I sighed. I was tired, still drugged. It blunted the fear that was soon to follow. “Look. I’m sure there are people who get off on this. I’m just not one of them. And this is all a bit much to waste on someone who really is not going to appreciate it. Let’s cut our losses and call it a night, okay?”

Mandy-Marie frowned, removed the scalpel from my face and returned it to the tray. “I’m sorry you feel that way. This must be a big mix-up, then. I’ll just take you to your car and we can forget this ever happened, all right?”

I chuckled, a pebble rattling in a rusty can. “Yeah?”

“Sure, silly mistake.” Her hair was midnight blue with straight bangs. Bright, glossy red lips. Her tan had faded since I’d last seen her. “Whoops! Happens, you know.”

The way she said ‘Whoops!’ produced a flash memory. From the tunnel. The party girl with her fork-tongued entourage.

“No worries,” I said, trying to sound more casual than wary. Tiptoe past the sleeping bear. I started to sit up and had almost righted myself when she put her hands on my chest and slammed me back down against the operating table, then pivoted and swung a leg over to straddle me, pinning me in place.

Here came the howling laughter I had expected. Not from my maniac friends from behind the hidden cameras, but from this psychotic chick straddling me. “You dumb fuck!” Her breath smelled like corroded battery; I could see her uvula quivering. She grabbed my fake-blood-soaked hair and slammed my head into the padded table. “You clueless waste! Think you can ask your way out of this? Think you can plead? Did that help me, huh? It doesn’t end, dummy. You’re never getting out.”

This was hysterical anger, this was real pain. Padding or not, she was slamming my head hard as fuck and it hurt. Clawing my scalp with sharp nails and tearing my hair.

“This is no joke. And you’re the one who made a mistake, not us. You’re the one who asked for this. Now you have it. Now it’s here. The only question is how the story ends for you. Because it’s only just begun.”

She stopped slamming my head and screaming into my face. She straightened and shifted her hips, settling down on my lap in a way that would typically trigger arousal. But I had never felt less aroused. Given the chance, I would gladly break this girl’s nose. Would strangle her unconscious as soon as I regained my strength. This had stopped being a game, and I was no longer playing around.

“Okay,” I said. “I get it. Help me, then. Please, tell me what’s going on.”