.

And…

I frown, narrowing my eyes. Are those people?

It becomes undeniable that they are, as they emerge from the treeline, drawing closer. Two… women?

I blink, unsure if they're real or some hallucination born from trauma and exposure. But the sound of their footsteps crunching on the forest floor is unmistakably real.

They stop a few feet away, towering over my bound, half-naked form. One is tall with cropped dark hair and muscular shoulders; the other is shorter with curly chestnut hair pulled back in a ponytail.

"Looks like someone's had a rough night," the dark-haired girl says, nudging my leg with the toe of her boot.

I try to speak, but my throat is raw. All that comes out is a dry croak. I swallow painfully and try again.

"Help... me," I manage.

The girl with the ponytail throws her head back and laughs. "I’ll help you, alright. How’s this, for starters?"

She kicks me.

It’s not a symbolic nudge, it’s a kick that’s meant to hurt, aimed right at my ribs.

Pain explodes through my side, and I curl instinctively, as much as my bound position allows.

"That's for Mireia," she says, her voice cold.

Another kick, this one to my thigh. "That's for Sophia."

A third, to my stomach, driving the air from my lungs. "And that's for Ava, you fucking monster."

Fuck. Oh, oh fuck, I’m really fucked this time.

The dark-haired girl crouches down, bringing her face closer to mine. The contempt in her eyes is so pure, so undiluted, that it almost has a physical weight. She spits directly onto my face. Then, she stands up, and places her boot against my cheek, right where the saliva sits.

Slowly and deliberately, she rubs her foot back and forth, smearing the spit across my skin like she's grinding out a cigarette.

"How many women have you made lick your boots, Larissa?" she asks. "How many have you humiliated like this? Made them feel like they were nothing?"

I find myself thinking back to Green Meadows, to all the defiant slogans I saw spray-painted on their flimsy excuse for defensive walls. One slogan in particular.

It said, COLLABORATORS, YOUR TIME WILL COME AS WELL.

When I first saw that, I laughed it off. I’m not finding the notion very amusing now.

Reeve, you piece of shit, you might as well have given me a clean death after you were done raping me…

"Who are you?" I ask, though I already know the answer, deep down in my bones.

They exchange glances, some unspoken communication passing between them. Ponytail kneels beside me, reaching into a pouch at her waist. She withdraws a dark cloth bag—a hood.

"Someone's coming to pick us up soon," she says. "Can't have you knowing the route we take."

The other woman leans close to my ear. I feel her breath, warm against my skin.

"Heard you've been looking for us for a long time, traitor," she whispers. "Congratulations. You’ve found us. Now, let’s get acquainted, shall we?"

Then the hood descends over my head, plunging me into darkness.

TO BE CONTINUED