The Cunning

4

"Is she still alive?" a faraway voice asked.

"Give her a minute. She'll come round. Go get the bucket in case she throws up."

Madison's body regained consciousness one nerve at a time, fighting the current pulling her down. The smell of marijuana consumed her. Her brain pounded aggressively, throbbing against her skull. It took all the energy she had to pry her eyes open. The dim yellow glow from the light was too bright, even through the thick layer of smoke floating around the room. She blinked once, then twice in succession. It looked like someone's living room. Three men came into focus. Then the pasta she had eaten on her break came hurtling back up without warning, sending chunks of undigested chicken splattering down into the blue bucket wedged between her feet.

"You owe me a tenner," one of the men said, "I told you she'd throw up if you used chloroform." He was sitting at a rectangular dining table against the wall on her right. The man he was talking to sat opposite him. The third was hunched over in a worn armchair in the corner on her left. He watched her with an unhinged stare. Madison lifted her hand to wipe her mouth, seeing her wrists were bound with a cable tie. Tiny spots shivered in her peripherals.

"What's going on?" she murmured, confusion flooding in.

"Isn't she a picture?" The wide-eyed guy in the armchair spoke in a low voice. Anyone would think he was talking about a pedigree puppy, not a person.

"What do you want us to do with her?" one of the men at the table asked. He had sandy yellow hair and icy blue eyes that would have been angelic under different circumstances. The man got out of his armchair and kneeled in front of Madison. He reached up to hold her chin, carefully examining each side of her face. A soft groan next to her made her flinch. She had failed to see the sickly body lying next to her. The girl moved weakly and stopped, finding the ordeal too much. Her face was waxy. Mousy hair stuck in greasy clumps to the sweat on her forehead.

"How old are you?" the man asked, taking her attention away from the girl. Up close, it was clear he was on something. The whites of his eyes had cracks of red stretching inwards, reaching for a shrunken pupil. Madison refrained from the overwhelming urge to recoil at the acrid smell of his breath. The last thing she wanted to do was offend this creep and have them do to her whatever they had done to the other girl. Handprint bruises camouflaged her arms not so dissimilar to a leopard's spots.

"Seventeen."

"Sam," he snapped, making Madison jump, "go and get Jase so he can have a look." He didn't take his eyes off her as the blonde man left the room.

"Where am I?" Madison managed to stammer, "What's going on? Is this to do with the letters?" As she became more grounded, the gravity of the situation started to sink in. The letters weren't empty threats.

"Letters?" the other man asked, looking at her with a puzzled expression.

The man in front of her smiled, disregarding her questions, and retreated to his armchair. Sam returned a moment later, followed by a topless man with dark curly hair. Madison recognised him immediately, her eyes glossing over muscular arms and claw marks across the dips and ripples on his back, taking in the tiger on his left forearm and the mean-looking skull with a snake wrapped around it on his abs, up to the familiar face. He lit the cigarette between his lips, assessing her with a wolfish squint through a wisp of smoke. There was no confusion or recognition in his expression this time. The fists in Madison's stomach tightened. Barbed wire squeezed her heart.

"Isn't she beautiful, Jase?" the man in the armchair said. 'Jase' stood above her, cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, blowing smoke to the side.