I try not to show fear. I try to stand tall and take what he dishes out with strength, but that’s not so easy when your attacker is as crazy as mine.

“She said it was your eyes,” he begins, lazily tracing circles on his palm with the vial. “She said they’re the most stunning eyes she’s ever seen. Like the ocean.”

I didn’t know my eyes were like the ocean.

He takes hold of my shirt, yanking me close. “No one is more appealing to my girl, than me.”

They say bad things happen in slow motion; they’re right. I feel Marcel throw me down onto the floor. I feel every movement as my body slams into the dirt. I feel his body weight coming over me, his knees pinning me down as I squirm. I feel his friend take my arms, pulling them above my head, while another puts a hand over my mouth. With my nose pouring with blood, it makes it difficult to breathe.

I feel someone digging his fingers into the sides of my head, holding me still as Marcel unscrews the little vial of liquid in his hand. He reaches down, shoving his fingers into my eye, causing it to water and burn. I scream and twist, trying to get away. He punches me again, causing me to begin spinning out—blood fills my mouth. Then he holds my eye open, and he tips the liquid into it. My screams intensify as what feels like fire sinks into my eye.

It feels like it’s burning through my flesh.

Oh god, it hurts. It hurts so badly.

The pain is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Words cannot begin to explain the horror I feel as darkness invades my body. I feel the liquid sliding down the side of my face to my ear, burning everything as it goes.

I try to free my hands. I need to wipe it off. God, it hurts, someone please get it off. I can’t get my hands out, though; the boys are holding me down and they’re too strong. So I do the only thing I can in my last moment of sheer desperation. I turn my head, and I bite the hand closest to me, drawing blood.

I don’t know what they’re saying, or even acknowledge the moment when they run away. All I know is that I am bleeding heavily in an alley, and my eye is being burned with a lethal chemical. Red fills my vision as the blood begins to cover every part of my face. I know I’m still screaming, even though I can’t hear it. All I can hear is an excessive ringing in my ears. I can’t even move my hands to cover my eye in an attempt to protect the burning orb. I can do nothing but lay and scream, experiencing a pain that I’ll never witness again mytness ain my life, and wondering what I did to deserve it.

No one deserves to die.

But I did die, that day.

And in my place, a monster was born.

CHAPTER ONE

My knees scrape across the jagged concrete as a large, hooded man clutches my hair and pulls me along. My mouth is covered, and breathing has become problematic. Tears well under my eyelids as we come to a stop, and my skin has a chance to begin a deep, penetrating burn. I can feel the warm blood that runs down my legs, and my throat stings with the bile that has been rising up and down for the past three hours. My body is suddenly jerked off the ground, and before I can register what’s happening, I’m being thrown into a large, wooden crate.

“We have to move them, and we have to move them now. They’ve been purchased, and they’ve been requested to be delivered in top condition,” a male voice grunts out.

Through my hazy vision, I can see there are two other girls in here with me. Both are equally as battered. I can hear the shrill shrieking from the crate beside me, and the sound has my body tensing and quivering. A sick sensation clenches my stomach and I try to focus my attention away from the screaming girl, and instead try and listen to what’s happening around me. Information is key, and in a situation such as this, it could likely save my life.

If I have a life left to save.

“He wanted ten,” a male voice says. “It’s like he hand-picked them. Fucking strange if you ask me. I heard he is gathering them from other places, too, like off the streets.”

I don’t know who they’re talking about. I don’t even remember how I ended up here. My mind is a fuzzy mess, and I can’t even recall my own name. My body has been pumped full of so many drugs I don’t know left from right.

I have brief bouts of consciousness before they come along and drive a needle into my neck again. Then I slip away, god only knows for how long. It’s hard to know where you’re going when you spend half the time unconscious.

I hear a small broken cry from behind me, and I shift my bound body to focus on the two girls, also bound and gagged. They’ve got tears running down their faces, and they look as terrified as I feel. The girl to my left is rocking backwards and forward, her hands tied tightly in front of her. The one to my right is staring silently at me, like a part of her is hoping I’ll save her, or maybe just tell her how we ended up here. I don’t have an answer for her. I’m as clueless as she is.

“I just threw the tenth girl in,” a man barks. “Let’s move.”

The lid to the crate slams closed, and my heart rate picks up. I squirm, not wanting to be crammed into this tiny little crate for god only knows how long. I hear a curse, and then someone barks an order. The crate lid is swung back open, and I look up to see a dark-haired man leaning down with a needle in his hand. My squirming becomes more persistent and I shake my head, using my feet to shove myself further back against the crate. It’s no use; the man plunges a needle into my neck, sending a sharp, scorching pain through my body, and then he steps back, smashing the lid closed again. I turn my eyes to the girl staring at me, and she shakes her head softly.