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Please take me out of here.

Don’t leave me here.

Take me somewhere safe.

“I can’t sedate her until I know it’s safe to do so. This is just a muscle relaxant, it’ll take the edge off her anxiety and give her a chance to rest.”

She jerked her head up at the wordsedate. She knew what that meant, and it wasn’t happening. She wasn’t going to be helpless and unconscious, held hostage at someone else’s mercy. Even as she reared back, pushing against Merrick’s chest, something stung her butt.

“All done. Set her down when you’re ready, Merrick.”

Tamsyn grabbed the collar of his shirt, fisting it tightly, her eyes boring into his with a silent, screaming plea for help. Her eyelids grew heavier, drooping until they were barely open. All resistance faded, going as limp as her body.

She whimpered quietly as her fingers went lax, losing her grip.

“There we go,” he murmured. “That’s better, darlin’. No need to be scared.”

Why couldn’t he see shewasscared? Was he as blind as the men she’d left behind, or one of their ilk, taking pleasure in pinning a woman down and terrifying her?

She tried to roll as he laid her down on the table, but the only things working were her heart and lungs. Everything else was just floppy and useless; whatever they’d given her, it reduced her skeleton to mush, her muscles to water.

“Merrick, stay close to her head so she can see you while she’s still awake. You don’t have her consent to undress her,” Linnie said quietly, “and you’re not her Dom. Just keep her calm. Violet, are you willing to get your hands dirty?”

“Point me where you need me.”

“Everything off from the waist down. I need to cut off the top layers.”

Tamsyn stared into worried green eyes, wanting to cry. She felt hands pulling off the scraps of leather that were her boots, the frayed remnants of her socks. Pain stung her feet, air kissing burst blisters that had rubbed and rubbed until the cold numbed them.

She made a panicked noise in her throat when Violet carefully wrangled her ruined pants down; Merrick placed his hands gently on either side of her face, his thumbs stroking her jaw. “Shush, little owl. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Linnie knows her job.” He didn’t break eye contact even when Violet cursed in that liquid molasses voice. “Close your eyes, darlin’. I’m gonna be right here, my hands exactly where they are, while you sleep. Can you do that for me?”

“Ease back a little, Merrick.” Linnie leaned over, her glasses perched on the end of her nose, then flashed the beam of a penlight in Tamsyn’s eyes, blinding her. “Yeah, she’s okay to sleep. We’ll have to wake you every couple hours, just to be safe.”

Sleeping wasn’t safe. Not here.

No matter how heavy her eyelids were, how soothing the stroke of Merrick’s thumbs were, she refused to let down her guard. She needed to be awake, alert, ready for danger to strike. She was in her own personal nightmare with no way out.

Thesnip-snip-snipof scissors cutting through cloth made her feel sick. They were stripping her of her last defenses one by one. What were they going to do when she was naked?

She blinked slowly, once… twice…

*

Merrick

The girl was a fighter, he’d give her that.

Having spent the last few minutes watching her fight the urge to fall asleep, using her fear as a buoyancy aid, he discovered a great deal of respect for her—not just because she fought so damn hard, but because it was obvious she’d been fighting for a long time.

The ragged clothes she wore hung off an emaciated frame. She’d wrapped herself up fairly well, but she definitely didn’t have enough layers on to keep the cold at bay and keep her bones warm. And those boots… he could drive his goddamn truck through the holes in those laughable excuses for footwear.

“She’s down and out, Linnie,” he told the doctor, checking to make sure the little waif didn’t find a sudden surge of energy.

“Thank God for that. If she looked at me one more time with that plea in her eyes…” Linnie shook her head, pushing her glasses back up her nose before she resumed cutting. “Aside from the noises she makes, have you heard her say anything at all?”

“No. She tried, when I first found her, but nothing came out. She looked bewildered by it.” He kept stroking her chilled skin, just in case.

“The initial rundown you gave Grit seems to be accurate.” Scraps of filthy jacket dropped to the floor as she snipped away at it. “Mild concussion for sure. Sleep will help with that. I’ll get an IV in and push some warm fluids to help with the cold and dehydration.”