Chapter 27
DARKNESS
LONDON
Ikeep my eyelids sealed as I stubbornly fight reality, pleading for that merciful oblivion to return. But just as Grayson stole the world from me, he now forces it violently back, thrusting smelling salts beneath my nose.
I wrench my head to the side, groggy and disoriented. My voice comes out hoarse. “Why can’t I move?”
My throat is raw, my neck tender and bruised. A wave of nausea rolls through me, and the slightest movement sends pain shooting down my shoulders. “You choked me,” I whisper. “Why didn’t you just kill me?”
A scraping noise reaches my ears, and as I dare to open my eyes, I see Grayson seated beside me.
As my vision clears, my other senses sharpen. We’re under a veranda. The air is crisp and it’s evening, the warm glow of draped lights illuminating the space. The scent of food hits me, making my stomach pang with hunger. Then I notice the numbness in my limbs—and I’m startled fully awake.
Grayson reaches for a tumbler of water. “The string wasn’t part of the original design,” he says, his gaze finding mine. “But I couldn’t resist the symbolism.”
I glance down, anger tightening my chest. Thick black cord binds me, crisscrossing my body and biting into my flesh. And beneath the restraints, that damn dress.
“Restrained by your own devices,” he continues. “Trapped within your self-inflicted limitations. How will you escape the restrictions you’ve imposed on yourself?”
I blink at him, unimpressed.
He shrugs, then brings the glass to my lips.
“You’re not amused. I thought the metaphor was fitting.
That little string always wound so tightly around your finger, cutting off blood flow, the way you cut yourself off from truly living.
Then you enter the maze, following the cries, to find the final test.”
Maze.
Then I hear it—the faint sound that’s only been background noise until he mentions it. Screams carry from the dark, reaching my ears.
“Who is that?” I demand, dread killing my appetite. “What have you done, Grayson?”
He makes me drink the water, and I struggle to force it past my constricted throat. And I realize something else is…off.
I turn my head, and notice my damp hair as it drags over my bare shoulders. My head is fuzzy. “You drugged me,” I accuse.
“I didn’t want to, if that makes a difference.”
“It doesn’t. What did you use?” I need to know what’s in my system, the side effects.
“Chloroform.” He states it so casually, so fucking nonchalant. “You needed a bath, and as appealing as it sounds, wrestling you in the tub would’ve eaten away too much time.” He blows out a breath, reaching across the table to grasp my hand. “You’re scared.”
“I’m not scared of you,” I seethe, even as my pulse batters my veins.
He encloses my hand in his. “You’re frightened, London. Cold hands indicate blood retreating from your extremities, an autonomic response to fear.” He releases me. “You need to eat.”
He slides a plate closer, then slices into the steak. A scream punctuates the silence, and I crane my neck toward the source, the sudden motion lighting up pain at the base of my skull.
“I never asked,” he says, “but I assumed you weren’t a vegetarian.” He holds up the piece of steak in offer.
Too starved to care, I lean forward and bite the meat off the fork.
He carves another slice free. “How much of your memory did you regain?” he asks, presenting the next bite.
I accept the food, chewing slowly. My head already feels a little clearer. I don’t want to go back to the cage—mentally or otherwise. I’ve allowed my mind to slip once, and I can’t afford to lose control again.
“I remembered enough,” I say.
“Do you remember how old you were when you were taken?” Grayson selects a steamed carrot this time. At my silence, he adds, “I was seven. Too old for that selective memory thing, where the mind represses to protect itself.” He feeds me the carrot. “You must have been younger.”
“I don’t know,” I admit. I don’t even know if what I experienced in the cage was real or some drug-induced hallucination. “Why don’t you tell me? You seem to already know everything about me.”
“If I knew everything, we wouldn’t be here,” he says. “And if we both knew all the answers, then we’d be far past this courting bullshit.”
“Courting,” I mock, a laugh slipping free. “I suppose this would be considered dating to a sadistic psychopath. Just a romantic dinner after a little strangulation and breath play.”
The screaming tapers off, barely audible now.
He wipes a cloth napkin beneath my lips.
“So you prefer something more mundane, like dinner and a movie. Where I bore you with my career achievements, and you force yourself to stroke my ego, all the while I’m hoping you’ll get drunk enough for a quick, sloppy fuck. ”
I glare at him.
His lips curve into a self-satisfied smile. “Damn, you really do like your torture, don’t you.”
“You know what I actually like, Grayson? People who keep their word. You said once I confessed to the mistreatment of my patients, you’d release me.
” I lift my chin. “I’m sure you have a recording of me in the cage stashed somewhere.
I mean, the damage is done. My career will be ruined.
My files confiscated. Experts called in to reevaluate my patients.
You’ve won, Grayson. Another successful punishment dealt. ”
His jaw tenses as he draws the plate away, and I mourn the loss of food.
“Your recorded confession won’t accomplish anything.
You were half delirious, clearly under duress due to your abduction at the hands of a madman.
” He stands and glares down at me. “That’s not why you had to endure and pass the test.”
Anxiety coils around my chest as he shoves the table back, creating a space for him to kneel before me. My gaze slips over the blood staining his shirt from where I stabbed him, then snags on the discarded knife on the table.
He places his hands on my thighs, eliciting a visceral response. The contrast between the cool satin of my dress and the heat from his palms simultaneously makes me want to flee and draw closer.
I try to move away, but my legs are restrained as tightly as my arms. My bare toes scrape uselessly against the concrete.
“Do you know who the girl was?” Grayson asks, his voice low, accent thickening as the pressure of his touch intensifies. His hands inch upward, drawing the silky material along my thighs. “The girl in the cage with you—who was she?”
I force myself to breathe through the mounting pressure. “I can’t be sure,” I say honestly. Her dirt-streaked face flashes through my mind. “But I think... I think I loved her.”
Honesty is all we have left. Whatever Grayson has planned for me, my only recourse is the truth. He sees past my defenses, the facade I present to the world, and yet he doesn’t judge me. If anything, revealing the darkest, most disturbing facets of my psyche might buy me time.
And if I’m completely honest with myself, I want to tell him.
Grayson was stolen. His childhood molded by the psychological trauma of abduction.
From a clinical perspective, it’s fascinating.
But beyond that, it’s sacred, his foundation, an experience intricately woven into his identity—holding answers only he can unlock.
He glides his palms along my legs, and I sense the abrasive threat of his touch beneath the thin fabric. I want it—and I loathe myself for wanting it.
“Love,” he repeats slowly, as if tasting it.
“She felt familiar,” I tell him. “Like family. Like a…”
“Sister.” He lifts his gaze to mine.
As soon as he says the word, a memory surfaces. “Mia,” I whisper her name. Small details, glimpses of our life together, trickle into my awareness. Her dirty-blond hair tickling my face. Her sweet, slightly crooked smile. Her laughter. Her tears.
Then—
He took her from me.
The current builds, a torrent of memories flooding through me. She was ripped through the bars, dragged from the cellar—stolen away from me. I don’t need to recover all my memories to know the truth.
She’s buried beneath the garden with the others.
“London, breathe.” Grayson’s voice coaxes me back from the darkness, and I force air into my lungs.
“I don’t want to remember,” I confess.
And I don’t. If he tortured her in front of me, if he killed her… My mind has sheltered me from a horror no child could or should have to process. Even now, the pain constricting my chest is so overwhelming, that I can barely withstand its crushing force. I don’t want to feel this.
“She can’t be my sister,” I whisper.
“There’s only one way to be sure.”
I curl my fingers against the edge of the chair, gripping until my knuckles ache.
“Dig them up,” I say. Only this time, the words hold another meaning. DNA testing would confirm whether I had a sister. It would confirm other things…
“You’ll never get answers from him,” Grayson says, as if reading my mind. “But if you pass your final test, you’ll no longer need them.”
He buries his head in my lap, and the impulse to touch him flares like a match. The yearning blazes hot and consuming between us. I steel my resolve, struggling to hold on to some fragile semblance of myself.
Think.
The only question I would demand from my father is why.
And yet, I already know that answer, don’t I? I’ve studied and analyzed his type of pathology over the years. The girl—my sister, Mia—was older than me. She was the same age as the girls buried in our backyard. She fit his victimology…and me?
I simply got in his way.
The real question is: Why did he keep me alive?
“Because he didn’t love me,” I reason aloud. “Not in the way a parent loves their child. He was grooming me. I was a project. And when I failed him, I became just another disobedient girl who needed to be punished.”
Grayson’s hold tightens on my legs, an anchor, grounding me in the present.
And I let him.