“I woke in a cage. Chained like a beast. The guy who’d bought me ran some kind of underground entertainment show in an abandoned warehouse. The entertainment varied from bizarre sex acts to violent, no-rules fighting, to strange and humorous plays and other skits performed on a stage. It was like a circus act, only illegal as hell. All of the performers had something wrong with their appearance. Deformities. Missing limbs. Ugly burns. Scarred faces. It was a modern freak show, but one in which people got abused and sometimes died. And none of us were there by choice. We were all prisoners.”
Annika sucked in a breath, a hand flying to her mouth. “Dear God.”
I huffed. “I prayed for God to help me more times than I could count.” But God certainly hadn’t helped me. No one had.
“Oh, Adrik. I’m kind of scared to hear the rest.”
I looked into her wide blue eyes. “I can stop right there. The rest is pretty fucked up.”
She shook her head. “No. I want to hear it all.” She climbed out of her chair and settled onto the bed next to me, reaching for my hand again. “Okay. Continue.”
Warmth seeped from her hand into mine, offering me comfort. Support. Strength. And giving me the courage to finish the horrifying tale…
Goliath rapped his cane loudly against my cage, peering at me through the bars. “You ready, kid? Tonight’s your first performance.” The bastard didn’t use the cane to walk. It was a tool to punish those who disobeyed. I’d already been smacked by it several times and still bore the ugly welts.
I glared at him, baring my teeth in a snarl. Goliath was the guy who’d kidnapped me. The one who ran this place. My jailor.
He chuckled. “You’re going to need that defiance for tonight’s show. Be prepared to face your fears, kid.”
He moved on, rattling his cane against the next cage as he paused to speak to the woman within.
I was the newest member of Goliath’s freak show. And tonight would be my first performance. Goliath was deliberately keeping me in the dark about what was about to go down, probably to enhance the shock value for the audience and ensure my reactions were legitimate. After tonight, I would know what to expect. But right now, the fear of the unknown was making me sweat bullets. Though I tried to hide it, I was scared shitless.
I’d been here for four days now. Four of the longest days of my life. But my life was about to get much worse.
Because four days in a cage was nothing compared to what I was about to go through.
The guards appeared and began dragging the performers out of their cages, snapping metal collars around their necks, then leading them to the stage.
I heard the screams and shouts from the crowd. The cheers and whistles of excitement from the onlookers as each act played out. These people were disgusting. Sick fucks.
Then it was my turn.
Goliath appeared in front of my cell with two guards. He smirked. “Your first show will be easy, kid. All you gotta do is act scared.”
I swallowed hard. I already was scared. I didn’t have to act.
They opened my cage and stepped inside. I tried to run. But the guards easily captured me, secured the metal collar around my neck, then dragged me out to the stage.
Gasps and snickers came from the crowd when they got their first look at the “new entertainment.” There were some strange deformities here, but I was probably the ugliest of them all.
The guards tied me to a pole in the corner of the stage in front of cardboard prop—a doghouse. I cringed as I looked at the prop, my heart thumping as my brain imagined all sorts of possible scenarios that were about to unfold.
A girl with no legs bounced out onto the stage, screaming, “Run! The beast is coming! It’s going to eat us! Run!” She waved at me, motioning me toward her.
Huh?
Was she calling me a beast?
I huffed and rolled my eyes. Seriously? This was stupid.
Then a snarl came from behind the cardboard doghouse not more than four feet away from me.
I froze, terror crawling up my throat.
I wasn’t the beast.
I spun toward the sound, my eyes bugging out and my heart slamming violently into my ribs as a large black dog leaped through the door of the doghouse and charged straight toward me.