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T alia was tired, but she wouldn’t stop resisting Cheryl and the assholes helping her sister until she was dead. Days had passed, and they hadn’t allowed her any food, only water. Her stomach had cramped so much she wasn’t sure if she could stand up straight.

She missed Zip. Maybe she was building him up in her mind, but she didn’t think her memories were that far off. She hadn’t hallucinated yet but figured that would come soon enough. If only she could escape into dreams, but the pain in her belly kept waking her every few hours.

A key sounded in the lock, and she backed up, giving herself space to see what was coming at her. Maybe they were bringing food. Just the thought of food made her stomach rumble. She crossed her arms over her chest and pulled her legs up, trying to make herself as small as possible. It was no use because there was nowhere to hide in the empty room.

The overhead light flipped on, burning her eyes. She blinked a few times before she could make out her sister, followed by two men. She couldn’t tell if they were the same two men as earlier since they had on hoodies. But did it matter? None of them would help her.

“Time’s up,” Cheryl said.

She shook her head. “What do you mean?”

One of the guys came at her, and out of some self-preservation instinct, or maybe it was just hunger, she opened her mouth and clamped down on his arm as he reached for her. Her jaws tightened around his flesh, sinking in, drawing blood.

The man screamed, but she didn’t let up. It took him four, maybe five seconds to get in a good enough punch to knock her loose. When she let go, he hit her again, knocking her to the floor.

“You fucking bitch!” he roared as he swung his leg back to kick her in the head.

By some miracle, Cheryl stopped him. Maybe her sister felt something, or maybe it was the money she would get by selling her. Cheryl didn’t explain. Instead, she directed the men to carry her outside.

Before they got her in the trunk, Talia clipped one of them in the nose with her foot. She’d drawn blood twice. If her body was found, and some police department decided to do some sort of DNA testing, they would find something. She didn’t have a chance to get blood from her sister, but maybe one of these two would turn on her and tell the cops about how awful Cheryl really was.

Talia pushed away the fantasy as the car engine rumbled to life. Riding in the trunk wasn’t comfortable. Every bump of the road jostled her. She couldn’t get a good hold to brace herself and there were things rolling around hitting her.

No question, she was heading to her death. Whatever awaited her wouldn’t be fun. She needed to escape, but how? Cheryl had the upper hand, and Talia saw no way to regain it.

How could her sister sell her? It was like they weren’t even made from the same people. Her siblings were terrible. Though her brother wasn’t involved in this escapade, he’d known their sister had forced her into doing porn when she was a teenager and had done nothing about it.

This felt similar. No one could help her, and they never could when she went up against her sister. They could have been friends, maybe not good friends, but they could have gotten along. But no, her sister had to make everything a competition and force the win. If only she’d learned to fight dirty before her sister had started taking advantage of her. Now she was in this situation, and there wasn’t anyone who could rescue her.

No way would Zip know where she was. He wouldn’t be able to track her down, even if he wanted to. She should have taken him up on the tracking earrings. She wouldn’t be in this situation if she had. He could have already found her by now, and she would be at home in his bed.

What if he didn’t care that she wasn’t around? He would be better off without her. Everyone would be better off. If she was gone, there would be no explaining that she’d been forced to do porn. There’d be no whispers behind her back, or guys coming at her, thinking they could get in a quick one with her because she was a porn star who did it once with twelve guys. They wouldn’t even think it was abuse because she’d done it on the screen so many times in their jerk-off sessions.

Tears ran down her cheeks. She hadn’t even known she’d been crying. She hated crying about this. All the tears in the world wouldn’t save her. Nothing would.