Chapter One
—Shelly—
We’ve been locked in this room for hours. No one has come for us and no one will. As far as our families know we simply vanished in the middle of the night. I don’t know how many hours have passed since the Devils Rejects locked us up after a brief taste of freedom. The last time I laid down in my bed and shut my eyes, I had no idea that within the night a dirty outlaw biker was coming for me and my housemates.
I was an average college student, living it up, going to parties, and spending her dad’s money.
Now I’m a captive facing certain death.
“They’re going to kill us!” Cassia cries as if I don’t already know our fate.
“Don’t say that,” Belinda whispers, hugging her knees to her chest while rocking back and forth on the cement floor. The room is dark and empty. The only light we are provided comes from a small square window in the door. It is up to high for me to try and look through and the others are too chicken to try. If we need to relieve our bladders there is literally a hole in one corner of the room to squat over and forget anything to wipe with.
I don’t say anything in response.
What can I do?
What can I say?
Nothing I tell either of them will help our situation.
I can’t even remember the last time I spoke to my parents on the phone. My dad is always busy at the hospital, working as a neurosurgeon, and my mother is too busy spending his money to worry about me. I’ve been on my own for a long time. I didn’t run away from home or anything like that. My parents were just never present once I could care for myself. My dad loads money into my account once a month and sends a weekly text message to say I love you. I can’t remember the last time I heard him speak those three little words aloud.
Most girls growing up are daddy’s girls, but not me.
The door opens and a man wearing a Halloween demon mask grabs Cassia. The mask is green with horns poking out of the top. I know the scary face is meant to frighten us but in a twisted sense I find him wearing it comical. The metal door clinks shut once more as Belinda begins to wail. “Please, let me out. I just want to go home.”
I wish she’d shut up.
The only thing she has accomplished is giving me a headache.
The sound of a gun firing silences her but only momentarily.
“Oh! God! They’ve killed her and we’re next.”
“Better her than us,” I mutter.
She crawls over to me and claws at my arm. “Aren’t you scared?”
“Of what? Dying?”
“Yes! How can you be so calm?”