Summon Lyght

Chapter One



Kassie roused a bit, reluctant to leave her dream world where she'd been snuggled on the couch with her Bill, just watching a movie and basking in his presence. Waking meant she had to continue life without him just as she'd done every day for the past four years.

Her eyes opened and an almost involuntary stretch began in her back muscles. And froze. What the hell?

Instead of the white ceiling of her airy room at the ranch there was only darkness above the dim and stuffy place she found herself in. And no wonder her back wanted to stretch, with the hard lumpy pallet jammed in her spine. A woolen blanket, stinking of various bodily secretions lay across her like a nasty prickly membrane, immediately triggering a skin crawling reflex.

She scooted out from under the blanket, crowding her back up against a rough wall, making the entire room shudder as though the thing weren't properly put together.

Panic tried to take root in Kassie's belly as memories flooded her. Shit, shit. Kidnapped. Three men had come for payment on a debt. Fury replaced her panic in a split second. That bastard father of Sam's had sold his own daughter to the highest bidder after all. Of course he goddamn did. She always knew it'd come to that eventually, knew his gambling would one day cost more than Kassie could pay.

If she never saw Sam again, so be it, as long as she could protect her. God, she'd never trusted that bastard, not once. After a night of drunken indiscretion at his bachelor party she'd found herself pregnant and the scum threatened her with trumped up murder charges to keep his ass clear of financial responsibility. Rather than support her and the baby, he would take the child for his barren new wife to raise. She'd thought then that she knew how dangerous he was. Wrong.

Kassie had begged for mercy and gratefully ended up as a house maid and sometimes whore to the goon just so she could be near her baby girl, Samantha. Sam. None of the bad shit mattered. She got what was important—a place in her daughter's life, even though Sam never knew the truth. She was Sam's mother in the important sense. She was there for her daughter, doing whatever it took to make sure she was safe. Nothing else mattered.

Tears stung her eyes as she considered everything, evaluated what kind of a job she'd actually done as a mother. Physically, her child had been okay, safe and with enough to eat. Mentally and emotionally, though, it had been a different matter. The poor girl suffered at the hands of that sexist fool, never realizing her own womanhood, raised to feel inadequate. And whenever Kassie intervened, both she and her daughter paid.

But the deal Kassie had struck with that sick sack of sperm was broken the day those men came for Samantha. The piece of shit had betrayed her child for the last time. Kassie had done the unthinkable with nary a thought, no regrets. Then she went willingly with her head held high to whatever horror awaited. Her baby was safe and happy with the man she loved. Nothing else mattered.

That's all she wrote.

"Hello?"

Kassie jolted, startled by a low voice on the other side of the wall. It sounded weak and scared, young even. "Is someone there?" Kassie looked around and the question escaped her lips like a reflexive prayer. "Where are we?"

"I don't know. I feel sleepy, I think they gave me something. I just woke up a little bit ago."

Kassie pressed her ear to the wall, listening intently. That child. Oh God, he was still there. She remembered him from the auction. She closed her eyes and resumed the fervent prayer she'd taken up the second he'd appeared. Please God spare him. Let me pay for his freedom. Let the sins of his family be on my head. Grant the boy mercy. Amen. She was likely as good as dead already, so she might as well do as much charity as she could before leaving this world. "What's your name sweetheart?"

"T-Tyler." The quaver in his voice brought images of a thin frame shuddering in the damp chill. "What are they going to do to us?"

Kassie took a deep breath and focused on keeping the panic out of her voice. "I…don't really know, Tyler." She bit her tongue to keep from telling him it was going to be okay. No way could she make that kind of promise no matter how much she wanted to. It was bad enough she had too clear an idea what waited for him, maybe both of them. "But I'm going to try and find a way to get us out of here. Can you help with that?"

"Like how? I can't really move. They tied my hands." Deep breaths accompanied grunts and scuffling. "What do I do?"

Kassie looked around, searching for something that might tell her where they were or offer a way out. "Well, Tyler, I don't know yet. We'll figure something out. Look around the room you're in and tell me everything you see."

While he described his surroundings, she compared it to her own. The same raw plywood walls, damp concrete floor and lumpy pallet with the stinking blanket. The door consisted of flimsily hung wood on too small hinges with dim light filtering in around the edges.