Their conversation froze into silence when they saw me. Six eyes locked on me at once; they locked on me and on my camera. I knew at once that I’d just made the worst mistake of my life. Every woman knows hard men of evil purpose at a glance, and I saw it in those men. Two were dressed in ratty clothes; one wore a suit and looked oddly out of place in the wilderness. That man focused on me, as coldly cruel as a reptile. I had no idea who he was, but I was never going to forget his face, and he was never going to forget mine.

He glanced at the other two men and said simply, “Get her.”

I ran.

I screamed for help, but no one was around to hear me, not out there. I beat my way through the woods, the branches drawing blood, the vines tripping me up. Behind me, I heard their footsteps trampling through the underbrush like beasts, like monsters. I ran even faster, to get away, to lose them. Somewhere, I don’t know where, the limb of a tree ripped my camera away from my neck. It dropped; I just kept running. I zigzagged, changing directions when I heard them getting closer. Desperation drove me on. Maybe I would have gotten away, because I was young and fast, but my foot hit the bulge of a tree root, which flipped me into the air. I landed hard, twisting my ankle, and when I got up again, I couldn’t run anymore. I limped for a while until it got too painful to move, and then I squatted down and tried to hide, but they found me.

The men came at me from two sides, and they had me trapped. They tied me up with belts around my wrists and ankles. Gagged me with one of their shirts. Hit me in the face, the first of many blows. And then they carried me, struggling and fighting, on their shoulders like trophy game. The other man was waiting at the trailer.

“Kill her,” he directed them, with a hard, casual glance at my face. “Bury her where no one will find the body.”

But the one holding my legs—later, I’d find out that was Kip—laughed at him. I remember his exact words. “Just like that? Juicy Fruit like this one? No way, man. First we play.”

First we play.

That was what they did, Shelby.

For the next thirty-six hours, they played with me. A day and a half. They played. More than two thousand minutes, each minute making me wish I were dead. They played. I was Juicy Fruit, and they chewed me up. They tied me to the bed, moving me when they wanted to change the game. Faceup. Facedown. On all fours. On my knees. They took turns. Kip. Racer. And the third man. Gordon Brink. He played, too.