Excerpt: Pretty Girl 13 (PG-13)

PROLOGUE - LOST TIME

You had forgotten how early the sun rose on summer camp outs--and how loud the birds sang in the morning. You scrunched down in your warm sleeping bag to block out the green light that seeped through the tent nylon and to muffle the piercing chirps, but no way were you going back to sleep until you took care of something. Another pain in the world of camping. As you shrugged off the sleeping bag, you sighed.

"'Sup, Angie?" Livvie's whisper emerged from the folds of her pink sleeping bag.

"I just have to go to the tree," you answered, girl scout code for taking care of business.

"Anyone else up yet?" Liv cracked one eye and squinted at you.

"I don't think so." You sniffed. "No one's started the breakfast fire."

Liv's one eye widened. "It's not our turn, is it?"

"Nope. Go back to sleep."

You unzipped the tent and slipped out into the fresh, pink morning. Pine needles underfoot muffled the sounds of your flipflops as you snuck away from the collection of tents. No one else was stirring. The weak sun hadn't warmed the air yet, and the T-shirt you wore with sweats left your arms bare and goosebumpy. You swung them across your depressingly flat chest a few times to get the blood pumping.

A few thousand pine trees surrounded the clearing where the troupe had pitched camp yesterday afternoon. You found the trail they'd used to walk in to the site and headed down it a little way, looking for a thicker stand of trees. That was about as much privacy as you could get in the great outdoors. Tiny ripe August blackberries lined the path, and you munched a few as an early breakfast, the tart, red juice staining your lips and fingers. A fallen tree with a big fungus lay across the path, and you filed it away in your brain as a landmark. Then you left the path and headed twenty feet or more into the woods to a good squatting place.

You spun in a slow circle to shake off the feeling you always had out here that someone was watching, before you hitched down your sweatpants and crouched. It was an art, peeing in the woods without splashing your feet or clothes, at least for girls. There should be a special scout merit badge for it.

A twig snapped sudden as a rifle shot. Your heart bumped in shock. Your eyes swiveled toward the direction of the sound, expecting a squirrel. A rabbit. A deer. Anything but a man, blended almost invisibly into the undergrowth except for his narrow dark eyes--eyes that stared at you with an almost familiar hunger.

"Shhh." He put a finger to his lips, walking towards you.

Angie, you struggled with your sweats, humiliation and shock making your hands clumsy. You couldn't break your gaze from his eyes, couldn't even see his face for the intensity of the unblinking stare that held you in place. You opened your mouth to talk, to scream, to plead, but nothing came out--your throat tight as if a noose looped it and he held the knot. A moment later, his right hand covered your mouth and his left held your arm behind your back in an unbreakable grip. You still hadn't breathed.

"Don't fight me, pretty girl," he whispered, pressed up against you, his moist lips touching your ear.

Fight him? Your limbs were soft, weak. Your knees on the edge of collapse. You couldn't even take a step, to run, to flea. How could you fight him? Your stomach clenched and the sound of wind rushed through your ears.

Above the roar, you heard a little girl's high-pitched voice call, "Quick. Hide!"

The man's hold tightened, and his huge black pupils hypnotized you, like a glance into hell. You squeezed your eyes tight to break the connection. A hurricane roared through your head. Stabbing pain pierced between the temples, and something broke loose inside. For just a moment, Angie, you contracted to a tiny, hard point of light, suspended from a string, swinging, rocking, back and forth. You hid. We kept you hidden till it was safe.

It was a long, long time.