I could hear at least two of the men gaining on me now, their breath harsh and raspy beneath their masks as their feet crunched over piles of dead leaves and twigs. “C’mon, little girl,” one of them called out, guttural voice cutting through the cold air like a knife. “You can’t hide from us.”
I abruptly turned off the trail, realizing it was exactly where they expected me to go. Then I headed deeper into the woods, mind whirling as I tried to figure out my next move. I needed to double back somehow, so I could get to that path by the parking lot, but I couldn’t let the men see me or hear me.
I vaulted over a fallen tree and altered my direction again, heading north. They wouldn’t expect me to go that way, so I could keep running for a while longer, find a place to hide, and then finally head back south when they got tired of searching for me.
At the last second, I spotted another fallen tree and promptly tripped over it, twisting an ankle as I landed awkwardly. Pain shot up my leg, but I simply grimaced and kept running. I couldn’t stop. Stopping meant capture, and that meant possible rape, torture and murder.
Dripping sweat turned my hair into thick ropes that lashed at my shoulders, and my lungs felt like they were burning as I gulped down breath after breath, trying to keep myself going for as long as possible.
A hiding place finally presented itself—a dark hollow in a tree. It was just big enough for me to squeeze myself into.
I got on my hands and knees and crawled toward it. A twig suddenly snapped nearby, and I froze.
“Found you,” came a whispered voice in the darkness. “I knew you’d come this way.”
There was a faint zapping sound, and then white-hot agony sliced through me. I collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath as the pain sparked something in my mind, cracking open the brittle shell of a long-hidden memory.
Someone lying on the ground, head cracked open. Me, sinking to my knees and staring openmouthed at what I’d just done. Blood everywhere. My mom screaming. Crying.
“No…” I murmured, shielding myself with my hands.
The masked man crouched over me, holding out the device he’d just used on me. I realized what it was now. A stun gun, not a regular gun with bullets.
It made sense. These men didn’t want me dead; they just wanted me incapacitated.
For now.
The man grabbed my hands and tied them in front of me with a black rope. He did the same with my feet, completely immobilizing me, and then he stepped back and muttered something into a phone.
Footsteps crashed through the trees as the other men arrived. There were four altogether.
“I’ve got the pills,” I heard one of them say. He was the one who spoke to me earlier in the parking lot; the one whose voice sounded familiar. I still couldn’t place him.
“Hold her mouth open,” he went on, crouching over me. He held two white tablets in one hand.
One of the other men pinched my nose, forcing me to open my mouth to take my next breath. The one with the pills shoved them inside, and then he clamped his hand over my lips. “Swallow,” he commanded.
I shook my head, moaning beneath his hand. The man lifted me up slightly and tilted my head back so that the pills slid down my throat, and then he grabbed a bottle of water from one of the others and forced me to drink.
After I’d gulped down the entire bottle—slowly and painfully—one of the men picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. “Please,” I said in a broken whisper. “Don’t… don’t do this.”
My voice was already starting to slur as the tablets kicked in. Powerful, fast-acting sedatives, presumably.
My head lolled on the man’s shoulder, and he patted my back. “Good girl,” he whispered. “Go to sleep.”
As he carried me through the woods, I realized I could no longer move or feel a single part of my body.
I let out one last plaintive whisper before my eyes closed. “Please.”
Then everything went black.