Chapter 43
AMY
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I open my eyes, blinking in the brightness of a bedside light. I’m lying on a strange bed in a strange room. My fingers are throbbing. I lift my hand to see that four of my fingers are bandaged.
I feel the first stirrings of panic.
What’s going on? Why can’t I remember anything?
I’m about to sit up when I hear breathing. Someone else is in the room. My heart thumps in my chest. It takes a couple of seconds to identify the slow, heavy breaths of a person in a deep sleep. Whoever it is, is lying on the floor between me and the door.
I lie frozen while minutes tick by. The breathing continues, its rhythm even and unbroken.
This is ridiculous. I can’t just remain here, in this bed I don’t recognize, paralyzed by fear and indecision.
And then, because I have nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, I peer over the edge of the bed.
The bulky shape of a man, his back to me, is stretched out on a bedroll. I take in his short black hair, broad shoulders stretching the seams of a white T-shirt, a muscled leg twisted in the folds of a sheet.
Some of my fear drains away. I can’t explain it, but the sight of the makeshift bed on the floor is oddly reassuring, as if this man is watching over me.
Suddenly, the shape shifts, the head snapping around to face me.
When I see his face, those gray eyes blinking away sleep and centering on me in a swift, assessing glance, my breath stalls on the rush of returning memories: my desperate bid to escape, the phone call to my father, Kane and Jill—no, Nolene, I remember now—wrestling me into the storeroom, the door closing, and then darkness, endless darkness.
Terror crawls along the edges of my mind, looking for a way in.
The rising panic must show on my face because Kane’s eyes widen in alarm and he sits up, directing what is supposed to pass for a reassuring smile my way.
After a second or two of silence, I burst out laughing.
Kane stares at me in confusion. “Why are you laughing?” he asks, the worried look on his face telling me all too clearly he thinks I’ve given in to hysteria.
I can’t stop laughing long enough to explain. The release feels good, chasing away some of the shadows in my mind. Sitting up, I finally manage to control myself enough to point to my teeth.
Frowning, Kane leverages himself up and looks at his reflection in a small mirror on the wall.
He bares his teeth. They’re a bright blue.
He gives a disbelieving shake of his head.
“I checked the soap, the shampoo bottle, the shaving foam. I shook out the bedding.” He pauses, his tone full of reluctant admiration.
“I forgot about the toothpaste. The little troublemaker.”
I’m still laughing when the memory of what he did comes crashing back, too raw and too painful to be held at bay any longer by amusement. Kane forced me into that storeroom. He exploited my fear of the dark. All traces of humor disappear.
If Kane notices the change, his face doesn’t betray it. “I was warned she had a new practical joke she wanted to try.” He rubs his teeth. “Whatever this stuff is, it’ll probably take a while to fade.”
He turns from the mirror and pulls a pair of sweatpants on over his boxers.
“Why are you sleeping in here?” I ask, my voice emerging all hoarse.
He doesn’t look at me. “I was keeping an eye on you.”
“Afraid I’d escape?”
His gray eyes collide with mine. “I wanted to be here when you woke up,” he says in a low voice. “I didn’t want you opening your eyes and thinking you’d been left alone again.”
“Oh.” So he was worried. After what he did, he should be.
He sits on the corner of the bed, carefully keeping his distance. “How are you feeling?”
There are so many answers to that question. “Better,” I finally settle on. Anything to avoid another storeroom. After a moment, I give in to curiosity. “Who is she? The one who did that to your teeth?”
“An old friend. We have this immature, practical joke thing going.”
“Sounds like an interesting friendship.”
“It’s an unbalanced one. She has such an armory of tricks up her sleeve, the scales tip in her favor.”
We both fall silent, as if realizing the incongruity of our conversation, considering the circumstances.
I clear my throat. “I have one you can try.”
He looks confused. “One what?”
“A joke you can play on her.”
“Okay,” he says, visibly recovering.
I tell him what I have in mind.
Kane smiles. “I like it. It’ll hit her husband harder, but I’m betting he knew all about the trick toothpaste.”
Neither of us mentions the storeroom incident, as if that will disturb the wary and fragile peace we’ve stumbled into.
My hands play nervously with the edge of the quilt. “Where am I?”
He raises his eyebrows, as if the reply is obvious.
“Why did you move me?” I try again.
“After you contacted your father, you left us no choice.”
So somehow he figured it out. My escape attempt was all for nothing. My father didn’t get to me in time.
In a surprisingly gentle tone, Kane says, “Amy, it’s nearly over.”
The understanding on his face catches me off guard. Tears sting my eyes. “When can I go home?”
“Soon.”
Whatever that means. “Has my father given in to your demands?”
He gives a slight shake of his head, unhappiness clouding his eyes. “Don’t ask for details.” The despair must show on my face because he says, a hint of frustration in his voice, “Nothing is going to happen to you. I’ll make sure of it.”
Nothing is going to happen to you.
A bleak coldness sweeps over me. He temporarily paralyzed me and dumped me in a cage.
He tied me to a chair like an animal—no, forget that, he wouldn’t treat his precious animals the way he treated me—and kept me there until I threw up.
Somehow, he found out about my phobia of the dark and ruthlessly used that knowledge to try to terrorize me into giving him the information he wanted.
Nothing is going to happen to you.
Too much had happened to me already.
His gaze dips to my bandaged hand, then flicks away, his jaw working. For a moment, he looks like he remembers exactly what the dark did to me.
“I promise you,” Kane says, staring intently at me. “You will go home.”
Weariness settles like a suffocating blanket over me. More empty promises.
He clears his throat. “I, uh, put a night light in the room. You won’t be left in the dark again.”
I stare at him, not knowing what to say.
“I knew you were afraid of the dark,” he says quietly, “but I put you in the storeroom anyway.” His throat bobs as he swallows. For a second, he looks disgusted with himself. “It won’t happen again.”
Without another word, he retrieves a small medical kit beside his bedroll. Then he sits on the bed and holds out his hand. “Let me have a look at your fingers.”
I hesitate only briefly before placing my hand in his larger, warmer one. He unwraps the bandages and discards them in the trash. Carefully, he wipes away the dried blood around my nails and smears antibiotic cream on.
I can’t look away from the sight of my hand dwarfed in his, the gentle feel of his fingers on my skin.
“What happened?” he asks quietly as he rebandages my fingers. “What happened to make you so afraid of the dark?”
My face blanches. Apart from my father, I never told anyone what happened. I’m not about to dredge up that dark night for him.
“Why do you want to know?” I counter, jerking my hand out of his grasp. “Looking for more ammunition you can use against me?”
“No,” he says, his voice low and troubled. “But I guess I deserve that.”
“You deserve forty years in jail for what you’ve put my father and I through!”
Aggravation floods his eyes. “You know, you were the one who stabbed me while trying to escape,” he retorts. “You just had to push and push me.” The words snap out of him, and for an instant, his expression looks like he wants to take them back.
I gape at him. I can’t believe he has the gall to try to shift the blame on me. No way am I falling for that. And no way am I going to argue with a man who holds the key to my freedom. Swallowing my words and my pride, I ask, “What time is it?”
He accepts the change of subject without comment. “Five in the morning. Friday,” he adds before I can ask.
“How long have I been...” I grapple for the words.
“Out of it?”
“Yes.”
“Pretty much the whole of Thursday.”
I can’t disguise my shock. I was unconscious all that time. He could have done anything to me.
As if he can read my thoughts, he says roughly, “Give me more credit. I haven’t descended to that level.”
Maybe not, but he’s fallen far enough. “What happens now?” I ask.
“How about a shower?” is his unexpected answer. “You can lock the door from the inside and take your time.”
My cheeks flush with surprised pleasure. It’s an obvious diversionary tactic, but I’m all too aware of the stale smell clinging to me. This time, at least on the surface, it appears to be an offer with no baited hook dangling at the end. “A shower would be good.”
#
I linger in the shower for a long time, washing my hair, soaping myself twice, grimacing at my hairy legs and underarms. Stepping out of the shower, I peek inside the bathroom cabinet.
Lying on the shelf is a razor, just as I dared to hope.
I make quick use of it, reveling in the feel of smooth skin.
I toy with the notion of keeping the razor but decide to leave it in the cabinet. My little secret.