Chewing slowly, I savor the crunchy, salty peanut butter and tangy, fresh raspberry jelly. It’s the real kind, with flecks of seeds amongst the crimson goop. Even the bread is amazing—rough cut, thick slices, as though homemade. I save the rest of the food and guzzle a bottle and a half of water before curling upon my side and sinking into the deepest sleep I’ve had since this nightmare began.
Warm and embraced snugly in his clothing, his scent thick in my nostrils and making my mind even more hazy, I find myself dreaming rather peacefully of a life far from here and now.
One thing remains the same, though; his haunting eyes are following my every move.
It’s latewhen I wake, judging by the way dim lavender and mandarine hued light seeps in through the grimy egress window. The panes are so rusted, they look close to crumbling into dust. I make a mental note of that in case…in case there’s ever a chance to run. I just have to be patient.
He descends the familiar stairs, the boards creaking in agony beneath his weight. The noise must’ve been what woke me. He’s an immense man, young, judging by the condition of his smooth skin around his eyes and…everywhere else. Nothing but hard, rugged muscles that simultaneously make my thighs clench and my heart sink in terror.
He could’ve just come up to me at a bar and asked for my number like a normal guy, and if I were shallow enough to go on looks alone, I would’ve said yes. He didn’t have to take my precious, beautiful life like a priceless vase in his hands and smash it to the ground into irreparable pieces. This trauma, no matter how hard I will work at itwhenI escape, will forever scar the fabric of my soul.
His eyes find mine, and I groggily sit up, the chains clinking and slipping across the mattress. In measured steps,he approaches. His black boots are untied, the laces loose and dangling. The hem of his jeans are bunched up around the tops of his shoes. His shirt—plain white cotton that is stretched taut over his chest—is covered in varying shades of brown and green—dirt, nature. The scent of something pungent and skunk-like sticks to him, mingling with a hint of salty sweat, and citronella.
Maybe he works at a garden center?
Creepy as fuck, imagining him helping little old ladies plant marigolds and begonias while he has a girl chained in his basement.
He crouches down to the left of me, but instead of keeping his distance, he turns and plants his ass on the springs, making me bounce a little. Dropping his face between his knees, he rests his elbows on his thighs, wide palms rubbing at his eye sockets. His back strains with deep, calm breaths, as though he’s releasing whatever stress he endured today because he’s home.
He’s comfortable.
Something pricks at me, some feeling in the back of my throat, forcing me to speak around a lump of empathetic tears. However evil and disgusting he is, this man is a human, and someone somewhere along the line failed him greatly.
“I…I used to love coming home, too,” I croak. His head pops up, his red, tired eyes snapping to mine, so wide in shock it almost makes me smile. His hair sticks up all over the place from his hands running through it, and I think I’m correct in my assumptions that he’s close to my own age. One of the only things I appreciate in this situation. That, and his good looks and hygiene. I know from my fascination with true crime that this is usually not the case. “I…I’m kind of an introvert. People exhaust me.”
I shrug, wrapping my arms around my legs and resting my chin on my knees, keeping my eyes on him. After a few blinks, he nods, turning his torso forward and staring at the wall fora quiet few moments. I wish he could speak, or find some way to communicate with me. It’d be easier to know which trail to follow if I could learn about him.
I snort, eyes slipping out of focus as I reminisce, sucked into the simplicity of my life before now.
“I was going to adopt a cat from the shelter, before…before…” I glance in his direction to find him already staring at me, his jaw flexing beneath the skeleton-jaw mask. The last rays of sun slice through his face and ignite one eye, making it look like molten gold. The way the light throws shadows across his face highlights the bones that make up the bridge of his nose and his cheeks.
I wish I could see his full face, for I have a feeling he’s every girl’s fantasy.
Why did he have to be my nightmare?
Despite the innumerable emotions welling within me, I keep speaking. “This cat, she’d been at the shelter for three years. They all said that she’s…mean, skittish. But I would go and sit with her, with all the animals. I never…never vlogged it. I wanted something in my life to stay…pure, away from people’s criticism and judgement.”
He shifts on the mattress, squaring his shoulders to me, giving me his undivided attention.Keep talking, I think.Find the weakness to exploit.
“They named her Princess.” I scoff, then sniff away my tears, emboldened beneath his stare for whatever strange reason. I have captured the attention and adoration of millions of followers across all major platforms, but none of it compares to the way Kage stares at me—curiously, innocently, but with a devastating dose of possessiveness. Like a child guarding his favorite toy, I have to wonder if or when a tantrum will erupt and be directed atme. “She’s not a princess. She’s a prisoner.”
My heart clenches, and my eyes flit to his, praying he doesn’t think I meant to parallel my situation with a cat’s. Hiseyes narrow slightly, but there’s a darkly playful glint in them. It makes my stomach flip, because the mystery he presents is enticing to someone who wanted nothing more than to go to college for criminal justice.
I was discouraged at every turn.You’re too this, you’re too that, your grades need to be higher, what else do you have to offer?
I gave in to the voices surrounding me and quit before I even began. And to spite them all, I became the very thing they always thought I was; vapid, shallow, money-hungry. I just did so in a way that made me a millionaire at twenty-one while they’re now hunting for jobs with expensive degrees.
“I’ve never had a cat, but…well, you saw my house, you creep, and I just thought to myself when I moved in, I thought, ‘Now wouldn’t this be a nice window for a cat tree’ and then?—”
But my words choke off in a breathless scream as Kage throws me down on the mattress and yanks the sweatshirt up and over my eyes. Gasping at the sudden darkness, I writhe and kick, but the chains are tightening, pulling my wrists until my hands are stretched taut above my head. “K-Kage, pl-please, you’re scaring me.”
He makes no noise, so I shake my head, thrashing it back and forth, my stomach sinking to the pits of hell as sobs clog my throat. “I’m—I’m sorry I…I didn’t mean to call you a creep!Kage!”
The second his long fingers curl into the waistband of the sweatpants, I scream his name, my body shivering as I weep. He yanks them deftly down. Naked from the waist below, I cross my ankles and tense my thigh and calf muscles, prepared to fight him.
Nothing happens for a few eternal moments. Then his warmth settles over my entire body, as though he’s poised just centimeters from my skin, a predator toying with his prey.Trembling so hard my teeth start to chatter, everything—even the rotation of the earth—stops the second his breath fans over my lips and throat. Before my blurry mind can comprehend his closeness, something impossible happens.
He speaks.
