“What is it?” he asked.
“I’ve seen your face.”
“Yes, you have,” he said. “But I didn’t bring you here to kill you. Regardless, you’re not leaving anytime soon. You are not leaving ever.”
I looked ahead with a steely gaze.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked.
“Right in here,” he said, pushing open a large oak door. “Through the bedroom.”
Gav
I watched as she walked into my bedroom. Her eyes darting everywhere, so curious. Her gaze picking across my bedstand, my dresser, my walls. It was strange to see the room as she saw it, with new eyes. I saw myself reflected in her sight: a clean monster. A tidy villain. A serial killer with good taste in linens.
In the bathroom, she rushed to the window and I almost yelled out. She stood there silently, though, her fingers on the sill, looking outside. The pine branches in the nearby forest waves slowly at us.
“It’s a two story drop from this window,” I said from behind her. “Don’t try to escape.”
Why did I have to be the killjoy? The realistic one, always. I’d killed off her fantasies left and right already.
“I won’t,” she said softly, still eyeing the forest beyond the windowsill. “I wouldn’t fit through the window, anyway.”
True enough. My eyes swept down over her backside. Her hips, wide and curving. I longed to run a hand across them. Not yet, though. A long dark smudge of dirt ran down the back of one leg, stopping at the ankle. On closer inspection, she was filthy. That wouldn’t do. She would have to wash up first. Not now, but maybe later.
“Don’t be too long,” I said, closing the door. I heard the lock click shut, then the sound of running water in the sink. I sat on my bed and waited for her to be done. It didn’t take long for the door to click open. She looked back once, longingly, at the trees through the window.
“It’s beautiful outside,” she said.
“It is,” I agreed. Her eyelashes flitted up, dark brown lashes framing dark brown eyes. I called her kitten, but those were a puppy’s eyes: innocent and desirous. They made me want to do terrible things, wonderful things. I grabbed her roughly by her uninjured arm, more roughly than was necessary.
“Back to the basement with you,” I said, shutting the door on the emotions that threatened to seep from the watertight compartment inside of me. I did not want to kill her. I wanted more. So much more than I could ever have.
So much more than I could ever deserve.
CHAPTER NINE
Kat
The hours blended into each other. It had been two days since I had gotten kidnapped. Two? Or three? I could feel the effects of my meds beginning to ebb. Anxiety was creeping back into my body.
In the darkness of the basement my fingers twitched as I huddled against the wall. Blind as I was, I could almost conjure up the vision of the pill bottle in my mind. The feeling of twisting the hard plastic lid off, digging through the cotton balls for the tiny small pills that would calm me down.
There was no calm here, and I breathed slowly, trying to keep myself from having a panic attack. As much as most people mind the dark, I didn’t particularly care whether or not I had a light on in the basement. When I was a kid, I never had to have a nightlight. I loved building fortresses under my bed and hiding there.
Kat, you can keep calm. Breathe in. Breathe out. The darkness was actually quite soothing.
The door opened with a sharp crack, light pouring in. I started back, my breaths catching in my throat. The anxiety I’d been trying so hard to suppress flooded my system, and my heart pumped harder. My limbs wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go.
His silhouette filled the doorway, and when he stepped forward I saw that he had brought food - bread, cheese, and a package of dry salami.
“Good afternoon, Kat,” he said.
“Is it afternoon?” I couldn’t tell the difference between dawn and dusk, trapped as I was below the house with not even a single window to look out of. Why had I tried to escape? I could have had a window, at least, down here. Now I had nothing.
“It’s getting late,” he said. “Getting closer to your birthday, actually. I thought we might have a trade.”
“I don’t have anything to trade,” I said mechanically.
“You have a lot to trade,” he said. “Your obedience, for one. Do what I want you to do.”
“Why?”
“It will make me happy.”
I glared daggers at him. If he wasn’t joking, he was an idiot.
“Do you really think I care at all about making you happy?” I asked.
He tilted his head.
“You’re a strange creature, kitten,” he said. “Let’s try this again.”
He strode forward and dropped the food on the blanket in front of me. The smell of the salami wafted through the dim room. It made my mouth water. I reached out for it and he slapped my hand away.