At the driver’s side of the Pathfinder, he let go of my mouth to buckle my now limp form into the seat, using the shoulder harness to hold me upright. Sean sat behind the wheel with the car already in gear. Why on earth had I left the keys in the ignition?

Adrenaline raced through me, trying to propel my limbs into action. But nothing happened. I was terrified by my helplessness, my complete inability to command my own body. My head lolling to one side, I stared through tears and graying vision at my abductor as he slid onto the seat next to me. “You’re the stray,”

I whispered, mildly surprised by the calm but mushy quality of my own voice. “The jungle cat.” As he nodded, my eyes closed and refused to open, leaving me in the dark, terrified of the hand caressing my face and the voice in my ear.

“Buenas noches, mi amor,” he whispered, his breath warm against my cheek. It was the last thing I heard before losing the battle for consciousness.

Sometime later—though how much later, I couldn’t have said—I woke up enough to recognize the jostle and sounds of highway travel, and to realize that the sun had come up. I lay on my side, on the floor of a windowless commercial van. My hands were tied behind my back, but I didn’t have the strength yet to test my bonds. My right arm was completely numb and impossible to move, which I hoped was a temporary state caused by lying on it for too long. But before I could test that theory, I passed out again.

The next time I woke, the light was brighter through the front windshield, and I stil lay on my side in the van. But it wasn’t moving. Two men were arguing in Spanish at the front of the vehicle. Sean and the stray.

I tried to wiggle the fingers of my right hand, concerned because it was stil numb. My fingers worked, but the movement shot an unbearable wave of pinpricks up the length of my arm. And apparently that one smal movement caught someone’s attention.

“Ella está despierta,” the stray said. Vinyl creaked behind my head, and the van rocked. He knelt by my side and took my chin in his hand, tilting my head up so that I had to either look at him or close my eyes. I closed my eyes.

“You wil look at me eventually.” His accent was spicy, the auditory equivalent of a good, hot salsa. Under other circumstances, I might have found it pleasant, but in my current predicament, pleasure was a foreign concept.

Heart pounding, I pressed my eyes shut tighter, on the theory that passive resistance was my best shot at survival.

He slid one hand beneath my shorts and stroked my inner thigh.

I jerked my chin from his grip and scooted backward, skinning my arm on the carpet. Undeterred, his hand followed me, triggering the memory of Marc’s hand in the same place only hours earlier. Marc’s touch had made me cry out, made me writhe in anticipation as I lifted my hips to meet him.

The jungle cat’s hand sent nausea rolling through me, as much from the contrast as from terror and revulsion. My passive-resistance theory melted away like snow in July. I opened my eyes to glare at him. Fury lent me courage. “Fuck you,” I growled, but it may not have been my best choice of words.

“Soon, mi gatita,” he said, his breath hot and wet on my cheek.

I knew enough Spanish to translate that much. He’d cal ed me his little kitty.

Tossing my hair from my face, I tried to look as threatening as I hoped I sounded. “Get your filthy hand off me before I bite it off.” My neck ached from holding my head up, but I wasn’t wil ing to take my eyes off the stray. At al .

Smiling, he squeezed my thigh hard enough to make my eyes water, but I refused to cry out. Laughter met my ears. I hate being laughed at.

Closing my eyes briefly, I said a silent prayer for speed and force. Then I sucked in a deep breath and kicked out with my left leg. I arced high, aiming for his face.

The stray caught my ankle in midair. He twisted my leg down and around, using the leverage to flip me onto my stomach. With one hand, he pinned my ankles together, holding my feet in the air above my hamstrings.

I thrashed, trying to free my feet. It did no good.

Behind me now, the stray leaned against my legs, pressing the fronts of my thighs into the rough carpet from knee to hip. Straining to look over my shoulder, I saw him pul a coil of nylon cord from his pocket.

“I enjoy a challenge, gatita.” The cord scratched my skin as he looped it around my ankles tight enough to bite into my flesh. I stil fought to free my legs, but he pinned me with his body weight. “And from what I’ve heard, you promise to be the best one yet. Maravilloso.”

I could guess at that one, too. He was pleased. Great.

“You underestimated the dosage, Miguel,” Sean said from somewhere behind my head. The van swayed again as he stood. “We’re only halfway there.”

Miguel glanced up, knotting the cord as he spoke. “Fil another syringe.”

I heard Velcro rip open and the distinctive clink of glass on glass. Panic clutched at me with fingers of ice, sending chil s throughout my body.

“Here,” Sean said, and Miguel knelt at my side to accept the syringe. “What if that’s too much?” Sean’s concern sounded real.

I craned my head to look in the direction of his voice, hoping to make eye contact, but al I could see was a familiar red sneaker near the edge of my field of vision.

“Then she will sleep through the best part.” Miguel thumped the side of the syringe, studying the dosage.

The lump in my throat felt as big as a peach pit, but I spoke around it, staring at the needle. “If you sedate me again, I swear the first thing I’ll do when I wake up is kick your ass al the way back to the Rio Grande.” My threat might have been more impressive if I wasn’t speaking with one cheek pressed into the filthy commercial carpet of a rented van.