Snared

By Mona Jean Reed

Suspense/Thriller, 290 pages

Cover art by Richard Stroud

Blurb: After they kidnapped Roz and ten other beautiful blondes, their captors expected them to knuckle under and not fight taking part in “Cap’s finishing school.” They intended to make all eleven girls the ultimate cream of harem material. These exceptional harem slaves would bring a half mill apiece, just like last year’s crop. Can Roz hold up or will they break her spirit.

Excerpt: In the lightless cellar, or whatever it was, Roz and the child spent another chilly time. The cold times had to be nights. If that bit of deduction was right, then Roz had been here most of three days. Thirst was becoming a real threat. They’d have to have water soon, or they’d die.

Chaney, the child on the other box, cried until she made herself hoarse and even that didn’t stop her crying entirely.

Thirst had Roz by the throat and she still couldn’t get her chain loose from the box.

“I’m giving up.”

“We gotta get outta here. Don’t give up.” Chaney’s sobs grew louder.

“I didn’t mean that kind of give up, silly. I meant I won’t try to wreck the box, get free and walk out of here. I’ll have to try something else.”

“What you going to do?”

“See if I can break enough of this wood with my hands and arms. See if I can work a rifle loose.”

Roz felt the box, tried to feel for a weak spot that would break easily. There were no obvious weak spots.

“Guess the only thing to do is just try to pull the box apart.” With a mighty grunt she did what she said…And got nowhere, at first. Then she pulled on the break nearest the corner and that little piece came loose in her hand. It was just enough to allow her to pry something out of the box.

“Okay.” Both Roz’s feet throbbed, but that didn’t matter right now. “Chaney, now I’ve got something to work with.”

“Work!” Chaney sniveled. “I wanna go home. Don’t wanna work.” The girl went back to crying.

“None of this thing feels like wood,” Roz said. “Some sort of super plastic or carbon fiber, I guess. Light enough.”

She felt around on it, tried to identify the gun’s parts. “Nothing seems normal. The stock, I guess this is the stock. It’s just a rounded block doesn’t seem like it would fit on anyone’s shoulder.”

Chaney sobbed, “I wanna go home.”

Roz tried the stock against her shoulder. “You know, it fits real good. Maybe it fits better than our shotgun. Dad made me learn how to use that.”

After a lot of feeling around, she found the trigger. Then she felt for the barrel, but except for a cylinder-shaped end piece less than four inches long, the barrel was covered with other parts that made it too clumsy to get a decent handhold.

“Some of the parts have sharp edges. If I tried to hold the barrel like a club or a baseball bat, I’d cut my hands, first thing. Then I couldn’t hold on well enough to hit him with it. Besides, blood is slippery stuff.”

Chaney didn’t reply, just cried.