Chapter 8
Reese didn’t let me out last night.
At least, I think it was last night. Time is still a devious, unreliable thing in here when I can’t see even a sliver of the sky. My body may have started to learn the rhythm of this place, but my brain hasn’t, not fully. The silence has a weight to it at certain hours.
But right now, I’m not sure if it’s still sometime in the middle of the night or the early morning.
I haven’t slept much.
He didn’t let me out last night.
For over three weeks, he’s let me out for several hours every evening around dinner. Last night was the first time he didn’t. He opened the door, set a plate with a sandwich down, and left. No words. Not even eye contact.
It fucking hurt.
I didn’t eat.
He said if I came, I wasn’t getting back out of this room. Did he mean it? Is he sticking to that even though he made me come?
“So fucking unfair.”
I mutter several more obscenities, most of them aimed at my kidnapper, as I bring my knees up to my chest and hug them to me. The mattress feels harder for some reason, the sheets a little more scratchy on my bare feet. I drag my hand through my hair before burying my face in my knees.
I’ve replayed yesterday so many times it’s starting to blur.
The argument.
The way his face hardened when I started poking holes in this whole fucking thing.
The way he looked at me through the glass.
The gun.
The way he played my body in the shower like it was an instrument he had already mastered.
Heat crawls up my neck, and I groan.
“Great job, Case,” I grumble, my words muffled as I keep my head down. “Stockholm syndrome in under a month. Next up, bringing him home to meet your mom before he buries you in the woods.”
I’m emotionally spiraling over a man who owns duct tape in bulk.
Really stellar life choices.
But the worst part is this suffocating silence.
Did I do something wrong? Does he hate me now for pushing him to do something he didn’t actually want to do?
Did I fuck up?
Why do I always fuck everything up?
The door breathes, that hydraulic hum that sounds like it’s taking a breath. I lift my head just in time to see the door open. Reese stands there. No food. No plate. Just empty hands and a pained expression on his face.
For several seconds, we simply stare at each other. Something in my chest twists tight and painful with something like hope.
He walks inside without shutting the door behind him.
Then, unexpectedly, he sits on the bed in front of me.
I freeze, remaining so still I don’t even breathe. Like if I don’t make any sudden movements, I won’t spook him away.
He just sits there though, staring down at his hands in his lap like he doesn’t know what to do with them.
I’ve never seen him like this.
“Um.” I clear my throat, more unsure than before. “Can I have one of my questions? Because I’d really like to know if this is the dramatic pre-murder silence or if you’re just buffering.”
No reaction.
The silence stretches, long enough that my nerves start to fray.
“Okay,” I say, dropping my knees to sit cross-legged. “You’re freaking me out more than usual, which is impressive, by the way. You’ve really raised the bar.”
Still nothing.
I open my mouth yet again, but this time, he beats me to it.
“I’m sorry.”
Those two small words hit me so hard all I can do is stare and blink. Surely, I couldn’t have heard him right?
“What?”
His jaw tightens, and he seems incapable of looking at me. “Yesterday. I shouldn’t have…” He takes a breath and exhales heavily. “I lost control.”
I just stare at him. It’s all I can do as relief crashes through me so hard and fast I feel a little dizzy. But he keeps talking, and I let him.
“I was frustrated. You were right about this job, and I don’t know what to do about it.
It fucking pissed me off, but I…” Finally, he looks up to meet my gaze, and there’s a deep crease between his brows that I’ve never seen before.
“That’s no excuse for how I treated you.
I may have some pretty questionable morals, but… I’m not…like that.”
I try to stop it, I really do. Ultimately, I fail, and a grin slowly morphs my lips.
Now it’s his turn to ask, “What?”
“Yesterday was fucking hot.”
I can see the moment relief releases the tension in his shoulders.
He looks like an entirely different person when it hits, like part of his persona is the job and the pressure he carries around with him.
Even with the relief, that furrowed line between his brows is still there, but now it’s filled with bewilderment instead of guilt.
“I threatened to shoot you.”
I shrug like it’s not a big deal. “Usually a sign someone is not having a great day.”
A muscle in his cheek twitches. “You cried.”
“It’s therapeutic.”
He laughs under his breath.
“Besides, you clearly liked it too. Now, if you hadn’t let me come, I would’ve been pissed. But…I’ve never been edged like that before. It was intense.” I’m not usually one to blush, but my cheeks feel a lot warmer than usual. “I liked it.”
He smiles. It’s small, but it’s one of those few genuine, easy smiles I’ve seen on him.
I can feel it now, that something has shifted between us. I think it started before yesterday, but now I’m sure of it. I want to ask him if he feels it too, but I’m afraid he’ll say no.
Needing to break the silence, I say, “You didn’t let me out last night. I thought maybe I crossed some invisible psycho boundary.”
He shakes his head. “You didn’t.”
“Good.”
Before I can overthink it, I move. I crawl forward, sit up, then throw one leg over his lap, straddling him.
He tenses, his hands hovering in the air on either side of me like he doesn’t know where to put them. “Cason…”
“Relax,” I say with a smirk. “I’m not armed.”
Which is ironic because that’s when I see it—the gun at his hip.
My brain doesn’t even finish whatever thought makes me do it.
I move. Fast.
My hand dives for the gun inside its holster. I grab the handle and yank the weapon free. I don’t know if I move too quickly for him to react or if he wouldn’t have reacted at all either way. He doesn’t move as I press the barrel to his chest.
Not a flinch, not a breath.
The shift is instant. My pulse roars in my ears as adrenaline floods my system.
I don’t think it was freedom that was running through my mind. It feels more like, I wonder…
He stares at me. Calm. Steady.
“I could do it.” My voice is small, barely more than a whisper. “I could kill you. I could get out of here.”
I swallow thickly, my gaze locked on the spot where the gun rests against his chest that rises and falls evenly, not even a change in his breathing.
“I probably couldn’t drag your body all the way up the stairs,” I say, talking more to myself than to him. As though I’m actually considering my options here. “I’d have to cut off your hand so I can open the door.”
He arches a brow as though he’s intrigued by my idea. “You could,” he confirms.
I lift my eyes to look into his. The silver in them is bright today.
He’s not afraid.
“You know I won’t do it.”
It’s not a question.
His smile returns. “I know.”
I huff and carefully place his gun on the bed beside us. “So fucking unfair.”
He laughs quietly again.
We’re still in the same position, me in his lap.
His hands now rest on my hips, gripping them like he’s afraid I’ll bolt.
Silence fills the room for a bit as I search his face.
I think he’s searching mine too. Neither one of us has whatever answer we need, but if we each had a piece of it, maybe we could put them together and everything could be okay.
Sometimes my instinct to hide behind humor twists into something that looks a lot like foolish optimism. As though a kidnapping situation could possibly end in a happily ever after.
“Malcolm still hasn’t paid?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
It doesn’t make sense, and if I think about it for too long, then I’d probably want to cry. And not the therapeutic kind. There’s something neither one of us is seeing, and all the possibilities I can imagine aren’t good. Most of them are worse for Reese than for me.
“So let’s get out of here.”
His brows draw together. “What?”
“Let’s not wait around to find out what happens when whoever hired you decides it’s been long enough and tells you to kill me.”
“What are you suggesting?”
I realize I’m not even touching him, keeping my hands on my thighs. I remedy that and place my palms against his chest instead.
“Let’s run. Just you and me.”
He frowns as he takes a deep, slow breath, his chest moving beneath my touch. “This isn’t a game, Cason.”
“I know that.”
“Running would make you a target.”
“I already am.”
Something flickers across his face, something I can’t place.
All the flirting I’ve done before now has been for fun. A distraction. Survival. Now, it’s something more. This is desperation, a fierce desire for both of us to run away from all our problems. Together.
When he reaches up to brush a strand of hair away from my eyes, I damn near melt into him, leaning into his touch. I’m surprised I don’t start fucking purring.
“Where would we go?” he asks, and I try to ignore the way it sounds as though he’s just playing along.
I consider it for only a moment. “North Carolina.”
“Where your mom’s moving?”
I nod. It’s come up before now, and I wasn’t surprised he already knew. Turns out he knew a lot.
Unfortunately, he either doesn’t know if she’s stuck around Seattle or he refuses to tell me.
Of course, I automatically think the worst, that she’s already gone and I didn’t get to say goodbye.
Would she leave if she knew I was actually missing?
Malcolm hasn’t paid the ransom, so maybe they’re all happy I’ve disappeared.
But if she still wants me, I’d go with her. I didn’t want to move away from the lab and abandon my father’s legacy, but…
For Reese?
I think I could.
“Look at me.”
I realize my gaze had drifted down and immediately snap it back up at his command.
All those frown lines in his face are deep as he says, “I think you have Stockholm syndrome, sweetheart.”
I grimace. “Ew. Don’t call me that.”