Captive
ONE
NOW
HAVEN
There are cameras in my cell.
I didn’t notice them right away. At first, it was easy to be taken in by the thick glass wall separating me from the empty hallway, and the three grey cinderblock walls that kept me trapped in a room half the size of my apartment’s living room.
Then there was the cot. That was the second thing I noticed when I woke up, head pounding, mouth dry, my poor wrists raw.
All I could remember was driving to the animal shelter for my Friday afternoon volunteer shift and then nothing until I came to, curled up in the fetal position on a vinyl mattress with scratchy sheets.
My arms were in agony, and there were red welts on my wrists.
It was obvious that my hands had been tied too tightly behind my back at some point, but after they tossed me in that cell, they at least cut me free.
It was the only kindness my captors have ever shown me.
The cot is bolted to the wall, metal-framed and narrow, with a mattress so thin, it’s barely there.
As if that wasn’t horrifying enough, once I pushed myself up into a seated position, I saw a sink on the solid wall opposite of the glass one.
Tucked in the corner near the sink, there’s a basic toilet out in the open because, here in hell, there’s no privacy.
That thought should’ve been the warning bells going off inside my head.
Nope. I held out as long as I possibly could, too terrified to move from the cot in case that called my captors’ attention to me, but when the choice came down to soiling myself or scuttling with my back to the wall to make it to the toilet, I gave in and squatted.
I was careful in how I only lowered my leggings and panties enough to keep from peeing on myself, hunching over so that no part of me was really on display even though it appeared like I was alone.
I thought I managed it, but just as I was flushing, hurriedly adjusting my clothes, I heard muffled laughter coming from inside my cell.
I spun around, searching for the sound. It was male laughter, low and derisive, followed by an unfamiliar voice crowing, “Look, fellas. Our new pet is shy.”
My head jerked up, and that’s when I noticed two black eyes: a camera angled to see the cot and the glass wall, another to take in the second half of the cramped cell.
Someone was watching me.
Someone could see me.
I lost it. Tapping into every bit of entitlement I had as a Smith, I did the last thing I swore I would ever do: I asked them if they knew who I was.
I say asked… I screamed, I threatened, I begged, I bribed.
My parents are dead. Between my trust and my inheritance, I’m fucking loaded, and I wasn’t above using that.
If this was a ransom, there was no one they could ransom me to.
I had no family left. No friends close enough to help, and never any partner, either.
It was just me, and though I had no idea why they decided to pick on me, I was willing to give them whatever it took to get me out of this place.
They could hear me, too. I’m sure of that now, but I screamed and I screamed, and no one answered me over the speaker that first day.
I screamed until my throat hurt. I screamed for them to turn the cameras off, to come down here, to let me out.
I screamed that they couldn’t do this, that they didn’t know who I was, that they had no idea what the Order would do when they found me.
I believed that then. I’m still a member of the Order of the Owed.
Still technically an Offering. It didn’t matter to me that Adrian’s gone year after year, passing on Claiming me as his bride, or that Connor Heyward’s long ago promise still echoes in my ears whenever he refuses to take one of his own.
I have three more Augusts to get through before I’m quietly shunted to the side, forgotten.
Locked in a cell, captured by men I don’t know… that happened sooner than I expected.
They didn’t want my money. It became clear that they were after something other than that, and they had every intention of keeping me locked up tight, like an animal in a zoo… like their pet… until they got what they wanted.
I learned that the hard way, too. Back when I was still naive enough to believe that they couldn’t get away with this, that there had to be a way to escape this madness, I fisted my hands and I glared at the cameras, and I screamed.
Eventually, a man about a decade older than me, with dark hair, bright eyes, a barrel-shaped chest, and a squat body punched numbers into a keypad outside of my cell.
The glass door slid open, but before I could make a break for it, he strode over to me and slapped me with such force, it knocked me right to the cement floor.
I landed on my hands and knees at his feet, gasping at the shock of pain.
“Speak when spoken to, bitch,” he snarled. “If we have to hear your racket again, I’ll be back, and you won’t like ol’ Mickey when he returns.”
That was my first lesson. Screaming only pisses off the men who abducted me, and they expect silence. Since I didn’t want to get slapped again, I stopped screaming, though I never stopped plotting how I was getting out of here.
At least, not until I learned my second lesson that there is no way out…
Screaming doesn’t help. Neither does begging, pleading, bribing, anything.
They had me where they wanted me, and if I didn’t behave the way they expected me to, I starved.
If I was unpleasant when Mickey or Noah or Cam came down to bring me one of my two meals a day, they dropped it on the floor and expected me to lap it up like a dog.
If I didn’t wash myself in the sink to keep from stinking, they threatened to bathe me themselves.
I don’t have a shower. A sliver of bar soap is all I have to freshen up and wash my hands.
By the third day, I threw my greasy, limp hair in a bun because I couldn’t wash it or brush it.
They refuse to give me a change of clothes so, day after day, I’m stuck with the same bra, panties, leggings, and purple Harmony Heights Animal Shelter t-shirt I was wearing when I was nabbed.
By the end of day fifteen, I felt like an animal in a cage—and that was nothing compared to what came after.
It’s hard to know for sure exactly how long I’ve been here now.
There’s no window. No clock. No schedule except the one my captors made for me, and even that changes whenever they feel like watching me flinch.
Sometimes the lights stay on until my eyes burn and my skull throbs.
Sometimes they switch off without warning, dropping the room into darkness so complete I can’t see my own hands when I hold them in front of my face.
Meals come when they come. Water comes when it comes. Men come whenever they want, watching me, goading me, making rude comments that would’ve had the old Haven flipping the bird until the new Haven… she understood that they would take it as an invitation that she couldn’t afford to give.
At first, I did my best to count how long I’ve been down here.
I found a sharp nail poking out of the cot, worried it loose, and use it to scrape tiny marks into the wall near the edge of the mattress.
The cinderblock is too hard for neat lines, so my tally marks always come out jagged and shallow, barely visible unless I crouch close and trace them with my fingertips after tucking the nail under the mattress.
Still, every mark matters. Every mark means I’ve survived another day in hell.
Every mark means I’m one day closer to being found because, even now, I want to believe that I will be found.
Thirty-four.
That’s how many I have notched into the wall.
It’s an estimate since I only count a day after I finally fall asleep for more than a few minutes at a time, passing out on the cot that leaves me cramped and achy the next morning, but that tells me that I’ve been missing for at least a month.
A whole month, and I’m still desperate for my freedom.
Thirty-four marks.
Thirty-four days.
The first week, I stupidly expected rescue.
The King of the Order wouldn’t stand for a Smith to go missing, and if my captors had a reason to go after me, it was due to my family’s standing in Harmony Heights.
It has to be. Cam loves to crow how my millions won’t save me, but that they’ll be happy to take that, too, when they’re done with me.
Done with me… when will they be done with me?
The second, I started wondering what was taking them so long. Someone had to care, right? Someone had to notice I was gone and wondered what happened to me.
By the third, I started making excuses about why no one has come after me yet.
Maybe they moved me too quickly, shoving me inside the back of their van or the trunk of their car.
Maybe the Order has to be careful. Maybe Adrian—out of some sense of duty—is looking, but he isn’t allowed to act yet.
Maybe Jack Collins, as the leader of the Order, is negotiating with my captors. Maybe Connor—
No.
I can’t let myself think about Connor. Thinking about Connor is worse than thinking about Adrian, and it hurts way more.
Adrian is obligation. Adrian is the man everyone decided I would marry before either of us understood what that meant. Adrian is my intended Owed, the future I was raised to accept, even if he never wanted me and I never wanted him.
Connor… Connor is something else.
Connor is the boy I crushed on before I knew what it really meant to be an Offering.
He’s the jokester whose grin in middle school stole a smile out of me, and the popular boy—one of the Heirs—who ruled all of high school while teasing me every chance he got.
He’s the cocky prick who promised me he was going to Claim me, then didn’t, and the man who has playfully chased me over the years, making me want him while hating him at the same time.
Connor is a kiss and a bite and the life I could’ve had if it didn’t belong to the Order of the Owed first.
Most of all, Connor is way too dangerous to remember in hell.
Because if I do, I start hoping for impossible things.
I imagine him coming for me, proving himself at last, rescuing me like my very own Prince Charming…
only this isn’t a fairytale, Haven. This is a nightmare, and more than a month into this tortuous existence, I’m beginning to think that my only way out is death.
I never thought they’d break me so badly, I’d welcome that sort of escape.
Haven Smith was proud. She was stubborn.
She put up with no one’s shit… but that Haven Smith was left behind in Harmony Heights.
This Haven? She was shattered the first time one of her captors decided that it wasn’t enough to warn her not to scream.
To shut me up, they used my mouth for something else entirely, and since then… I’m basically dead already. I just haven’t figured out how to finish it all the way, not when the cameras catch my every move before I can do anything to get out of here.
I tried to kick a guard in the nuts so I could break past him.
Got a punch to the gut and his hands in my shirt for that one.
I tried to strangle myself with a shoelace; lost my sneakers and had Cam threaten to break my toes if I tried again.
I went on a hunger strike, and on day three, Mickey shoved his dick in my mouth and asked if I was hungry enough to suck his cock.
That was the first time I’ve ever had a penis so close to my face. I bit him once he wrenched my jaw open, shoving himself in there. Of course I did. That was my go-to as a girl, but while Connor Heyward seemed stunned when I bit him after our kiss, Mickey was furious.
I lost a chunk of hair when he yanked it, then nearly lost a tooth when he punched me twice with a closed fist. No mirrors means I don’t know how badly he fucked up my face, but I was squinting for ten days after that so it had to be bad.
Eventually, I had to admit that I was too weak to keep fighting back as often as I wish I could. I needed to be smarter. Physically, mentally, emotionally… they beat me down so badly, I really did become these monsters’ pet—and as bad as they are, it’s Winter who is the absolute fucking worst…
A buzz sounds overhead, coming from one of the speakers. My shoulders tense a heartbeat before a familiar voice comes through. Cultured and low, without any hint of an accent, it’s a pleasant male voice, and I loathe it with a passion.
It’s the man all of my captors—my guards—call Winter.
He isn’t one of the three rotating men who bring me food and take what they want from me.
Not squat Mickey, or Noah with the ponytail, or Cam with the scar through his eyebrow.
He’s the man who employs these bastards to torture me for reasons I still don’t understand.
Winter is the boss.