I peered up, trying to make out a face, but a baseball cap and sunglasses obscured his features. The other guy stood off to the left, remaining out of sight. Neither of their voices seemed familiar, though that didn’t mean shit. Everything around me hit my ears in an odd way. Crickets sounded, normally a melodic chirp, but their call blared in my ears like a screeching alarm.

Footsteps thundered down the stairs. “Let’s go. Get him to the dock.” His buddies hauled me to my feet and forced me toward the path, and the guy at my back laughed. “Little early for the Fourth of July, but what a show, huh?”

I clenched my hands, tested my strength. Whatever they’d given me was beginning to wear off, though not enough that I could overpower three men. Maybe more.

And Alex…

I swallowed hard. They had her somewhere. If I fought them, they’d hurt her…or worse.

What if they’ve already hurt her?

The idea sickened me, made me want to lash out and pound into them. My mind was fully alert now, demanding I do something, but my sluggish body wouldn’t…couldn’t fight. I’d never felt so weak as when I climbed the small hill that led to the dock. Sweat slicked down my bare back, though I trembled from the chill of the late night breeze. I fell to the ground twice on the way down, and their laughter hollowed through me each time, like a demon that taunted.

Evil. Whoever these men were, they were pure evil.

When we reached the dock, they pushed me to my knees, facing the island. I couldn’t see the cabin from this vantage point, but the trees surrounding it towered, nothing more than shadows against the backdrop of mountains.

One of the men lit a torch and passed it off. “You get the honors. Make it quick. We need to get out of here.”

I blinked, horrified by the sting in my eyes. I’d survived a lot and had never cried, but the thought of watching my father’s island go up in smoke gutted me. “Don’t do this. I can get you money.” I risked looking up and met the dark gaze of someone who struck a cord of recognition in me, though I couldn’t place where I’d seen him before. “What do you want?” I asked.

“I want you to suffer.”

I opened my mouth, about to ask him what he wanted with me, when his fist slammed into my nose. I cupped my face and doubled over, crashing into the planks of the dock. Two hands wrenched me up. “Watch it fucking burn.”

A billow of smoke surged upward, tinted an eerie orange-red from the glow of flames. A guy sprinted toward the dock. “Get him in the boat! Let’s go!”