Chapter 4
It’s been a week since I was kidnapped. At least, I think it has.
Time gets a bit slippery when you can’t see the sun.
It stops behaving like a line and starts acting more like a suggestion.
Morning and night are concepts for people with windows.
I have four walls, a door, and the creeping suspicion that if I stay in this room long enough, I’ll forget what time is supposed to feel like in the first place.
I measure days the way most prisoners probably do—by routine, by hunger, by the sound of footsteps outside the door.
Twice a day, the door opens. That’s my clock now.
He brings me food on a paper plate or in a paper bowl, always simple and mundane. A sandwich, sometimes chips. Cereal. Apples. No conversation. Just him, the dishes, and the world’s most committed refusal to acknowledge my existence as a person with questions.
I’ve counted meals obsessively. Fourteen. Unless I slept through one. Unless he skipped one on purpose. Unless he decided to mess with me because he woke up feeling whimsical and cruel, like a Disney villain with a basement.
The second day I was here, he cuffed me to the metal frame of the bed so he could flip the door around—yeah, I don’t blame him for that.
But he completely ignored me the entire time he was working, no matter how many inappropriate jokes I made about being tied to his bed.
Not a single word or reaction. I guess I don’t blame him for that either.
I’ve tried to talk to him several times since then, to ask questions. Because I want answers, but also because silence makes me itchy.
“Why am I here?”
“Am I allowed to make requests, or is this a fixed menu?”
“Do I get a name, or should I just keep calling you Tall, Dark, and Murdery?”
Nothing.
He never answers. Not even a look that says shut up. He sets the plate down and leaves without so much as a glance in my direction. The door closes behind him like it’s a vault sealing shut, deciding I’m part of the contents now.
At first, I thought the silence was a tactic. An intimidation thing. Interrogation 101: let the captive talk himself to death. But a week—or fourteen meals—later, I’m starting to think he just doesn’t talk unless he has to.
Or unless I’m getting into trouble.
Admittedly, I’ve done that on purpose a few times.
Or maybe he’s still pissed I got him hard.
I’m still a little surprised about it myself, to be honest.
If I run it back enough times, maybe I’ll find the version where I was smarter. The version where I didn’t test him. The version where I didn’t see a loaded gun and think, You know what this situation needs? Sexual bravado.
It’s not like I planned to grind my ass against his dick while he held a gun to my head. I can admit I was fucking terrified. Desperate. I reached for the only kind of control I could find.
But when I felt him getting hard?
Yeah, I got hard too.
And that made it even more fucking confusing.
I’ve been trying not to think about it more than necessary.
I’ve also tried not to think about my mom too much, but I can’t help it.
She was supposed to leave for North Carolina by now, and I keep wondering if she’s already gone.
If she packed up the last box and drove away without knowing what happened to me.
Or if she’s still around, delayed, waiting, thinking I’m just not answering my phone like that could keep her here.
The not knowing gnaws at me, and I don’t know which is worse—her not knowing, or her knowing and leaving anyway.
Everything eats at me because I spend too long just lying on the bed all day with nothing else to think about, staring at the ceiling. It’s blank. No cracks to trace, no stains that look like continents or constellations or crude images if you squint hard enough. Just gray, smooth, insignificant.
Every now and then, I’ll do some sit-ups or push-ups or jumping jacks. Mostly out of spite.
After a week without a shower, I fucking stink.
Maybe he’ll open that door one of these times, be hit with an assault of my worsening body odor, and be forced to let me out of this godforsaken room.
And the silence.
And the boredom.
When he’s not here, I talk anyway. To the walls. To myself. To the camera I know is watching me. I crack jokes because that’s what I do when things get unbearable. Humor as a flotation device. If I keep my head above water, maybe I won’t notice how deep I am.
But no one laughs.
No one tells me to shut up.
That might be the worst part. Not the room, not the locked door, not the fact that my life has been reduced to sandwiches and surveillance. It’s the silence that stretches between meals, elastic and unbroken, giving my thoughts all the room they want to turn feral.
I don’t know what he’s planning. I don’t know who he is. All I know is that every time the door opens, I hold my breath without meaning to, and every time it closes again, I let it out like I’ve survived something small but important.
Twice a day, I’m reminded that I still exist.
That reminder comes early this time.
The door unlocks, and I jolt upright on the bed, my spine stiffening with the dread that comes from the door opening earlier than it should.
He stands there, no plate in his hands. His gaze is actually on me this time, staring. Watchful.
“Up.”
That’s it. One word.
I blink at him. “Are we conserving syllables now?”
No reaction, not even a flicker.
He jerks his head behind him. “Come with me.”
My heart stutters. Hope and uncertainty tangle together in a way that makes my stomach dip. Leaving this room for the first time in a week feels dangerous, like walking down a flight of stairs knowing you’re going to miss a step. In this case, I have no idea how high up I am.
Not wanting to press my luck, I slide off the bed and follow him.
I took my socks off at some point, so my bare feet are cold against the concrete.
The basement is a lot more open than I noticed during my first trip out of my cell, probably too busy panicking and more focused on my attempted and failed escape.
It’s all unfinished walls, exposed beams, and purely utilitarian lighting.
Then I notice the shower in the corner.
It’s not part of a bathroom. There’s no toilet or sink. It’s just a freestanding shower tucked into the farthest corner, two sides solid concrete, the other two glass.
My captor stops in front of it and crosses his arms. “Strip and get in.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Geez. Buy me dinner first?”
His gaze drifts pointedly over me. “You stink.”
“That’s hurtful,” I say with an exaggerated frown. Then I turn it right around into a cocky smirk. “But accurate.”
I knew, eventually, one of three things would happen.
He’d let me go. He’d kill me. Or he’d let me take a shower.
I was kind of hoping he’d have to take me upstairs for that so I could get a peek of where I am, but of course this psychopath has a shower in his goddamn basement like a fucking serial killer.
So, yeah, I stink on purpose.
He’s definitely not amused though.
He steps forward, and I get barely half a step back before his hand is around the back of my neck, squeezing hard and making me wince. Pulling me forward until his face is inches from mine, I feel the heat of his breath against my lips as he growls his next words.
“Clothes off. Now. Or I can hose you down myself.”
I glance at the industrial spigot mounted on the wall and swallow hard as I meet his gaze again. “You know…suddenly I’m very pro-cooperation.”
He roughly lets me go, and I stumble back a few feet. Once I catch my balance, I start to strip. Slowly. Not because I’m shy. I’m definitely not. But if he’s going to watch, then I’m going to make him aware.
My fingers tease the skin over my waist as I slip them beneath the hem of my shirt, slowly lifting it to expose my midriff.
His jaw ticks.
Okay, so maybe he’s getting impatient with me for taking so long, but either way…
Small victories.
Removing my shirt, I drop it to the floor. It’s filthy anyway. When I find his eyes again, he’s staring at the tattoo that takes up a good portion of my upper left arm.
He arches a brow.
“Don’t you dare talk shit about Penelope.”
Penelope is the unicorn inked into the skin of my arm, majestic with waves of rainbow hair for her mane and tail.
He doesn’t react. Not even a roll of his eyes.
Time to get creative.
Raising my arms above my head, I bend my back, stretching my body and letting out a suggestive moan. Lowering my right arm, I rub my left pec, massaging the muscle.
“Whatever it is you think you’re doing, you’re wasting your time and mine. I told you I’m not gay.”
His voice sounds more calm and controlled than I would’ve hoped.
I meet his gaze. “Bet if I ate your ass you’d change your mind.”
His composure breaks with the slight parting of his lips.
Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Especially considering he doesn’t attack me for the offer.
And, yeah, that was definitely an offer.
Survival flirting.
That’s a thing.
Right?
Turning my back on him, I approach the shower before he can see the smirk on my face and change his mind and attack me after all. I unzip my jeans and lower them to my ankles, bending over to give him a nice view of my bare ass while I’m at it. I stop just short of shaking it for him.
There’s such a thing as overkill, after all.
I step into the shower and turn the water on. It’s warm, mercifully so, and I sag under it with a groan before I can stop myself. A week of grime starts sluicing off me, spiraling down the drain like proof that time has been passing after all.
As I hang my head and let the water rain over me, I notice my dick is a little hard. It started filling when he grabbed me. I have a thing for being manhandled, okay? I can’t help it. It doesn’t help that I still find the man attractive. A total asshole, sure. A kidnapper, yeah. But undeniably hot.