15. Caterina
CATERINA
I sprint through the maze, thoroughly lost, and it’s exhilarating. I’m not even trying to find my way to the middle, or out. I’m just trusting in luck.
After a lifetime of being a good, cautious girl, I’m turning this way and that, randomly. It wasn’t so long ago that other predators were searching for me. I outsmarted and outlived those men, and was found by a bigger, scarier monster, who has revealed his possessive side.
The Dark Angel claimed me, just as he will now.
The afternoon air is warm and fragrant, and Brody’s heavy footsteps are everywhere and nowhere. I’ve been running for a few minutes, or longer, I’m not sure. I try to keep track of the turns and the blind alleys as my chest gets tight and my muscles complain at the sudden exertion.
There’s a sheen of sweat on my skin, and my feet slap the ground.
I feel like a maiden in the Minotaur’s labyrinth, with a dark and dangerous creature behind me. Something forbidden. I’m still wearing my white sundress, and underneath are the lace knickers and bralette that Brody made me blush by opening in front of him. A virgin girl, lost.
The hedges on all sides are oppressive. Close. Wherever I look there’s densely-packed small green leaves. Except, in some places, as I’ve progressed into the maze, the sunlight doesn’t reach fully, and there are thinner patches where a peek of the other side is possible.
I come to a fork where one path is only a couple of paces before another turn. The shadows are deep, the sun only slicing across the top of the hedge. The other, soft orange-yellow light blazes down towards me before it curves away.
“Caterina.” Brody’s voice is close enough to startle me.
The decision paralyses me. Light? Or dark?
“Are you near the centre?” His tone is teasing, and through a thin hedge, I see movement. “Does my scared little cat not want to feel what I’ll do to her pussy?”
I bolt. Not for the sunshine, but into the dark, where the path twists and turns back on itself, until I’m running down another path, shorter this time.
Either way, I win, right? Because Brody—the Dark Angel—is coming after me. He’s near. I can hear his footsteps at a controlled but rapid pace. He had a smouldering fire in his silver eyes when he told me to run, and whatever the result of our chase, I intend to discover what happens when that flares into life.
He’s gaining on me.
Then I see it. A peek of light that is impossibly low on the hedge. That pattern of gold can only come from a break in the maze’s pattern. The middle.
I ease to a walk, unable to believe it. I’m going to win. A few more paces, and I’ll turn the corner and Brody is too far behind me. He will have to be honest?—
He crashes through the hedge from the side, and I shriek in fright, grasping for him even as I try to stop and pivot. Angel catches me around the waist, tight as I battle against him instinctively.
“I’ve got you, Caterina. You’re mine.”