CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sienna came back to herself slowly, her head aching like it might explode at any minute, her vision fuzzy. So far, so normal when it came to some of the parties she went to in Las Vegas. Frankly, if she didn’t wake up feeling like this after a party, she would have felt like she wasn’t making enough of an effort there.
Sienna looked around blearily, trying to work out where she was, whose bed she was in, and how many of her own clothes she was wearing. Sienna vaguely had memories of a particularly handsome man in a mask, one who had performed magic tricks for her, but who had remained more than attractive enough to catch Sienna’s interest in spite of that.
She remembered agreeing to go outside with him for some fun. Again, perfectly normal, but after that…
Sienna was coming back to herself more now, enough to recognize that she wasn’t in the dress she’d gone to the party in. That kind of thing happened. That was practically normal, but she didn’t usually wake up in a sequined leotard, shining silver, in a way designed to catch the light.
There were lights, spotlights in fact, shining down in a rainbow of colors that reflected from the sequins of the leotard.
Sienna might have worried about all that, or about the fact that someone had obviously dressed her in the leotard while she’d been asleep; but right then, all Sienna’s worries, all her fears, were reserved for the fact that someone had bundled her up in ropes and chains, wrapping them around and around her, tying her until she could barely move.
Sienna had been on some wild nights with people before, but never anything like this. This was far too extreme, far too terrifying.
“What’s going on,” she called out. “where am I?”
It was hard to see much about the place she was in, thanks to the glare of the spotlights. Sienna vaguely had the sense of some larger space, where people might have been looking down at her from rows of seats, but all she could see right then was the wood of the platform on which she lay, and beyond that…
Beyond that, there was a large glass tank filled with clear, pristine water. In that water, small shapes swam around and around. It took Sienna a moment or two to realize that they were sharks: small ones, but still sharks.
Now, her fear blossomed into a deeper kind of terror, and Sienna found herself staring around the darkened space, trying to make some sense of it all.
She’d been at the party, she’d gone outside with the handsome man in the strange mask, and then… and then Sienna could remember nothing. He must have drugged her somehow, but Sienna couldn’t remember the moment when it had happened. Honestly, she had bigger things to worry about than the precise moment when she’d been drugged. Those were sharks down there, after all.
“Help!” Sienna called out, in case anyone was listening. “Somebody help me!”
“Ladies and gentlemen!” a voice boomed, seeming to come from all sides at once. It took Sienna a second to realize that it was coming from speakers set around the space she was in. “Tonight, we have a very special act to present to you: the amazing Sienna!”
The voice sounded familiar. Sienna remembered it as belonging to the man in the mask. Martin, was it? Right then, it seemed worse that she knew his name, not better. Why would he tell her his name? Someone who told you their name wasn’t someone who was planning on letting you go.
“What’s going on here?” Sienna demanded. “What’s this about? I never did anything to you!”
As far as she knew, she’d never even met the guy before in her life. She certainly hadn’t done anything at the party that might make anyone want to do something like this to her.
There wasnothing that could make someone want to do this to her, or to anyone else. Unless this was all some sick joke, some attempt to scare her. There were people who might want to do that, but even among those, who would go to the trouble of getting sharks?
“Talk to me!” Sienna demanded. “Tell me what’s going on. This isn’t funny!”
“Tonight, for your entertainment, the great Sienna will be attempting an escape from shark infested waters. She will have to escape the chains that hold her, untie the ropes, and swim through the waters surrounded by sharks to get to the key that will unlock the lid to the tank!”
“No!” Sienna called out. “What are you talking about? I’m not going to do any of that. I never agreed to any of this! You can’t do this!”
With how elaborate all of this was, surely this had to be some kind of joke. There was a film crew somewhere, recording all of this for some kind of show in which Sienna was going to be humiliated. They were going to show all of the footage of her crying and begging, and she was crying now, tears falling down her cheeks as she looked down in terror into the shark tank.
At the bottom of it, she could see a key, oversized and obvious, gleaming there like a prize to be snatched. It shone there, visible in between the flitting, circling forms of the sharks.
A figure approached, dressed in black, the top hat silhouetted against the lights above. Sienna could make out the mask, with its twisted, elongated features.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time! Please give the great Sienna a round of applause!”
He pressed something on what looked like a small remote control, and the sound of an audience going wild came out of the speakers. Somehow, that sound was more terrifying than all the rest of it put together.
“Please,” Sienna begged.
The masked man put a foot against her and pushed, rolling Sienna so that she felt herself teetering on the edge of the platform, and then toppling. She hung for a moment in the air, and then hit the water with a splash.
Sienna plunged down into it, trying to kick her legs in spite of the chains. She struggled and fought, holding her breath as she tried to swim back to the surface.
Even as she did so, she saw the masked man lowering a lid into place on the tank, locking it in place. There was a brief gap between that lid and the water, but even as Sienna pushed up to it, she could feel her legs getting tired.
Around her, the sharks circled.