He didn’t laugh this time. At the first touch of his hand, I flinched away. But I only succeeded in pressing myself against the impossible plushness beneath me. He stroked my hair again, fingering the strands softly before letting them drop. He was exactly as gentle as the first time. Almost caring.
Don’t engage. That was standard operating procedure for a prisoner of war—and the drug trade was war. Wait for rescue. Yeah, that was un-fucking-likely. I could be almost anywhere by now. In a room with a bed wasn’t exactly specific. Besides, I sensed he was something else, and I was too, like maybe this was personal. And that had a totally different set of rules. Reach out, humanize yourself, make him want to help you.
But either way, one thing was clear. If I had the chance to escape, I would take it. That chance didn’t have to be large. It could be a single hand free, jamming his throat into the footboard of the bed until he passed out. It could mean running away from a man with a gun and letting him shoot me in the back. Criminals had been resorting to suicide by cop for decades. Only fair I could turn the tables if I needed to. I had no idea what this man would do to me, but it seemed likely that by the end I’d rather be dead.
An evil sociopath. A young woman. Fill in the blanks. Unimaginable horrors visited upon my body were practically mandatory.
So why did I feel a budding sense of relief? I struggled to contain it. Could he see it on my face? What sort of twisted, fucked up…but I already knew the answer to that. I’d been like this from the moment I’d turned in my dad. No, earlier. When I’d seen the blood on his hands, and I’d known. I am in a family of crazy people.
I am crazy.
The textbooks couldn’t say that. The criminal behaviorists and the psychologists didn’t know either. Survivor’s guilt. Fucking clueless. They wouldn’t know crazy if it tied them up and stroked their faces, but I did. Oh, I felt it too. Shimmery and translucent, like looking in a mirror. Like being made of glass.
“Let me go,” I said, surprised at how bold I sounded. Unafraid. And why shouldn’t I be? What could he do to me, except what I’d always wanted? “You won’t get away with this. The FBI will find you.”
“Shhh.” He touched his finger to my lips in a sensual parody of a comforting motion. Not resting his finger across my lips, the way people usually did. He ran his forefinger across the seam of my lips, sending small tingles through my sensitive skin. What a crazy fucker.
But he didn’t know who he was dealing with. I could give as well as take. I bit him. I bit him, feeling his flesh give between my teeth, tasting the faint salt and musk of a clean man. A soft exhalation escaped him, part pain and part surprise. The callused pad of his finger rasped across my tongue. Like a dog with a bone, I wasn’t letting go.
He pinched the bridge of my nose. I bit down harder, sucking air into my mouth around the sides of his finger. It wasn’t enough, though. Dizzy, I opened my mouth to breathe in deeper, and he was free. In seconds, my small rebellion had been crushed. Rendered ridiculous. Only, why hadn’t he slapped me? Punched me? I would have let go of his finger in the face of violence, whether from shock or submission. But he hadn’t hurt me. Just done the bare minimum so I’d let him go.
He didn’t punch me now either, in punishment. He could have, and I probably deserved it, by the rules of this messed up captivity game. I hadn’t broken skin, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a black and blue ring around his forefinger tomorrow.
“So fierce,” he whispered, stroking my hair again.
And God. God. Why was he so gentle with me? His touch, the bed? It was a perversion, this kindness. A hardworking single father who killed in his spare time. A kidnapper who petted me and gave me luxuries I’d never afforded myself. The world had turned upside down, the sky underneath me while I looked up at the glistening sea.
“Please.” Less brave now. Was that my voice? More like a whimper. “Just let me go. Tell me what you want from me. Leave me alone.”
Three different requests. I was panicking. I recognized it with a kind of detached calm. One part of my mind was thoughtful, examining my predicament with professional precision. The other part was flipping the fuck out, an animal with her back against the wall. I jerked in my bonds, accomplishing nothing. I wriggled again, knowing I looked ridiculous and not giving a shit.
Fear had a taste, I discovered. Harsh and metallic. Like blood. I’d first tasted it in the surveillance van when I’d thought Hennessey was in trouble. He still might be in trouble.
“Fuck,” I panted. “Let me go.”
“You’ll be fine,” he murmured, his voice barely above a breath. The only clue to his identity was the slightest hint of an accent. “I promise.”
My laugh cut the air, bitter. “Oh, you promise. I don’t even know you. I can’t trust you.”