Page 13 of Caged

“Do not come here again,” he growls down at me. “Do you understand? You and your friends are not welcome at Sigma.”

“You’re pathetic,” I snarl through my clenched jaw. “Are you Kieren’s bitch now? Is he your daddy? Tell me, Jace, do you suck his dick before tucking him into bed at night?”

Jace squeezes my face harder, but I refuse to cower. I refuse to let this sorry excuse of a man see me beg. That’s his style, not mine.

Jace drops my jaw but grabs me by the scruff of my neck, slams open the door, and throws me – not pushes, not shoves,throws me– outside.

The force of the door smashes into Ele and Viv, who were standing directly on the opposite side, and knocks them to the ground. My back collides with grass, and I roll to a halt somewhere between eight and ten feet from where Jace launched me into the air.

I roll onto my side, grimacing in pain. Ele and Viv scramble to kneel beside me.

“Oh my God, Gabi, are you okay?” Viv beseeches as she shines her phone light over my body in search of injury.

“I’m fine,” I grit, worried I cracked a rib because it hurts to breathe.

“What the fuck?” Ele stammers. “What the actual fuck?”

“He assaulted you!” Viv cries. “Should we go to the police? At minimum, we have to report this.”

“To whom?” I snap. “You saw what was happening in there. Look at those girls! Nothing has been done to stop Kieren and his army of assholes so far. Sigma has always been fucking invincible, but this is a whole new level of crazy!”

After a moment, I say, “I’m okay, I just need a minute.” I push myself into a seated position. Tears run from my eyes, and I’m not sure if it’s the pain, humiliation, or both. “Where are we?” I ask.

The three of us look around our inky surroundings. Music from the party sounds muted, nearly drowned out by the sound of rushing water from the nearby gorge.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s an emergency exit, you know, in case of a fire,” Ele guesses, helping me to my feet.

“I always forget how huge Sigma is. Wait,” I gasp, reaching for the nearest arm, “Kasey. What happened to Kasey? Did either of you see?”

“No, I mean, no offense to Kasey, but you were our priority, and we thought Jace was going to strangle you,” Ele says.

“Dude, she looked fucked up,” Viv adds. “And not just drunk. I meanfucked up.”

“She said she was scared,” I say. “She kept saying she needed to talk to Monroe. And then Kieren…”

“There is no way that was Kieren,” Ele says. “That thing in there was an alien wearing a Kieren bodysuit. Did you see his eyes?”

“Dead,” Viv agrees over the sound of liquid splashing against grass.

“Viv, are you peeing?” I whisper-shout.

“I had to go!” she exclaims in a whisper-shout of her own. “This place is trash, anyway. Might as well piss on it.”

“She’s not wrong,” Ele agrees with a shrug and a small smirk.

“He made Kasey go with him and Barrett,” I say, “but I don’t think she wanted to.” My words catch in my throat like the truth of what we saw is too horrible to repeat aloud.

“Goddammit,” I sigh in frustration. “I was trying to help her, to talk to her, before henchman Jace was tagged in and literally throttled me.”

“We’ve got to find her tomorrow,” I continue. “We need to figure out what’s wrong and help her, or I’m afraid whatever happened to Monroe is going to happen to Kasey, too.”

“First of all, we need to get out of here,” Viv shudders, pulling up her shorts. “This place is giving me the creeps.

“The vibes felt rotten, like Sigma is decaying from the inside out,” Ele states.

I nod in agreement. “Whatever corruption is going on in there, it’s not good, but I’m determined to find out.”

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