'Saaam! What are you doing?' Al crouched beside him, tapping and slamming the handlink. 'Get up, get up. They're here. Ziggy's got them on his sensors.'

The sandal's strap had snapped. Sam pulled it off, almost relieved to have it gone, and then decided he'd be better with both feet the same, and pulled the other sandal off as well. 'Where?' Sam tried to propel himself up but fell on his face a second time; it hadn't occurred to him that his dress had been trapped beneath his knee.

'Over there!' Al waved, an unnecessary gesture. Even as he spoke, Sam could hear the angry-wasp ring of trail-bikes. 'Gotta get up. Up!'

There was wetness running down Sam's face. Sweat or tears, he wasn't sure which, he didn't care. His heart was pounding and his hands shaking, adrenaline pouring through him so that he wasn't feeling the pain now, just the need. Get away. He forced himself into a staggering run, aiming for the thickest shrubs, the best cover. A million stones, sticks and tree roots seemed to poke up into his unprotected feet but he ignored it all. He needed places those trail-bikes couldn't go.

'This way.' Al led the way, passing through fallen logs and tangled creepers.

'I hope…there's…no poison ivy…ow!…in there,' Sam panted.

Al sucked on his cigar and rolled his eyes. 'As if I would.'

Sam crawled after him, thrusting through bushes that tore at him, ripped chunks out of his dress. He didn't care, he just had to get away.

'Down here.' Al was whispering as if they could hear him.

The sound of the trail bikes rang through the forest. They were like hunting wolves, calling to each other. There was a dark space beneath a fallen tree. 'You'll fit,' Al said.

Sam pushed his way down through the dirt. Spider webs clung to his hair and face, dust drifted into his eyes and he scrunched them shut, tried to blink them clean although he wanted to rub them. His leg ached, the wound pushed into the dirt. He tried to ease himself onto his back so that he could at least wipe it clean with the hem of the dress, but there wasn't room. He was only deluding himself anyway, that wound was already dirty and he could feel the first hot throb of infection building in it.

'Stay low,' Al hissed.

The bikes ripped past, they made a sound like chain-saws, tearing apart the forest. Sam gave up and brushed the dust from his eyes. Al was crouched in front of him, as if he could shield Sam from the hunters on their bikes. In the distance he could hear the sound of the engines, growing louder again.

'Has anything changed?'

'What?' Al looked up over his cigar, something that might have been panic shining in his eyes.

'Ziggy.' Sam gestured at the handlink. 'Now that I'm hidden, has anything changed.'

'Oh, yeah.' Al shot a plume of smoke and turned his attention to the handlink. His fingers jabbed an urgent tattoo and bashed and bashed the link with the side of his hand as if it was stuck giving an inappropriate reading. 'It's no good, Sam, you gotta get out of there. They still find you. Her.'

The sound of the bikes had lulled and Sam could hear voices, a victorious crowing, harsh laughter and then the bikes again. The bikes, getting louder.

'Now. Get out now.' Al grabbed at him, insubstantial hands passing through Sam's wrists and shoulders.

Sam lunged forward, every step jolting red hot razors through his thigh and the voices were loud and the sound of the bikes was all around him, that howling, screaming ring of bikes like angry hornets.

'This way!' Al, vanishing into a thicket and Sam trying to follow him.

All that noise and then nothing. Suddenly nothing. And then a voice, harsh and male. Young but low pitched. No humor in the tone, only a grating, vicious edge. The voice of a predator. 'Just like tracking a wounded elk,' it drawled.

Sam stopped and turned. He could hardly walk, now, anyway. He felt as vulnerable as a deer caught in headlights. There were three of them. Two were large, young men, early twenties at best but with the rough confidence of pack dogs. The third was younger, the schoolboy who had lured Suzie into this trap in the first place. He hung back. Perhaps that was a flash of guilt in his expression. It was hard to tell from this distance.

Al burst through a thicket of bushes. 'Get a move on. What are you? Oh geez. This is very, very bad.'

'You stupid little bitch.' The leader of the group dropped his bike into the dirt and strode towards Sam.

'I know,' Sam said to Al.

'Yeah, we all know.' The leader didn't even pause. When he was close enough to reach, he snapped a backhanded slap that cracked across the right side of Sam's face, spinning him to the left, momentarily blinding him.

'Bastard!' Al yelled. He shuddered at the hit but already was tapping fast at the handlink. 'Gus Bancroft,' he said. 'Guy's a career criminal. Started out stealing candy from babies when he was at nursery school, currently doing time for murder. Police suspected him in the Dempsey case but never got a break. You okay?'

Sam hunched over, hands covering his face. His right cheek burned and his eye throbbed. He stood there for a long time, allowing tears of pain to leak between his fingers. He trembled and his shoulders shuddered, as if he was sobbing. 'What about the others?' he murmured to Al.

'Redhead's Ray Trimble. Died in sixty-eight in an MVA following a convenience store robbery. Spent half his life in prison up till then, petty larceny, drunk and disorderly, even managed to get himself busted for assaulting an off-duty police officer. Total loser.'

'Just where the fuck did you think you were going?' Bancroft grabbed Sam's shoulders and shook him hard.

Sam took his hands away from his face, knowing that he must look hopeless. Snot-nosed and dirty, his right cheek glowing hot. He looked into Bancroft's mad eyes. 'Nowhere.'

'Nowhere. That's right.' Bancroft swung at him again but Sam was fast enough this time, moved with the hit so that it only caught him a glancing blow. Bancroft grabbed his arm and shoved him towards the other man and the boy.

'Where are you taking me?' There was no way they could get him back into the box, not alive. The lid was smashed and it wasn't going to keep him in place again. Sam was afraid they were just planning to put him back in the box dead. He'd be much less of a problem to them that way.

'Good point,' Bancroft said. He stopped and reached into his pocket.

'I don't know,' Al said. 'But there's an old cabin a little over ten kilometers from here. Used to be part of a loggers' camp in the days when those nozzles were cutting down the forests. I can't believe they would do that, I mean will you look at all this?' Al gazed up into the sun-speckled canopy of trees. 'How could anybody cut these down?'

Bancroft shoved Sam between the shoulder blades, closer now to Trimble who was still astride his bike. 'Get on.'

'Why's she have to get on my bike?' Trimble grumbled. 'Filthy slut stinks.'

He spat into Sam's face but when Sam raised his hand to wipe it away, Bancroft, behind him, whacked the side of his head so that now he had a thick ear to match his swollen eye and stinging cheek. 'Keep your hands to yourself,' Bancroft barked.

'He was just trying to wipe his own face,' Al yelled back. It never seemed to bother him that the people couldn't hear.

In Bancroft's hand there was a filthy rag that had been used to wipe up grease after working on the bikes, or something.

'Cheez! Why don't you try picking on someone your own size?' Al's face was a hand's breadth away from Bancroft.

If he'd had a mirror, Sam would have seen himself as a slender girl with lank and dirty strawberry blonde hair, being monstered by these men. It was frighteningly easy to act the part, he was cowed and exhausted and confused, the ache in his leg was making him feel ill, and it was so swollen he could hardly bend his knee.

'Just get on,' Bancroft shouted again. He tore the rag into two long, filthy pieces.

Sam staggered, almost overbalancing as he got onto the pillion seat behind Trimble. His feet were sore and battered and he could hardly flex his knee to get into position on the foot peg. He was wearing nothing but an indian cotton frock, a small lacy bra and a pair of pee-stained panties and he'd never felt more vulnerable in his life. His leg was caked with blood and dirt and he felt dizzy and sick, hardly able to balance on the back of the bike. Then Bancroft grabbed his arms and dragged them behind him. Sam flexed his muscles, trying to fight the sudden constriction of his wrists, Bancroft was using one of the rags to tie his hands together. There was no point in fighting, there was nowhere to run and Sam had lost his bearings now, he couldn't even find his way back to the road if he stole the motorbike. He just had to let himself be treated like an animal, to hope that he could buy enough time to get out of this.

Al watched on, helpless. A moment later Bancroft used the other half of the rag to cover Sam's eyes. It was hard enough, trying to balance on the back of the bike with his hands tied, but now he couldn't even see.

'Wait, you can't…'

A hand snatched his hair and a fist drew him close to Bancroft's cigarette breath.

'Don't provoke him, Sam.' Al's voice, reassuringly close to his other ear. 'He's crazy. If you just, if you just be nice he might go a bit easy.'

'Be nice,' Sam repeated, dazed.

'What?' Bancroft's voice screamed at him. 'What'd you say?'

'I, uh…'

'Because you don't tell me.' He shook Sam, jerked him viciously. 'I tell you.' He shoved Sam hard, slamming him into Trimble's BO smelling jacket.

'I'm afraid I'll fall off.'

'Well you better hang on,' Trimble said.

'Squeeze. With your thighs,' Bancroft said, his voice thick with innuendo.

The others laughed with him and a hand slipped up Sam's leg, beneath the dress and squeezed, fingers brushing perilously close to the thin cotton of his stinky panties. Despite his fear and hatred of the situation, he let himself lean into the rider's back, his hands bound helpless behind him, unable to grab onto anything, and he clenched his thighs as tight as he could, onto the worn vinyl of the seat.

'Just hang on, Sam.' Al's voice close beside him, thick with passion. 'I'm gonna be right here, right here with you.'

The bike shuddered beneath him and tipped as the rider planted his foot on the ground and spun them around.

'Just - when I tell you to lean, you lean, okay?' Al said.

'Okay,' Sam agreed.

'What'd you say, bitch?' Trimble shouted.

Sam didn't reply, relied on the noise of the bikes to cover anything he might have said.

'Right here, kid. Get ready, now ease over to the left.' Al's voice was steady, reassuring.

Sam listened to Al's instructions, tipped with the rider, followed through, straightening up with him. He wished he could have seen Al, standing just there on his left, keeping up with the bike thanks to the effortless magic of Ziggy. It seemed like a long time, holding to the back of that bike and his right leg had gone numb, weak, he could no longer hold his foot on the foot peg and could only hope that it was angled away from the bike enough to not get caught in the chain or get hit by the rocks on the dirt track. Worse than that, he was feeling cold and he knew it was the cold of fever. That the infection had set into that leg and was going to make him really sick.

The bike slowed and the sound of the engines cut and died.

'I was right,' Al said. 'It's the cabin.'

Somebody grabbed Sam's upper arm and dragged him off the bike. Stones bit into his feet and his right leg buckled beneath him. He fell awkwardly onto the ground and couldn't stop a yelp of pain.

'Get up, you stupid bitch.' The boy's voice.

A foot connected with his back.

'Leave him alone you bastards.' Al just didn't care that nobody could hear him.

It hadn't been a hard kick, the boy could have broken ribs if he'd wanted to. Sam didn't care either way, he was just cold. So cold. He pressed his chest against the faint warmth of the ground beneath him.

'Hey!' Trimble, sounding angry. 'What is she, a contortionist or something?' Sound of feet scuffling in the dirt. 'Maybe if her hands weren't tied up she could get up.'

'Oh, gee perfesser. Thanks for that.'

Hands pulled at the rag around his wrists, jerked him roughly so that the rag twisted and bit deeper before it came loose. Sam wanted to reach around and take away the rag that was masking his eyes, but his arms had been twisted in their sockets and gone numb and useless.

'Now get up!' The boy's voice again, vicious, harsh.

'Just leave her alone.' Trimble's voice was close by his ear and it must have been Trimble's hand on his arm, helping him up, but now Sam could hardly walk, could hardly move.

He was shaking all over, so cold. So very cold. He hugged his arms across the torn fabric of the dress and when Trimble put his arm around Sam's shoulders, he leaned into the other man, not caring that this was one of the men who abducted Susan, who raped and murdered her, only seeking out his warmth. Trimble pawed the blindfold off Sam's eyes as they walked. All at once he could see the ramshackle cabin, the rotting verandah, Bancroft and the boy, both carrying backpacks Al walking beside him, like a ghost passing through walls.

It was dark and stuffy inside the cabin until the boy opened the windows and pushed the shutters that were covering them. It was small and dirty, just one room with a fireplace at one end and a couple of camp beds at the other. Sam wanted one of those beds. He was past caring about what was going to happen to him or Susan or whoever. He was cold and he was sick, his feet hurt and his leg ached and if he could just lie down on one of those beds and wrap a blanket around himself everything would feel so much better.

'What are you doing with her?' the boy said.

'How about leave him alone,' Al suggested to no one.

'You're not giving her a bed,' Bancroft said. 'Bitch stinks to high heaven.'

'Oh, and I'm betting your personal hygiene sets a standard,' Al snapped.

'Maybe she could have a wash or something,' Trimble said.

'A floral scented bubble bath for madame?' said Bancroft.

'Hey, yeah,' the boy was laughing. 'She could have a perm set and hand job afterwards.'

'Hand job?' Al spluttered.

'Hand job?' Bancroft snorted.

The boy's face reddened. 'You know, where they get their nails all prettied up and stuff.'

Sam was deeply relieved.

'Manicure,' Trimble said. 'I was thinking of just warming some water up over the fire and letting her wash herself a bit.'

'What for?' Bancroft emptied tins of food out of his backpack onto a wooden table and then poked at the fireplace. He turned to the boy. 'Go get some firewood.'

'What for?' Trimble jerked Sam towards Bancroft. 'I don't know about you but I don't enjoy the smell of her.'

Despite what he said, Trimble's arm was still firm around Sam's shoulders, and Sam was grateful. His teeth were chattering too hard for him to even try to answer either of the men, and he didn't think they'd be interested in whatever he had to say anyway. He'd have loved to put on Trimble's jacket though, he'd be warm then, and he so wanted to sit down. He looked at Al, feeling helpless.

Al shook his head. 'It's that cut on your leg, Sam. Ziggy says your temperature's up over a hundred degrees now and climbing. You're in for a bad time unless you get some antiseptic, antibiotics and a whole lotta painkillers and I don't think these nozzles are gonna be any help with anything.'

'Please,' Sam hissed through his chattering teeth. 'Even if it's just a bucket of cold water.' He hated the thought of cold water. The thought of anything cold, but if there was a chance he could get himself clean, then he had to take it. 'And disinfectant. If you have any.'

Trimble grabbed up a sooty metal bucket from beside the fireplace. 'Just be grateful for whatever you're given.' He sat Sam down hard onto a wooden stool and took the bucket outside.

Sam pulled the rag dressing away from the wound in his leg and poked his fingers into the hot, hard flesh. Maybe he could get it cleaned up. Maybe he could help himself.

The boy came in, his arms full of firewood, and dumped it on the floor by Sam's feet. 'You really are a piece of work, aren't you? Sitting there like queen bitch, just like you do at school, just waiting for everyone to do stuff for you.'

'Danny Alesio,' Al read off the handlink. He gave a short, hard laugh of derision. 'Dies from a drug overdose in less than a year.' Al peered at the boy. 'Great career move, kid.'

'I didn't ask to be here,' Sam said. He decided to take a risk on what little he knew about Susan. 'And I don't just sit around at school, it's called "studying." I'm trying to improve my mind.'

'And look where it got you.' Danny pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and took one, lit it. 'Pies for the Chinese. That is fucking A-one. I mean, can you even begin to see what's wrong with that for an idea?'

Trimble came back in, he didn't have the bucket with him. 'Thought you were supposed to be lighting the fire,' he said to Alesio.

'Yeah, all right. Keep your shirt on.'

Trimble picked up a blanket from the nearest bed and took Sam's arm. 'Come on.'

He didn't want to get up. It was going to hurt. It was going to be cold. 'I don't think I can.' Sam leaned forward on the chair, trying to keep his weight just on his left leg.

'Well, you have to.' Trimble's grip tightened around his arm but his tone was almost sympathetic.

Sam stumbled down the rickety verandah steps and stood by the bucket, now full of water. His dress was sodden with sweat and the breeze blew through it, chilling him. He stood in sunlight but felt no warmth. Al, head down like a guard dog, stood beside him.

'Take it off,' Trimble ordered.

Sam looked at him dumbly. The only things he had on were clothes.

'Don't!' Al said. 'She got raped. Don't do anything.'

'Don't mess me round,' said Trimble. 'And don't get all conceited. I got a kid sister your age and I'm not interested. Now take that stinkin rag off.' He grabbed the neck of the dress and tore it so that the front gaped and hung off Sam's shoulder. 'Come on. Get it off.' He held up the blanket. 'Take everything off and once you're done washing you can wrap up in this.' He turned so that his back was towards Sam. 'Hurry up and get done.'

Sam gazed at Al, helpless.

'He does have a sixteen year old sister.' He shrugged. 'If it's any help, I'll turn round.'

Sam pawed at the neck of the dress, dragged it down past his shoulders and let it fall to the ground. At least he wouldn't stink any more. And maybe they'd let him lie down. It would be so nice to lie down, the headache might go away then, too. He reached round behind himself for the bra hook, had no idea how it worked. This was so incongruous. He knew if there was a mirror handy he'd see a skinny sixteen year old girl in her underwear, but looking down, all he could see was his broad, hairy chest encased in a lemon colored nylon lace bra. A-cup.

'How can you have such trouble undoing a bra?' Al was sucking on his cigar, shaking his head in dismay at Sam's ineptitude.

'I thought you were going to turn your back.'

'Just get a move on, willya?' Trimble turned away again.

Sam was on display. He pulled the bra straps down his shoulders and off his arms then turned it round backwards so that he could see the hook that was keeping the contraption done up.

'Now that's something I'da liked to see in school time.' Alesio was standing at the top of the stairs, grinning like a rat trap.