I jerked awake with an incredible stiff neck and something big in my mouth. Don't worry, it was just cotton. I think... I cautiously brought my tongue to the tip of the object in my mouth and quickly retreated. Cotton. There was a wad of cotton in my mouth to shut me up.

                  That emo BITCH!

                  It was cold. I'm talking lets-stick-Pepper-in-the-freezer cold. And it was pitch black. The kind of darkness that made someone overwhelmingly paranoid and lonesome. Wonderful feeling, really. Squinting my eyes through the darkness, I started to wonder if I was at the center of a trap, and if I moved even the slightest two giant blades would slice me in half. Or maybe I was at the center of some psychotic, Satanic circle and Gary was off preparing his side dishes for his cannibalistic sacrifice.

                  Finally finding the strength and courage to ignore the pitiful loneliness and quit being such a little girl, I tried to move around and--

                  Oh.

                  Alright, so I was tied up. My hands were bounded over my head and my toes stretched downwards towards the ground as I tried to stand.  Instead, I swung like a loner pendulum ball, like a "wrecking ball" as Miley Cyrus would say, swaying back and forth in the darkness. The knot at my hands was tight as hell. Gary must have been a boy scout. A really, really emo boy scout. Agitated, I wiggled again. Alright, so Gary must have been a really, really, really emo boy scout because this knot was perfection.         

                  I clenched my fingers. All there. I shook my legs. There. I wiggled my feet. There. I rolled my neck. Still stiff, but in the right place. No pain. No notably symptoms of any drugs. (Not that Pepper Ballard did drugs. But there was that time I accidently snorted a Pixie stick...)

                  As I said before, there was a strip of clean cotton in my mouth that prevented me from crying out. The more I focused on it, the more I wanted it out. I started to feebly sob, then gagged on the cotton and kicked out all over again, starting the pendulum swinging back and forth again. Great.

                  My heart thrummed wildly in my chest. Gary was Smiley. I couldn't believe it, but I remembered it all too clearly and it was nauseating. The bastard. He told me I was getting in the way of his "job". Please, I was only like 5'9 or something, he could have easily taken me with him and swung an axe over my head and kill whoever he wanted. Alright, maybe the cotton in my mouth did have some sort of drugs in it because I was taking his evil side. His evil, sexy, dark...muscular--

                  Non-pierced nipples that nobody cares about but you... Conscious reminded me bitterly.

                  Anyways. If I passed out and wasn't feeling any pain anywhere, I knew Gary must have struck me in the neck at a pressure point.

                  The precision of a serial killer.

                  I give up, I thought, hanging loosely from the rope with my head to my chest. I was doomed. Pushing up daisies. R.I.P Pepper Ballard, bitches. I could see it now, my mom and dad standing in front of my grave. My mom had a box of condoms in her hand that she scattered along the dirt in front of it, whispering something like, 'You can still get the itch in Heaven" or something like that. Dad was momentarily sobbing over his beloved daughter dying, then casually leaned over to mom and said, "Can we try for a boy this time?" Nobody loved me. Nobody would miss me. Pepper Ballard was--

                  Abruptly, I smelled the air. Plywood, gasoline and...cigarettes?

                  CIGARETTES? Conscious and I started to do some mental calculations. Wood + flammable stuff + Pepper = BOOM. Girl, we need to GTFO of here immediately! We need to make like Dubstep and drop the heeeelll from this ceiling!

                  Wailing against the cotton in my mouth, I tugged hard on the ropes that bound me to the ceiling. Where was that smell coming from? Was it Gary smoking? 

                  "Hello, Paprika. Hiding out in the shed, I see? It was like a fun game of hide and go seek to find you. Although, that apple scent of yours was a dead giveaway."

                  I wasn't alone! I would be saved! I shook like a wild animal form the ceiling, kicking over objects and making an orchestra of noises. "MMHM!! MMHM!" HELP ME! HELP ME! It was Hunter! Yes! Crap! It was Hunter! He couldn't see that I was dangling from the ceiling with a wad of cotton in my mouth!

                  I could see the fiery orange end of his cigarette as he brought it to his mouth. "What the hell is wrong with you, kitten? Are you having a seizer or something?"

                  "MMM.... HMM!!"

                  Hunter made a flattered noise. "Why yes, I am sexy and great in bed. Thank you for noticing. Now, enough with the hard to get stuff, let's talk politics," Hunter said, his deep, rough voice startling me. "Have you thought about my proposal?"

                  Oh no. The decision.

                  "Mmm," I huffed out, giving up.

                  "What's wrong, kitten?" Finally, I heard Hunter coming towards me. His big body creaked the floor boards of the shed. "You seem distressed," he concluded. I felt his body radiating heat in front of me, and made a soft noise in my throat. Help. If I didn't get this wad of cotton out of my mouth ASAP, I knew I was going to throw up and feebly choke and die on my barf.

                  Hunters hands went to my sides, then traveled upwards, following my bound arms all the way to the top. "Well, well, well," he purred deeply, "you'll all bound up for me like a little Christmas gift." His hands slid slowly slid back down my sides. "If you wanted to be mine this badly, you could have just said so. However, tying yourself to the ceiling and--" his fingers explored my mouth -- "gagging yourself, makes you look pretty desperate. Luckily, I like desperate." His sharp teeth grazed my ear and a low growl formed in his throat. "Desperation makes the blood taste better," he added huskily at my neck.

                  Loosing my patience, I screamed against the cloth in my mouth, making his fingers tense on my hips. I needed to find Gary. I needed to stop him. I screamed and screamed until finally Hunter got the idea, reached into my mouth, and took out the wad of cotton.

                  "What the--?"

                  "My friend Gary is Smiley and he tied me up in here because he's going to sacrifice me to Satan!" I shrieked at the top of my lungs. "He's going to kill someone else at the Crave! For all I know, it could be the whole club! We have to stop him! We have to--!"

                  Hunter started to hysterically laugh. "A kid named Gary did this to you?" With a single tug from Hunter's strong hands, I dropped from the ceiling and crumpled momentarily to the floor, rapidly loosening the loops around my wrists and rubbing the raw, red skin.

                  "He's not some kid, he's Smiley!" I gasped out once more.

                  "Holy shit give me a chance to breath," Hunter laughed out. Soon, he was thrown into a coughing fit of laughter. "The killers name is Gary? I thought it would be Spike...or maybe Max...or maybe Barrons. Those are some intimidating names. But Gary? That has to be the most embarrassing, fake evil name I've ever heard of." Suddenly, he was serious. "Am I honestly supposed to believe all of this? Just because you want to get out of my proposal..."

                  "What?" I screeched, reaching out in the darkness and gripping Hunter by the shirt. "You honestly think I'm lying to you? His name is actually Gary! He's a gothic student from Mortimer high, and I thought he was really nice...and cute-- but that's beside the point! That's exactly what he wanted me to think! He's evil and dangerous and you have to believe me!"

                  Hunter was silent for a while, then carefully pried my hands from his shirt, brushing off imaginary dust. "Well F me with a guide dog. I should have known a Hot Topic would be Smiley. It's always the gothic ones, isn't it?"

                  "No, it's usually the butler," I corrected. "It's not Gary's style that makes him Smiley, it's something else. Something dark." I started to pace the floors. "I should have known it was him. I should have known..." I must have been hanging from the ceiling for a while because I suddenly lost my momentum and fell forward towards Hunter, who grasped me by the arms and steadied me. He smelled like cigarettes and watermelon jolly ranchers.

                  "You smoke?" I asked, entirely aware of how close we were.

                  "Shh." He unwrapped a jolly rancher and popped it into his mouth, pocketing his box of cigarettes. "Mommy thinks I'm quitting."

                  "Whatever. Next time don't smoke in a room filled with plywood and gasoline and a hanging girl or else I'll smoke your ass with my fist." A realization hit me and I threw my arms out around me until I felt a string hanging from the ceiling. Giving it one firm tug, a light turned on and I was welcomed by the familiarity of my family's shed.

                  "Hmph!" I put my hands on my hips. "He didn't even get creative and hang me from a building or something. It's my own shed! Am I not worth the effort, at least?" My voice grew softer as I wondered, "Why didn't he kill me Hunter?"

                  Hunter felt around the room until he picked up a wrench on my dad's work bench and hit the back of his hand with it lightly. "I'm not sure, kitten. There are many weapons in here to kill you with. My guess is that you must be...worth something to him." He then gripped the wrench tighter in his hand. "Tell me something. Did he ever admit that he was actually Smiley, or have you just assumed it?"

                  I thought about that for a moment. Maybe I had jumped to conclusions quickly. "Gary wanted me "out of the way" of his "job"," I said, adding quotation marks in the air then realizing it was pointless because Hunter was blind.

                  "Sounds to me like he didn't want you to get hurt. If I was a serial killer, I would have at least slit your throat and hung you upside down like a cow, not hang you from the ceiling of your family's shed with a weak little boys scout knot."

                  "It was a tough knot!"

                  Hunter laughed to himself, but it was in a sad way. "So what'll it be, kitten? Are you accepting my proposal?"

                  I swallowed a lump in my throat.  "I can't," I whispered.

                  He didn't say anything for a while. My mind was telling me to run the hell out of there and get to Crave by myself, but my feet were glued to the floor like a kindergarten project gone wrong. "Then I told you what I was going to do to you," he said, then came at me like a giant boulder. "I have to kill you."

                   "WHOA!" I shouted, throwing out my hands as he brought the wrench in his hand up to whack me in the head. "You're going to  kill me?! What is wrong you people?"

                  "Yes."

                  "Yes? Yes to what? I thought you were just being really dramatic when you said you were going to kill me!"

                  "Dramatic," he echoed dryly, clearly offended.

                  "You know what I mean," I growled in response. "I thought you were just trying to intimidate me in a hybrid-y way! You're honestly going to kill me because you were going to force me to be a hybrid slash easy-mate baby oven and I want to decline?"

                  "Yes."

                  "How fair," I drawled out sarcastically. "Are you still going to bite me too?"

                  "Please. Me biting you would be a privilege." Mr. Arrogant shoved me against the wall, wrench still in air. "Little kitten, who are you to tell me what's not fair. You people are the ones that did this to me." He motioned to his sunglasses. "I have every right to kill you if you decline my offer."

                  "What! You people? I don't even know if I'm a hunter!"

                  "Yes you do, I told you."

                  "Oh--well, fine! I'm a hunter!" I stuttered out. "I'm a big, bad, scary hunter! But I didn't make you blind or torture you or whatever the hell happened to you! I had no say in what made you so heartless that you would hurt an innocent girl who--damnit all! Who just wants her breasts to be a tinsy bit bigger, is suffering from other forms of teen agnst, and has major problems keeping her voice down and keeping out of people's business!"

                  Hunter removed his sunglasses and stared at me blankly. Was that look because he was blind, or was he just thinking really hard? The world may never--

                  "An Alpha doesn't make a bonding offer to a female and let whomever it is decline and survive. Therefore.. I don't have time for you to screw with me. Yes...or no."

                  "Here's an idea, how about you go kill whoever MADE YOU BLIND?!"

                  "Fine, I won't kill you."

                  "Really?"

                 He shook his head, laughing. "No."

                  Suddenly, the door to the shed kicked open, and in came Ronny, bedazzler in hand. He struck a pose momentarily, then put on his game face, bedazzler aimed at Hunter like a gun.

                  "Ronny!" I shouted dramatically. "You've come to save me!"

                  "Pepper! You know I got your back--" He looked horrified at my outfit. Mouth open, he dropped the bedazzler to his shoulder and cocked his hip to the side with a scowl on his face. He shut his eyes with a loud sigh. "Girl, when I open my eyes you better not be wearing those boots again. This is the second time you've worn those in a week. That is U to the N to the acceptable."

                  "Um..." Hunter trailed off.

                  "Don't you move a muscle, sweet cheeks!" Ronny hissed, bringing his bedazzler back up like a gun, eying the wrench in Hunter's hand. "Most importantly, don't you ever touch my main bitch, you well-dressed heterosexual!"

                  BOOM.

                  My ears rung and my eyes were wide open. Hunter's heavy body smacked to the ground in a matter of seconds. No sparkles. Just blood forming in the center of his shirt. What Ronny was holding was not a bedazzler. It was a gun.

                 ***

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