I held in my bitter laugh. “I don’t see how that makes any sense. I don’t want those guys to notice me—” I jerked my head to the hallway where Ilia, Lev, and David had just walked, “—so why draw further attention to myself?”

Why dress up and even try to look pretty?

“Because.” Marina smiled gently, taking a tube out of the pocket on her apron. I watched as she uncapped it and twisted the base, making the cherry red lipstick rise.

She raised it my lips, and I jerked back out of reflex, but stilled as she started to dab it on my mouth.

Smiling, she pulled her hand away and turned me to the mirror she had hung on the wall next to the pantry.

I blinked, taken aback. I rarely looked in mirrors anymore, refusing to face what I knew was happening to my appearance, but I couldn’t stop staring all of a sudden. Rolling my lips together, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time. A rush.

The red seemed to make my olive skin glow in a way I never noticed before, and my green eyes pierced me as they stared back through the mirror. Even my hair seemed a richer brown.

“Because, eventually,” Marina continued, “there will be someone whose attention you do want.”

And an image of Kai popped in my head. What did he think of me today?

Marina turned around, getting back to work, and glanced in the mirror once more before heading up the back stairwell.

Things were changing. My brother kept me all to himself, and while he was my world, I was starting to feel like I could fit in more. I wanted more. A bigger life.

I was seventeen. I had no friends and no formal education. What would I do next year when my brother left for college? I could ignore how my body was changing all I wanted, but time was passing anyway, making sure our lives evolved. I’d have to be an adult, eventually.

Reaching the second floor, I jetted down the hallway, heading for my brother’s room, but a scraping sound caught my attention, and I stopped. I looked toward the window at the end of the hall, seeing the tree outside whipping like a flag in the high wind. I stepped up, gazing outside.

What was Kai doing now? Pulling some prank, partying, or maybe doing one of the things he confessed today? On his way to a private room in a private club or something equally painful for me to think about?

Looking down, I noticed a red Charger facing me—fairly new—with a black stripe running down the side. I pinched my eyebrows together. Whose car was that? I didn’t recognize it.

But then a pop went off in the distance, and I jerked my head back, staring into the air above me as I listened to the whir and whistle that followed. Was that…a firework?

All of a sudden, a second, third, and fourth pop went off, sounding like it was coming from the forest nearby, burning and fizzing overhead, and I heard a ruckus downstairs as what sounded like more fireworks began exploding in the sky near the house. Doors slammed shut, and I peered over the railing, seeing servants run to the rear of the house, probably to head outside.

What the hell was going on?

I turned to head back down to investigate, but just then something was shoved over my head, turning my world black, and I whipped around, gasping.

“What?” I cried, my heart jumping into my throat.

Hands gripped my arms, the cloth over my head tightened around my neck, and my feet were swept off the floor as I was carried down the stairs.

“Let go of me!” I thrashed and kicked. What the fuck was happening? Who were they?

A hand came down over the cloth, covering my mouth, and I continued to writhe and twist against their hold as their hard footfalls trampled down the stairs. How many were there?

“Help!” I screamed through the hand. The muscles in my stomach burned as I resisted them with everything I had inside me.

Oh, God. Cool air hit my back where my sweatshirt rose up in the struggle, and I felt their footsteps quicken.

“Get her in!” one of them barked. “Hurry!”

The fireworks went crazy, whizzing in the distance, and I continued to thrash, twisting my head back and forth to get my mouth free.

“Help!” My muffled cry broke out.

That’s what the fireworks were for. A diversion.

I faintly heard something click and a male’s voice jeered, “Hope you don’t mind tight spaces, little one.”

Someone else laughed, and all of a sudden I was falling, hitting a hard surface too high to be the ground. And then, any light coming through the hood disappeared completely and something was slammed shut over me, all noise faint and dull now.

Tight spaces. I shot out my hands and legs, every one of them hitting a barrier, like I was in a coffin. The floor under me rumbled to life, I heard car doors slam, and I moved my hands in front of me, finding a felt-like upholstery above.

I was encased. The engine roared, and realization hit me. I was in a trunk. I immediately began pounding and kicking. “No!” I bellowed, the hand covering my mouth now gone. “Please! Let me out!”

Ripping at the tie around my neck, I pulled it off and yanked the bag off my head, sucking in a lungful of air.

And then I beat the roof above me. I screamed as loud as I could and made as much noise as possible in the hopes anyone would hear me.

“Let me out!” I yelled, my throat burning raw as I howled until every last ounce of breath left my lungs. “Ilia! Lev! David! Help!”

Fuck! The car under me moved, and I rolled a little as it took off. “Help!” I pounded my fists harder and faster, going crazy. The farther away they took me, the greater the chance I’d never be found.

Music started blaring dully from the inside of the car, and my metal coffin vibrated under me, the noise drowning out the sound of my screams.

“Oh, God,” I cried, my eyes welling with tears. “Please.”

I started whimpering uncontrollably, sucking in short, shallow breaths as I patted my hands around the trunk floor, trying to find anything I could use as a weapon. A tool, a tire iron, anything.

But the trunk was completely empty, and I shook my head. My father would never come for me.

Fuck it. I slammed my fists, beating the lid above me again and again, not even stopping when they began to ache. They were going to do what they were going to do. I wasn’t going to lie here and wait for it. There might be a chance, any chance, a passing car or even a kid on a bike might hear me.

“Help!” I screamed, trying to make my voice carry. “Heeeeeelp!”

The car jostled, and I rocked back and forth in the trunk. I thought we turned, and suddenly the road underneath turned gravelly, and we slowed.

But I kept belting and pounding, kicking and shouting. I turned to my side and began kicking against the wall behind the back seat, hoping there might be some kind of escape, since I knew some cars’ rear seats folded down, opening into the trunk. But since I hadn’t seen what kind of car I was tossed into, I couldn’t be sure. So, I tried anyway.

The car continued to slow, and then it finally stopped. I breathed hard and listened. Shifting my eyes around the darkness, I heard the music die off, the car going silent, and doors started to slam shut. How many of them were there? At least two carried me out of the house.

Fear coursed through my body, and a small gasp escaped. I covered my mouth with my shaking hand as a tear spilled across my temple.

Three knocks hit the trunk lid, and my eyes rounded.

“Go ahead and scream,” a male’s cocky voice—the same one from before—said. “There’s no one around to hear you now.”

I heard muffled laughter, and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted out of here, but I also didn’t. What were they going to do?

But another voice spoke up, this one smoother and darker, sounding an inch away from me. “You said you wanted to be hunted. Right?”

My breath caught in my throat.

Kai?

I pinched my eyebrows together as the dots started to connect. Fear morphed into anger, and my gaze tried to burn a hole through the trunk lid.

“You see that little green glow-in-the-dark lever in there?” he asked. “Pull it.”

Lever? What? I darted my gaze around, finally seeing something green glowing in the corner on my right. It was small but readily visible, and I didn’t know how’d I’d missed it. It had a picture of a car on it, and I reached out and pulled it, the trunk immediately clicking open and a sliver of daylight suddenly pouring in.