She Died in Chains , Now He's Crawling Back

After my boyfriend tricked me into the Bleakridge mountains, I became a breeding machine.

The day a village doctor sliced my belly open during a hemorrhagic labor, I lay in a pool of my own blood.

Through the door, I could hear the two village women on guard duty cracking sunflower seeds and chatting:

"That college girl from the city is so gullible. She actually thinks she was kidnapped by traffickers."

"Well, what did she expect? She crossed Mr. Simmons' favorite person."

"Mr. Simmons paid our chief fifty grand to get the whole village in on this little 'survival game.' Even the labor-inducing drugs came straight from him."

"I heard Mr. Simmons said once she's suffered through three years in this hellhole and felt every bit of what his sworn sister went through, he'd be gracious enough to take her back and marry her."

Through the crack in the door, I saw it—a video call from my fiancé, Leigh Simmons, lighting up one of the women's phones.

So these three years of living hell had been nothing more than a punishment he'd custom-designed for me, all to make his sworn sister happy.

The agony in my abdomen clawed at every nerve. Just as consciousness began to slip away, a mechanical voice rang through my mind:

"Host, the suffering quota for capture target Leigh Simmons has been fulfilled. Do you wish to abandon the mission and exit the current world?"

...

I opened my eyes and stared at the blackened wooden beam above me.

The wooden door was slammed open by brute force.

The hinges snapped. The plank crashed into the mud, sending filth splashing in every direction.

Leigh Simmons walked in wearing a black suit, stepping into the dim pigsty.

Five bodyguards in dark sunglasses followed behind him.

Along with two private physicians carrying medical kits.

The village doctor was crouched beside me, a rusted suturing needle pinched between his fingers. A coarse black thread dangled from its tip, hovering over my abdomen—where the skin and flesh had been torn open, blood still pouring out.

Leigh stopped. His gaze swept across the floor—pig dung, bloodied straw.

He raised a hand and pointed at the village doctor.

"Stop. Get out."

The doctor dropped the needle and thread. His hands were caked in dark, half-dried blood. He scrambled out of the pigsty on all fours.

Leigh turned to the private physicians behind him.

"Give her a cardiac stimulant. High-dose adrenaline. She doesn't get to pass out right now."

The two physicians moved quickly.

One of them cracked open a medical kit, drew out a long syringe, and filled it with a clear solution.

The physician grabbed the shriveled skin on the inside of my thigh and drove the thick needle into a vein.

The clear liquid was pushed into my body in seconds.

Ten seconds later, the drug's effect spread through my bloodstream.

My muscles began to spasm uncontrollably. My body thrashed and convulsed across the filthy pile of straw. With every seizure, the unsutured wound on my abdomen split wider, releasing another surge of blood. It ran down my thighs and pooled on the ground in a dark, spreading puddle.

Leigh took a step back, avoiding the blood creeping toward his shoes.

"Cut the act. I know exactly how much you can take."

He looked down at me from above.

"I've read the script the village sent me. The pig-blood pouch and the fake wound glued to your stomach—nice prop work."

A cold laugh left his throat.

"You think playing the tragic heroine is going to erase what you did to Ivy?"

The drugs sent a spike of white-hot pain through my skull.

My upper body lurched forward. My hands clawed at the ground on instinct.

Withered fingers scraped through the mud and brushed the hem of Leigh Simmons' suit trousers.

The instant my fingertips made contact, a shredded whisper crawled out of my throat.

"Leigh... it hurts..."

His expression darkened. He jerked his foot back and kicked my hand away.

The back of my hand cracked against the stone trough beside me, scraping off a layer of skin.