“What are you looking at? You really think you’ll get to see my young leader? Dream on!”
“You lot, take her to the room. Time for the third trial!”
The men around me grinned with excitement, rubbing their hands as they stepped closer.
“No! Please, just let me see him. I beg you!”
But they ignored my desperate pleas. Two of them grabbed me, one on each side and dragged me toward the house.
“Albie! Albie, help me!” I screamed with all my might, hoping he would hear me.
One of the men driving me forward struck me with a brutal elbow to the ribs. Pain exploded in my chest and my vision blurred as strength drained from my body.
I couldn’t even speak anymore.
The two men threw me onto the bed and the cactus spines still embedded in my back dug deeper into my skin. A sharp, searing pain nearly knocked me unconscious.
Through my haze of agony, I suddenly heard a familiar voice.
“Did someone just call my name?”
A spark of hope ignited within me. I whipped my head toward the doorway, my eyes filled with desperation.
There he was, Albie, standing just outside, frowning at his phone.
“You must’ve misheard, Sir. No one would dare call your name so casually,” one of the men beside him said smoothly.