Ready Or Not (The Hunter’s Club #2)

Chapter 6

6

Mind Games - Sickick

I have a weird dream that I’m in a dark room with some shadowy man. I weave in and out of the dream and consciousness. I can’t keep my eyes open. Or closed? I’m so confused.

The first real thing I feel is cold. It starts at my fingertips, and I focus on the feeling as hard as I can. This is awake. I know this isn’t a dream.

It takes a while to be able to move my hands and even longer to sit up. When I do, I realize I’m lying on a couch. The room is dark and open. It looks like…I’m in someone’s dining room? There’s no table, only the couch I’m on and a small coffee table. Beside me looks like a shadowy living room, in front is a kitchen, and on the other side is the…front door?

What is going on? Have I not woken up? This isn’t my house. My brain feels sluggish. My body is covered in sweat, but I’m freezing.

Fuck. The sleeping pills. I took too many before I went to bed. I rub my eyes.

The cornfield comes back to me in horrifying reality, and my stomach clenches. All the emotions I tried to escape come roaring back in confusing noise. That woman fucked me against my will, and then I ran home, took pills in an attempt to forget, and passed out.

Where the fuck am I?

I stand, and my legs are shaky. How could I be so fucking stupid? I stumble to the front door, feeling queasy. The knob is cool in my hands, and I twist, but the door doesn’t open. I rattle it, then glance up.

It’s padlocked—from the inside.

I stare at the lock for a second.

Oh fuck. I think I’m going to be sick.

I make it to the edge of the door frame before I hurl onto the floor. There’s not much to puke up, but my body expels everything I have. I need to puke up the horrible feeling in my gut, but as soon as I’m done vomiting, it’s still there.

I need it to get out. Get out, get out, get out. I try to puke again, but the fear remains.

Slowly, I straighten. There has to be another way out. As I glance around, I notice the short dresser by the front door with a mirror above it. By the side of the mirror is a collage of printed faces. All of them have different expressions. And above each expression is written a word. Happy, sad, scared, angry, and on and on.

They’re all emotions. Someone has been studying emotions.

I’m going to be sick again.

I latch onto one face and realize it’s the same one I’m making: fear. I scramble back the way I came, only to hear the creaking of the floor above me.

Footsteps.

I’m not alone.

I dart to the kitchen, intent on opening the window and scrambling out. All I can see is a porch and a big front yard. This is someone’s home in the country.

“Going somewhere?” a deep, soothing voice rumbles.

I whirl and suck in a gasp. A man stands in the entryway to the kitchen, leaning casually against the wall. He fixes startling green eyes on me. His face is handsome, his cheeks carved, and his jaw sharp. He’s in a tank, and his arms, hands, and neck are covered in tattoos. In fact, the only area not covered is his face. The man offers a small smile.

I can’t tell if he’s smiling at me or laughing at me.

The man raises his hand in a placating way. “You’re sick. Let me help.”

I grip the counter behind me so hard I feel the edges cutting into my fingers.

The man smiles wider, and it’s dazzling. His teeth are all white and straight. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I want to go home.”

“Of course.” The man gestures at the couch. “I need you to be able to walk, though.”

I narrow my eyes. This is not right. None of this is right.

The man steps out of the entryway so I have space. I glance around the kitchen.

“No knives.” The man chuckles, and then his voice becomes demanding. “Rachel, come.”

My gaze snaps to his, and that feeling rushes back into my stomach. “How do you know my name?”

“I think you’ll find there’s a lot of things I know.” He winks at me. I feel like I’m looking at an animatronic. Something is off. I just can’t tell what.

I swallow. “Let me go.”

The man just laughs, moving to the couch and dropping down on it. “Sit.”

I walk stiffly to the entryway but don’t sit.

The mood instantly shifts, and the man’s eyes go dark. He stills.

The danger is instantly tangible in the room.

I didn’t obey.

The man blinks slowly.

It’s clear that if I don’t sit, I’ll piss him off more, and that’s not what I need. So I force myself to walk stiffly to the couch.

The man’s eyes track me. Sitting is the hardest thing I’ve had to do, but I force my knees to bend.

As soon as my ass hits the cushion, all the tension immediately melts away, and the man smiles again. “Good girl. I want to make sure you’re alright before we leave.”

I just stare at him. No way he locked me up here just to let me leave.

“Scared?” He watches me.

I shake my head. All kinds of emotions course through me, and I can’t put a name on one. It feels like they’re all happening at the same time.

“How long have you known Riley?”

I blink. Who the hell is Riley?

The man shakes his head. “The woman you fucked in the corn maze.”

I suck in a breath through my teeth, a wave of emotions crashing over me at once. This must be the man in the mask who watched us. Who pointed a gun at me. My breathing picks up, and my chest gets tight. What was his name? I search my brain. Manson .

“Rachel. I asked you a question.” The man, Manson, cocks an eyebrow. It’s both menacing and friendly, and I can’t sort out how he means it.

First of all, I didn’t fuck her. She fucked me. But what I say is, “I don’t know her.” I want to get sick again. Not from the pills but from the emotions trapped inside my body. Emotions I don’t know how to put a label on.

Suddenly, all expression is wiped from Manson’s face. He just stares at me, and all of my focus is on his face. His blank face.

Manson blinks twice, then reaches to the back of his pants and pulls out a gun.

The gun.

He doesn’t point it at me, just puts it on his knee. And his expression doesn’t change. “I’m sure you don’t want to be stuck here longer than you have to.”

What the hell does that mean?

Manson continues staring at me. “So, tell me about your relationship with Riley.”

“I have none!” Heat flares across my skin. “The first time I met her was in the maze!” I’m not a liar. In fact, it goes against my very nature. I pride myself on my absolute honesty.

Manson blinks slowly. The lack of emotions on his face is both comforting and disconcerting. It’s impossible to guess what he’s feeling.

“Why is she obsessed with you?”

I have no idea what he’s talking about. That woman is fucking horrible. Why the hell does he think I have a relationship with her? But instead of those words, what comes out is a soft, “Hard to be obsessed with someone you just met.”

Manson eyes me. “That is incorrect.”

I scoff out a breath. Is this some kind of quiz? Why is he wasting time with me? “If you already know the answers, why are you asking?”

Manson’s eyebrows shoot up for a fraction of a second. “If you don’t want to end up like Cali, you’ll start working with me.”

Ice fills my veins. For a second, all I see is my friend’s face. The friend I’ve been trying so desperately to find.

I shoot forward. “You know where she is?”

There’s a blank expression on his handsome face.

“Please,” I plead. I’m not touching him, but I’m close enough to. I look into his blank, green eyes. “Please tell me she’s alive.”

“Rachel. I asked why Riley is so obsessed with you.”

Frustration bubbles in my throat, and I clench my fists. “I don’t know! I don’t even know who Riley is. I don’t lie. I know you don’t know me, but I don’t lie.”

Manson eyes me, and my eyes dart to the gun. He still isn’t pointing it at me.

He sees me looking at it. “All right, I believe you.”

I open and close my mouth. I’m not sure what to say to that.

Manson leans forward and smiles. “Let’s play.”