30. Chapter 30
Forced captivity is fun.
Forced captivity in the woods is really fun.
Said no one ever.
I sulk before the tv, cereal bowl in hand and hair a mess because I haven’t bothered to fix it. Not like I was going out regardless, so there wasn’t much of a point. If Alex cares, he hasn’t made comment though he did take a generous peek at it this morning with an arch of his brow.
Hate it for him.
If he wanted hot, then he shouldn’t have snatched me up and dragged me out into the middle of Bum-Fuck-Egypt.
I’m currently spooning an absorbent amount of cheerio into my maw when my spoon pauses mid shovel, my focus sharpening on the TV and the name being splashed across it.
My name.
A muted news ticker crawls across the bottom of the screen like it might rearrange itself into something less catastrophic if I don’t look directly at it. Then comes the beautiful news anchor with her perfect lashes and pristine makeup to spin up a warning about a missing local woman.
“—twenty-three-year-old Sadie Morgan—”
There it is.
My face fills the screen.
And you know when you ask people if they are going to post wanted posters of you after you go missing, to choose the right one?
Well, whoever chose my photo is a dick. It’s a photo from my old ID where I’m pale, tired, and my hair is pulled back far too tight.
Not to mention my eyes look like they’ve been on a three day bender even though I’ve never touched a drug in my life, despite being around copious amounts of it as a child.
My stomach drops hard and fast as the woman speaks about the missing local bartender.
Last seen leaving her place of work where she lived behind it in a renovated bus.
Nice of them to air my laundry like that and make it seem worse than what it actually is.
She states my friends are concerned, which really means singular because I’ve not got more than one past Imogen. Alexander certainly doesn’t count.
Police are asking for any information about my whereabouts, though there is no history of running off. They clearly didn’t do too thorough of a background check before airing, because I’ve been doing nothing but running my entire life.
Ah, well… maybe the cabin makes a little more sense in that context. As annoying as that is to admit.
I don’t pay attention to the rest. Instead, I let the spoon slip from my fingers back into the bowl with a clatter.
My eyes turn slowly to where Alex is sitting in the chair near the window, one leg crossed over the other, a book open in his hands.
If he’s heard any of the report, he hasn’t reacted at all. Not even a flinch.
My chest tightens, not just with fear, but with something uglier. Hotter.
“They’re looking for me,” I decide to start what might just be another fight.
“Sounds to be the truth,” he decides not to fight back, not so much as looking up to me.
That does it.
I shove up off the cheap little couch so hard it screeches against the hardwood. “You don’t get to say that like it’s the fucking weather, Alex.”
Now he looks up, nice and slow. And the bastard turns the page of his book, which makes for an appropriately strange action.
“You act as if it is odd that Imogen might have filed a missing person’s report, or at least made enough stink to have it brought to the TV. You disappeared. It’s not rocket science to conclude that people might be interested in it. Therefore it doesn’t shock or excite me.” He states plainly.
“Christ, you could at least pretend like it does,” I rasp.
“It would be pointless,” he snorts.
The cabin feels smaller now, like the walls are closing in around me. Like the news has pulled the outside world up to the windows and pressed its face to the cool glass. Yet another entirely fucked up reminder.
“They’re showing Imogen,” I choke and gesture to where my best friend’s face is on the TV. “Do you know that? She’s probably losing her fucking mind.”
He closes the book at last and sets its aside. Finally giving me his full attention, or appearing to.
“I’m well aware, as I stated.”
“Then just… let me go. Before this gets any worse.” I breathe out.
He pushes up out of his chair and the change in the air around us is immediate. Not threatening—not overtly—but absolute. Like gravity reasserts itself and claims him the focal point of it all.
“No.”
The word lands heavy and final.
“You can’t keep me here,” I whisper as he closes the distance between us. My heart kicking into my chest. “This isn’t sustainable.”
“I don’t require it to be,” he murmurs as his hands slide to my face. So large in comparison that they frame my jaw as his fingers slide into my hair, effectively holding me captive.
“That’s not an answer, Alex.” I rasp as he tilts my head back, taking control of not only the conversation but me. “They’ll connect this eventually. You were my therapist and I vanished right after I stopped showing up.”
His thumbs smoothes across my cheekbones and I swallow thickly as the air pulls taut between us. A distraction, I think. I’m not entirely sure, but it’s working.
“They won’t,” he murmurs calmly.
“You’re not invisible, Alex.” I whisper as his face drops nearer to mine. His lips a breath from my own as I feel each of his words against my mouth.
“No,” he agrees. “But I am careful.”
“You think this won’t blow back on you? You think cops won’t start knocking and asking questions?” I whisper as his lips brush along the edge of my own.
“They can ask, but I won’t answer.” His breath warm against my skin, my cheeks flushing as his fingers tighten.
“You don’t get to control everything.”
I feel his mouth quirk, his eyes holding mine despite his movement in front of me as he slowly walks me backward. My back connects with the wall and my hand shoots out to grip his shirt, to push him away or pull him closer—I’m not sure anymore.
I hate what he does to my head, but a sick part of me also relishes it. This feeling of being tossed into a wind tunnel and not knowing which direction is up or down, left or right.
“I don’t need to control everything,” he says quietly. “Just you.”
The words curl around my spine and I gasp softly as his knee slides between my thighs. Just enough pressure to push my mind away from the fears, but keep it locked tight on him.
“Alex,” I warn and he hums, pushing just a little harder and encouraging me to move.
This should be the point where I shove him away, where I ignore how close our faces are or how intense his gaze is that holds mine.
I of course care little for my wellbeing, because my hips roll just once. Just enough.
“What happens when you finally get bored?” I manage thickly.
The question I’ve been circling since the mirror room and since the charm clicked onto my bracelet. Since I realized survival was conditional.
“Bored?” He repeats as he grinds his knee right where I need him.
“Yes,” I rasp, forcing the word up. “What happens when I stop being interesting?”
There is a long moment of just our breathing, my own chest heaving against his as my brows furrow against the pleasure. Against the sharp spike of heat that pools through me with each rock of my hips against his knee and thigh. His smile is a dark, dangerous thing.
“That won’t happen, little fox.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he insists. “Because interest isn’t what keeps me.”
My pulse thrums hard, my head falling back to thump against the wall as his hand slides over my sternum.
Up between the valley of my breasts to wrap around my throat.
And knowing that he has killed someone—many someones—should be a turn off, but I’m burning and he’s the only one who has ever effectively lit the match.
“Then what does?” I whisper as the heat begins to build. As the knot in my core begins to spiral and tighten in on itself, threatening to burst if we just go a bit longer. A bit harder. His fingers tighten around my throat, his mouth dipping near my ear.
“Resolution.”
His hand at my hip works its way forward, fingers dragging beneath the band of my shorts. My breath catches as they find their way beneath the plain cotton I had found in the drawer and straight to where I’m already soaked. He groans and I answer it with a soft whimper of my own.
“And when you get it?” I moan as his fingers sink past my entrance and curl. The motion long and slow, hooking just right.
“You’re assuming the conclusion ends you,” he breathes. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
My breath stutters as he presses deep a second finger, adding to the already blinding pleasure of having him this near. The kind that short circuits all logic and replaces it with nothing but the air between two bodies or the sounds they make in the dark when no one is around to judge them.
I want him.
That truth is humiliating and undeniable. I want him even now, even like this, even with my face on the goddamn news. I want to own him as thoroughly as he seems to own whatever quiet beast he has unraveled inside of me.
“You don’t get to decide if I vanish,” I say hoarsely. “I’m not one of your subjects.”
My hips undulate against his palm, grinding down into the release that is so close and kept on the wire by the fingers that give just enough to keep me going but won’t tip me over. Like he knows the moment I fall all coherent conversation will drift away with it too.
“What you are is mine,” he growls, voice low, steady. “And I don’t discard what belongs to me.”
Those words should terrify me. Instead, they ignite something twisted in my chest.
I hate him for it. For locking me in this space between wanting and knowing better. For making the world feel distant and unreal and for making the thought of leaving hurt.
“They’re going to keep looking. Imogen won’t stop,” I moan thickly as his fingers pick up their pace.
“I know.”
“And you—fuck, Alex—you’ve got to let me go.”
“No, I really fucking don’t. Now come.”
I close my eyes and I am obliterated beneath the hand locked around my throat and the second inside of me. My entire body locking up as I push up onto my toes to both escape the sensation and climb into it.
I don’t know how long I hover there on cloud nine before falling back to earth and the sensation of him pulling his fingers out of me. His hand at my throat sliding to twist into my hair at my nape, tugging it back in possession.
“You’re going to ruin everything,” I pant.
He smirks, “at least ruined we’ll find a way to be whole.”
He tugs away from me, taking all that heat of this moment and leaving me a mess against the wall. With conflicting thoughts and desires. He doesn’t say a single word more as he returns to his chair and pulls out his book.
The television keeps talking behind us. My life scrolling past like a story that no longer belongs to me.
And Alex seems as if he’s already written the ending of it all.