His hand moved lower, over the curve of her ass, squeezing through her jeans. Kara shuddered, a wave of revulsion washing through her that was almost strong enough to overpower the fog in her limbs.

"Get off me." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Get off me, get off me, get—"

He didn't get off her. Instead, his hand slid between her thighs, pressed against her through the denim. She felt his fingers move, felt the pressure of his palm against her, and her body betrayed her with a jolt of sensation that made her gasp.

"Yeah." His voice was satisfied. "You feel that? You're not as strong as you think you are, are you?"

Kara squeezed her eyes shut. The red light pulsed against her eyelids, and she felt something inside her break—not her spirit, not her will, but something else. Something that had been holding her together, keeping her upright, keeping her fighting.

She couldn't fight anymore. She couldn't move. She couldn't think past the hands on her body, the press of bodies around her, the music thundering through her skull.

She was going to be sick.

The man holding her shifted, and suddenly she was being passed again—hands catching her under the arms, lifting her off his lap, moving her sideways through the crowd. She caught a glimpse of faces as she went: some turned away, some watching with hungry eyes, some just blank and uncaring.

Nobody helped.

Nobody even looked twice.

She was being passed toward the service corridor. She could see it now, the dark mouth of it, the place where the girls had been taken. The place where she was going to be taken too, if she couldn't find a way out.

A hand found its way under her shirt, closed over her breast again. This time there was no fabric between the fingers and her skin—just bare flesh, the callused palm scraping against her nipple. She gasped, tried to twist away, and felt another hand slide down the back of her jeans, fingers hooking into the waistband of her underwear.

"No—" The word came out as a sob. "No, please—"

She didn't know who she was begging. The men around her were just shapes now, faces she couldn't hold onto, hands that were everywhere at once. She was losing track of where one body ended and another began, losing track of which hand was where, which touch was which.

The hands moved with an efficiency that spoke of practice. Kara felt denim strain at her hips, the button already loose, the zipper teeth parting one by one. Her body—her useless, traitorous body—hung limp between the men carrying her, and all she could do was watch the ceiling tiles slide past overhead as they bore her toward the mouth of the service corridor.

"No." The word came out wet, broken. "Please. I'm a reporter. I'm nobody—"

Fingers found her mouth, pressed against her lips hard enough to bruise. "Shh. Shh. You're gonna wake up the whole stadium, sweetheart."

She bit down. Hard.

The man yelped, jerked his hand back, and for one glorious second there was blood on his fingers—her teeth had found purchase, split the skin of his thumb. The grip on her arms loosened with surprise, and Kara twisted, kicked, felt her boot connect with something soft. A grunt. A curse.

She almost made it. Almost broke free.

Then a hand closed around her ankle and yanked, and she went down hard on the concrete floor, the impact driving the air from her lungs. Before she could draw another breath, they were on her—two of them, three, a confusion of hands that pinned her shoulders, her wrists, her thighs to the cold ground.

"That was stupid." The voice came from above her, somewhere behind the strobe lights. "That was real stupid."

Kara craned her neck, tried to see his face, but the red light had shifted, painting everything in washes of crimson and shadow. She could make out the shapes of them—at least four, maybe five, their faces indistinct—and then a hand closed over her throat, not squeezing, just holding, a reminder of what had happened before.

"You're going to be still now." Calm. Almost bored. "You're going to be still, and you're going to be quiet, and if you do that, maybe we don't have to hurt you."

Kara's chest heaved. She could feel the cold concrete through her shirt, could feel the grit digging into her shoulder blades, could feel the weight of them pressing down on her limbs. Her strength was coming back—she could feel it, a slow trickle of power returning to her muscles—but it wasn't enough. Not yet. Not against all of them.

So she went still.

She hated herself for it. Hated the way her body obeyed, the way her limbs stopped struggling, the way her breath evened out. But the hand on her throat was a promise, and she knew—she knew—what would happen if she tested it.

"That's better." The voice was almost gentle now. "See? That's better for everyone."

The hands on her wrists moved. Not away—just different. One slid up her arm, over her bicep, across her shoulder. Another found her hip, traced the curve of it through her jeans. A third—she couldn't tell whose—closed over her breast again, squeezed, and this time there was no fabric between the fingers and her skin.

Her shirt had ridden up. She hadn't noticed when. The hand was inside it now, palm flat against her stomach, fingers crawling upward like something insectile. She felt them reach the underwire of her bra, felt them hook under it, felt the fabric lift.

"No." The word came out as a whimper. "Please, no—"

Nobody listened.

The bra was pushed up, and then there was bare skin, cool air against her nipple, and then a mouth—a wet, hungry mouth—closed over her breast. Kara arched her back, a strangled sound escaping her throat, and the hand on her neck squeezed once, a warning.

"I said be still."

She couldn't be still. She couldn't—the tongue was lapping at her, the stubble of a jaw scraping against her sternum, and she felt herself shaking, felt tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, sliding down her temples into her hair.

"Please." Her voice was barely a breath. "Please, I'll do anything. I'll give you anything. Just don't—"

"What could you possibly give us?" The mouth left her breast, replaced by fingers that pinched and rolled her nipple with casual cruelty. "What do you have that we couldn't just take?"

The answer was nothing. She had nothing. She was nothing. Just a woman on a concrete floor with her shirt pushed up and her jeans half-open and five men standing over her, deciding what to do with her body.

Lex had planned this. She understood that now, with a clarity that cut through the fog. Lex had known she'd come here. Had known she'd follow the girls. Had built this trap specifically for her, this red-light cage that turned her powers to smoke and left her nothing but flesh.

And Vic Marchetti had sprung it.

The thought of him—cold eyes, gold pinky ring, cruel smile—sent a wave of nausea through her. He was watching. She knew he was watching, somewhere in the VIP section, sipping something expensive while his men took her apart on the floor of the service corridor.

She was going to die here. Or worse.

The hands were everywhere now. Her shirt was being pulled up, over her head. Someone undid the clasp of her bra, and it fell away, and she felt the air on her bare skin, felt the hunger in the eyes she couldn't see.

"God, look at her." A voice she didn't recognize, thick with lust. "Look at those tits. She's like a fucking doll."

Hands closed over both her breasts, squeezing, kneading, weighing them like they were objects. She heard someone groan, heard the sound of a zipper, and her whole body went rigid.

"No. No, wait—"

"Quiet." The hand on her throat tightened. "You had your chance to be good."

She felt fingers hook into the waistband of her jeans, felt the denim peel down over her hips, felt the cold air on her thighs. She was wearing underwear—plain cotton, the kind she'd grabbed in a hurry that morning—and she could feel them staring at it, could feel the weight of their attention like a physical thing.

"Please." Her voice cracked. "Please, don't. I'm begging you—"

One of them laughed. "Begging already? We haven't even started."

The jeans were pulled down to her knees, then her ankles, then off entirely. She lay there in nothing but her underwear, her bra discarded somewhere to the side, and she could feel herself shaking so hard her teeth were chattering.

"Look at that." The voice was closer now, right by her ear. "Look at those thighs. You work out, sweetheart?"

A hand slid up her bare leg, over her knee, up the inside of her thigh. Kara clamped her legs shut, but another hand found her other thigh and pried them apart, and she felt so exposed, so horribly, terribly naked, that she wanted to die.

"Don't fight it." The voice was almost kind. "It's easier if you don't fight it."

She'd heard those words before. The stocky man in the pit had said the same thing. Maybe they all said the same thing, these men who took women in the dark, these men who thought of bodies as objects to be used and discarded.

Her underwear was being pulled down.

Kara felt the fabric slide over her hips, felt the cool air on the most intimate part of her, and she squeezed her eyes shut so hard she saw stars. She couldn't watch. Couldn't see their faces as they looked at her, bare and vulnerable and utterly at their mercy.

"Beautiful." The word was breathed, almost reverent. "Fucking beautiful."

A hand touched her between her legs.

She flinched, tried to twist away, but there were hands on her hips, holding her still, and the fingers were exploring her, parting her, sliding through the wetness that her body had betrayed—because of course her body had betrayed her, of course it had, it didn't care that she was terrified, it only knew that it was being touched, and it responded the only way it knew how.

"She's wet." The voice was amused. "Look at that. She's scared out of her mind and she's still wet."

Kara wanted to die. Wanted to scream. Wanted to claw her own skin off, wanted to be anywhere but here, wanted to be anyone but herself.

"Don't." Her voice was barely audible. "Please, don't."

The fingers pressed inside her.

She gasped, her hips bucking involuntarily, and the hand on her throat tightened again, cutting off her air for just a moment—long enough to remind her who was in control.

"I think she likes it." Another voice, this one from her left. "I think she's been wanting this all along."

"No." The word was a sob. "No, I haven't—"

"Shh." The fingers curled inside her, and her body arched, and she hated herself for the sound that escaped her throat. "Shh. It's okay. It's okay to want it."

She didn't want it. She didn't. But her body was a traitor, her body was a liar, and it was responding to the touch the way bodies did, wet and hot and shamefully ready.

"Spread her legs wider."

Hands pushed her thighs apart, held them there, and she felt so exposed, so completely naked, that she thought she might shatter. The red light pulsed overhead, and she could see their shadows now—the shapes of them, the hunger in their postures—and she knew that this was only the beginning.

They were going to take turns with her.

The realization hit her like a physical blow, and she felt something inside her break, something that had been holding her together, keeping her fighting. She went limp on the concrete, her arms falling to her sides, her legs spread wide, and she stared up at the ceiling tiles and waited for it to begin.

"That's it." The voice was approving. "That's it. Just let go."

She heard the sound of a belt buckle. Heard the rasp of a zipper. Heard the shuffle of bodies repositioning, and she closed her eyes and went somewhere else—somewhere far away, somewhere the red light couldn't reach, somewhere there were no hands and no voices and no pain.

The first man settled between her spread thighs, and Kara's eyes flew open—the ceiling tiles swimming back into focus, the red light searing down at her like an accusation. No. She was here. She was *here*, on cold concrete with her legs held apart and a stranger's weight settling over her, and the distant thrum of the concert bleeding through cinder block was the only proof the world still existed beyond this corridor.

"Look at me." His voice was rough, almost bored. "I want you to see who's doing this to you."

She wouldn't. She kept her eyes on the ceiling, on the water stain spreading like a map of somewhere she'd never go, and then his hand closed on her jaw and wrenched her face down to his. He was young—younger than she'd expected, maybe twenty-five, with a wisp of beard that hadn't filled in and eyes that held nothing at all.

"I said look."

She looked. And he smiled, and then he pushed into her in one brutal, unhurried stroke.

The sound that came out of Kara was not a scream. It was something lower, something that had been building in her chest since the first hand touched her—a raw, torn noise that died against the back of her throat. He was thick and he was dry inside her despite the fingers that had worked her open, and the stretch burned, a white-hot ring of pain that made her whole body go rigid.

"God." He breathed it out, his eyes closing for a second. "God, you're tight."

He pulled out almost all the way, then drove back in, and Kara's hands—still free, still hers—came up to push at his chest. It was useless. Her arms shook with the effort, her muscles screaming against the red-light drain, and he caught her wrists and pinned them to the concrete above her head with one hand.

"Don't." He said it almost kindly, the way you'd soothe a spooked horse. "Don't make this worse than it has to be."

He set a rhythm. Slow at first, deep, each stroke bottoming out inside her with a wet sound that made her stomach turn—because her body was still betraying her, still slick from the fingers that had worked her open, still making that shameful noise every time he pushed home. He watched her face the whole time, his eyes tracking every flinch, every twist of her mouth, and she understood that this was the part he liked. Not the sex. The watching.

"You're handling this pretty well," he said, almost conversational. "Most of them are crying by now."

Kara bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper. She would not give him that. She would not give any of them that.

He fucked her for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, his pace picking up, his breathing going ragged, and when he came he made a sound like a sigh and pulled out before she could feel it—spilling across her stomach in warm stripes that cooled almost instantly in the corridor air.

"Next." He stood, tucking himself back into his jeans, and the word was so casual, so matter-of-fact, that Kara felt something inside her go very quiet and very still.

They traded places like men at a buffet. The second one was older, heavyset, with a wedding ring still on his finger, and he didn't bother with her face or her hands. He just flipped her onto her stomach, grabbed her hips, and drove into her from behind with a grunt that was almost angry. Her face scraped against the concrete, and she felt the grit bite into her cheek, felt the sting of it, and she made herself go somewhere else.

No one was coming. She understood that now, with a cold clarity that had nothing to do with the red light. She was going to have to survive this on her own.

The second man came inside her. She felt it, the heat of it spreading through her, and she made a sound that was almost a sob before she choked it back.

The third man pulled her up by her hair, wrapped her legs around his waist, and fucked her standing up, her back scraping against the cinder block wall. He was bigger than the others, and she felt every inch of him, felt herself stretching around him, and she heard herself make a sound she'd never made before—a high, thin whimper that she couldn't stop.

"That's it." He was breathless, his mouth hot against her ear. "That's it, sweetheart. Take it."

She took it. She had no choice but to take it. And when he finished, he let her drop, and she crumpled to the floor in a heap of shaking limbs and cooling semen and concrete grit ground into her skin.

She lost count after the fourth. Or maybe it was the fifth. They blurred together into a single animal thing—hands and cocks and grunts and the slap of skin on skin, the wet sounds of her own body that she couldn't stop, the way they traded positions like they were passing a joint. She was on her hands and knees. She was on her back. She was bent over a stack of flight cases, her cheek pressed against the cold metal, someone's hand fisted in her hair.

At some point—she didn't know when—she stopped fighting. Her body went loose, went pliant, went somewhere far away from the concrete and the cock and the hands, and she floated above herself, watching a blonde woman get used by a parade of men who barely looked at her face. She watched the woman's breasts bounce with each thrust. Watched the semen leak down her thighs. Watched her mouth hang open, slack and empty.

And then one of them—the seventh? the eighth?—slapped her across the face, and she snapped back into her body with a gasp.

"Stay with us, princess." He was grinning down at her, this one younger than the rest, with a gold chain and a cruel mouth. "Don't go to sleep on us. We're not done with you yet."

Kara stared up at him. Her vision was blurry with tears she hadn't realized she was crying. Her throat was raw from sounds she hadn't realized she was making.

"Please," she whispered. The word came out cracked, broken. "Please, I can't—"

"You can." He pushed her knees apart and settled between them. "You've been doing great so far."

He wasn't gentle. None of them were gentle, but this one seemed to take pleasure in the violence of it, in the way her body jerked and seized with each thrust, in the sounds he tore out of her that she couldn't swallow back. He grabbed her breasts and squeezed until she yelped. He bit her shoulder hard enough to bruise. He fucked her with a savage, grinding rhythm that made her see stars, and when he came he pulled out and spat on her, and she felt the saliva land on her cheek and slide down her face like a tear.

She heard someone laugh. Heard someone say "nice." Heard the shuffle of bodies as they traded places again.

The ninth man was rough and quick, barely looking at her, and she was grateful for it—grateful for the anonymity, for the way he finished in under a minute and stepped away without a word. She lay there, trembling, her thighs slick and aching, her arms too weak to push herself up, and she thought, *nine. That was nine. Maybe they'll stop at ten.*

The tenth man was different.

He didn't move to position himself between her legs. Instead he crouched beside her, and she felt his hand on her face—almost gentle, turning her head to look at him. He was older, maybe forty, with a face that had seen things and a pair of pale eyes that held no cruelty, only a kind of tired appraisal.

"You've taken a lot tonight," he said. His voice was low, almost kind. "More than most."

Kara stared at him. She didn't trust the kindness. She couldn't afford to.

"Please," she whispered. Her voice was barely there, scraped raw. "Please, I need—"

"I know what you need." He stroked her cheek with his thumb, and the gesture was so tender, so at odds with everything that had come before, that she felt tears well up again. "But that's not what I'm here for."

He stood. And then he unzipped his pants, and she saw that he was hard, and she understood.

The tenth man didn't fuck her like the others. He took his time. He pushed into her slowly, inch by inch, and when she gasped he waited, let her adjust, then pushed deeper. He fucked her with a kind of deliberate, almost loving attention that was somehow worse than the violence—because it made her body respond in ways she couldn't control, made her hips rise to meet him, made her make sounds that were almost pleasure.

"There," he murmured, his mouth against her ear. "There it is. You're not so different from the rest of them, are you?"

Kara shook her head, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. "No. No, I'm not—"

"You are." He thrust deeper, and she felt herself clench around him, felt the shameful heat building low in her belly. "You're exactly the same. You just needed the right man to show you."

She came. She didn't want to, she fought it, but her body betrayed her one last time, clenching around him in wave after wave of shameful pleasure, and she heard herself moan—a sound she'd never made before, a sound she'd never wanted to make, a sound that she knew she'd hear in her nightmares for the rest of her life.

The tenth man smiled. And then he finished inside her, with a soft grunt and a final deep push, and when he pulled out she felt the warmth of him leaking out of her, mixing with all the others.

"Good girl," he said. And then he stood, tucked himself away, and nodded to someone she couldn't see.

Hands closed on her arms. She was hauled up, her feet barely touching the ground, and she felt the lanyards—the official-looking lanyards with the stadium credentials—press against her bare skin as the men who wore them dragged her out of the room and into the corridor.

The corridor was longer than she remembered. The lights buzzed overhead, fluorescent and harsh, and her bare feet left wet prints on the concrete. She was naked—she realized that dimly, through the fog—naked except for the shirt still bunched around her neck, and the air was cold on her skin, cold on the places where she was still wet, still leaking.

"Where—" Her voice cracked. "Where are you taking me?"

The men didn't answer. They just kept dragging her, one on each arm, their grips like iron, their faces blank. She stumbled, her legs too weak to hold her, and they caught her, hauled her upright, kept moving.