Shaking, she’d turned around to find several sets of eyes staring back at her with varying degrees of disbelief and pity on their faces. When the cell door reopened behind her, her heart had leaped, taking up residence in her throat, only to plummet when she watched in horror as two men roughly escorted another girl – this one dressed in coral – down the steps. One of the men unlocked the cage and shoved the girl inside, sending her sprawling onto the floor. Jersey stared as the lingering disbelief that she’d been kidnapped began to sink in. The attractive girl in the coral robe had brown hair streaked with strands of gold, but it was the raw, red marks scattered along her skin, and the way that she curled herself into the fetal position, even as full body tremors shook her violently against the floor, that Jersey hadn’t been able to tear her eyes from. She’d wanted to ask what had happened but didn’t really want to know the answer. Mewling whimpers of pain had escaped the girl as, silently, two others moved to her side, helping her stand so they could lie her gently down on one of the mattresses dotting the cell.

‘What is happening here?’ Jersey’s voice was brittle and high-pitched as she’d forced the question out. A subarctic chill penetrated her as every dead-voiced, numb answer chipped away another part of her soul. Words like forced sex, beatings, The Toybox, and pleasure in pain ricocheted around in her head. Somehow, she had fallen into the blackest of all rabbit holes. Never in her life, not even when Beau had convinced her to go through the state’s self-proclaimed scariest Haunted House of Horrors, had she experienced such mind-numbing terror.

That was, until in the twilight hours of a new day, when their prison door had once again opened. Only this time it was she who’d been dragged upstairs to be delivered to one of the most frightening men she’d ever laid eyes on. Even through her rising hysteria, she’d refused to strip naked, unable to release the image of the battered girl in the coral robe. The lady with the severe bun had given her a choice: disrobe or be disrobed forcefully.

Jersey had never been one to be brave, not like Sophie, whose courage and tenacity she secretly admired. She’d never stood up to bullies – she’d never really had any reason to.

But this time? This time she’d had no choice. Even when the lady slapped her face so hard it snapped her head back, even as the tears streamed down her cheek, she was brave. It wasn’t until the two men stepped forward again that her courage had begun to falter.

Still, her need for self-preservation wasn’t quite ready to release its grip, and her flight instinct – something she wasn’t even aware she had – had kicked in. Her eyes had darted to the door. She wasn’t even aware of her feet moving in that direction until someone had a fistful of her hair, yanking her to a stop. The men had each grabbed hold of either side of her, imprisoning her as the woman produced a pair of scissors and methodically sliced Jersey’s clothes until they fell off her in ribbons of cloth, leaving her naked, on show for the man whose face finally emitted a reaction.