The Irish Catholic from a big family in him loved that.

The worried hellren part of him was not quite as enthused.

I need to go on a date, he thought.

“Where are we going?” V asked in his ear.

Shit, he’d said that out loud. “Not you.”

“Hurt. Seriously hurt over here,” came the tinny reply.

“Marissa and I need…”

“If it’s sex ed, I could have sworn you two figured that out. Unless all those sounds are just the pair of you thumb-wrestling.”

“Really.”

“You’re saying that shit is origami? Jesus Christ, the paper cuts … can’t fucking imagine, true?”

“Stop it.”

“Says Marissa never.”

“Not been the case recently,” Butch retorted.

“You got problems?”

“I don’t know.”

There was a long period of silence. “I have an idea.”

“I’m open to anything—”

“That’s what she said!” Lassiter cut in.

“V, I thought you took that away from—” The sounds of the two males wrestling on the up-close had him popping his earpiece out and grimacing.

Lassiter was clearly getting the beat-down he’d been begging for, and under any other circumstance, Butch would have found the pair, and not to play referee. But he had more important things to worry about.

Especially as he had two new visitors to welcome to this liquid-ish round of the party.

And when V came back on, maybe Butch would get some good advice. Provided his best friend could think outside of the spiked-collar/black-candlewax/nipple-clamp world.

Shit.

Paradise thrashed against the hold on her ankles, fishtailing her torso back and forth on the floor she was being dragged over, clawing with her hands. Inside the sack around her head, her hot breath suffocated her—or maybe she had just sucked all the oxygen out.

In response, panic gasolined her entire body, spasming up her muscles and turning her brain into a super-highway of thoughts that did absolutely nothing to calm her down or help her out. Part of her wanted to call out to Peyton, but he wasn’t going to save her. They’d gotten him, too. The other half was extrapolating all kinds of bad outcomes.

What next! What next! What next what nextwhatnext—

“Next” arrived with the same lack of warning that everything else had: the forward momentum stopped, a second person stepped up and grabbed her shoulders, and she was flipped off the ground.

Paradise screamed again in the bag, and tried to break herself out of the holds. Not possible. The grips were so strong, she might as well have had vises biting into her skin and bones—

Swinging.

She was being swung left and right, momentum growing, as if she were about to be thrown.

“No!”

Just as she was released at the top of the left arc, the bag was ripped free of her head. She had two incredible gulps of air—and then she was falling, falling, falling, through a darkness marked with strange sounds—

Splaaaaaaash!

Water everywhere—getting into her nose, her mouth, encapsulating her body. Instinct took over, her senses immediately calibrating that “up” was the opposite way she was sinking. Spidering her arms and legs out, she found that the binding on her ankles had been freed.

She broke the surface with such force her torso popped free like a cork, and she coughed so violently she nearly lost consciousness. In between the racking, though, she was able to get air down … and then she was sucking in great hauls of oxygen, the simple luxury of being able to breathe preoccupying her with a gratitude that brought tears to her eyes. That didn’t last long. All around, she could hear people struggling in the water, sounds of them coughing, breathing, paddling to stay afloat.

How many?

Was this the second part?

Treading water, she wanted to call for Peyton, but wasn’t sure that drawing attention to herself was a good idea. For all she knew—

“Paradise!”

The sound of Peyton’s voice was close by and to the right. “Yes,” she choked out. “I’m here—are you okay—”

“Are you all right!”

“I’m right here.” She spoke a little more loudly. “I’m right—”

Next thing she knew, a strong hand had taken her arm and was pulling her through the water.

“I can stand here,” Peyton said. “Let me hold you up.”

“I don’t need—”

“You have to conserve your strength. This is just beginning.”

He sounded so reasonable, like maybe the shock of the water had sobered him up. And then his hands were smooth on her waist as he turned her around so she was facing away from him.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered.

His arm locked around her, and the feel of his strong body behind her made her tense up. When all he did was breathe like he was in recovery, too, she began to relax a little, even though she couldn’t see anything and her legs kept brushing up against his.

She’d never actually been this close to a male before.

Although, given the situation they were in, now was hardly the time to waste a second on that nonsense; Peyton had nothing on his mind other than survival.

With tenuous relief, she sagged in his hold, letting herself go. Her instincts remained on high alert, but at least her body had a brief respite, her heart rate slowing, that horrid burn in her lungs extinguishing—

Splash! Splash!

Two more candidates—or victims—hit the water far, far away, giving her a sense of exactly how big the pool or pond or lake they were in had to be. Except … no, it wasn’t a lake. The water was chlorinated.

A pool. They were in a pool underground—probably not far from the gym, given that she hadn’t been dragged miles.

“What comes next?” she said.

“I don’t know. But you and I are going to stay together.”

“Yes.” She was shocked at how much his presence calmed her—in spite of the fact that there was still nothing to see, and she had no clue as to what they were going to be hit with next—

Splash! Splash! Splash!

“How many are in here?” she said.

“Five just came in. So there are at least seven of us.”

“Out of sixty…? There have to be more.” How could she be one of such a small number to make it this far? “Surely, there are—”

Four more came in—one dropping really close to them, three others entering far off on the other side.

“Am I too heavy for you?” she asked.

“Oh, please.”

As he switched his grip, her body moved in the water, her backside pressing against the front of his pelvis. She didn’t feel anything there … but she wouldn’t have known what to be worried about even if he had been aroused.

Another person hit the pool.

And then …

… for a long period of time there were no more additions. In reality, it was probably just a couple of minutes, but it felt like hours … days.

Her fear kept humming along, but with nothing to immediately feed off of, the anxiety began to cannibalize her rational side, all kinds of craziness running through her mind. What if this wasn’t a training program? What if this was some kind of … social experiment? A body-snatcher routine … or an attempt to … jeez, she didn’t know.

A wave of terror shot through her. She couldn’t see anything, and the roar inside her head was drowning out the sounds in the pool, and her body was too tired to process the shaking that racked her.

“What comes next?” she moaned.

“I—”

Before Peyton could answer, she became aware that something had changed around them. The others noticed, too, the bodies in the water stilling as if they were trying to assess what was different.

The water level was dropping.

The choppy surface had been at her shoulders—but was only now to her upper arms, then her elbows.

Her heart rate ramped up once more, a buzzy, trippy dizziness making her head spin.

“What are they going to do to us now?” she gasped.

Lower … and lower still … until her feet hit the bottom like Peyton’s could. She stayed in the circle of his arm, though—at least with his big body behind her, she knew that her back was covered.