Chapter Twelve

Cecilia

The door to the closet opened as short man appeared. Oddly, I no longer found the hockey masks scary. Somehow, they’d become normal. I waited while he stood in the doorway and light filtered around him. The silence lingered.

“Don’t you want to know why I’m here?” short man asked.

I did. “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

“Thought you’d want to know, princess, you’re sold.”

Panic circulated through my bloodstream. This abduction had been and was already unthinkable, yet I’d had hope, the hope my mother had planted as a seed from the time I was very young. She and my father would stop at nothing to find me, to save me. “What about my parents? My family?”

The hockey mask shook as short man’s head moved. “Not my problem.”

I stood, bringing the sheet with me. It was unnecessary; these men had obviously seen every inch of me. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”