CHAPTER THREE
Present
I COME AWAKE with a start, my eyes popping open and my lungs expanding with a sudden large breath.
The last thing I remember is falling, losing control of my body and going limp, freaking the fuck out.
I’m not limp now. I jerk my head up and hiss in pain because somehow I’ve managed to bang it against something.
Something hard and rough. Scratchy. Something that my back is stuck to.
A tree.
I look around, frantic. My brain tries to register everything all at once.
I’m sitting on the ground. It’s not dark anymore.
There are trees everywhere. The air is cool and still, unlike in the city.
My bare calves are streaked with mud, and my dress is torn at the hem.
I hear water but can’t see it. My heels are gone and my feet are bare.
There’s a rusty-looking truck parked over to the side, black with a dented door.
But most importantly, I can’t move. I try to, but I feel a sharp pain in my shoulders, then pins and needles.
I also feel a sting around my wrists, as if from a rope.
My bare arms and shoulders drag across the rough bark of the tree I bumped my head against only a minute ago.
I’m tied up. Aren’t I?
My arms are tied behind my back.
Okay. Okay, okay, okay. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.
Don’t panic, I tell myself. I can figure this out.
I can think of something. I can… Oh God.
Oh my fucking God, I’m tied up. I’m fucking tied up.
I’m fucking… My frantic thoughts come to a halt when my eyes fall on something that I missed during the first perusal: smoke.
Thick and white, it’s wafting from a heap of logs a few feet away.
And beyond that is a man.
He’s sitting on a log, his jean-covered thighs spread, his booted feet planted on the ground.
His dark head is bent and focused on something he’s doing with his hands.
I’d try to figure out what it was if I wasn’t so taken aback by everything else about him.
Mostly, his size. The sheer largeness of him.
Even sitting down, with his broad shoulders and a thick chest, he looks wider and taller than the trees surrounding us.
He’s wearing a dark-colored shirt that’s nearly busting at the seams trying to contain his burly muscles.
His sleeves are folded up to his elbows, exposing his thick forearms, and despite the situation, I can’t look away from the aggressive play of muscles and veins.
His skin is tanned in a way that suggests he spends all his time outside, and his fingers appear long and thick with scraped knuckles as they fiddle with the zipper of a backpack by his feet, telling me that in addition to being out in the sun, he’s used to working with his hands.
But then again, I already knew that, didn’t I?
I’ve already seen his hands in action. Whether knocking down a guy in a dark alley or almost killing another in a parking lot, this man does know how to use his hands.
Not only does he know how to handle a fragile needle—because he did use that on me, didn’t he, to knock me out—but he also knows how to tie a mean knot, because no matter how much I struggle to get my arms free, I can’t.
And I struggle a lot. So much so that I think I’m scraping my skin raw.
I’m also breathing very fast and making too much noise because a second later, he looks up and his eyes clash with mine.
And I freeze.
I also think I die a little. It’s not an exaggeration.
It’s not even dramatic, even though I’m given to drama from time to time.
It’s simply a fact. When I was young, my mom would tell me stories about angels.
She used to say that angels were the prettiest beings there ever were.
The most beautiful creatures you’d ever see, and heaven was full of them.
She told me that was where we went when we died.
It’s one of the only fond memories I have of her, and I’ve always kept it close to my heart.
Now as I look at him, the man who brought me here and tied me to a tree, that’s the only thing I can think of.
That my Phantom is actually an angel.
Even with his mask on, I knew he was the most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on, and now that his mask is off, I know I was right.
And it’s not just his stunning green eyes that are surrounded by thick, curled eyelashes that can only be called a forest. It’s also those cheekbones of his, so high and peaked, cut from marble, giving way to the hollows so deep that I’d be afraid of falling into them.
His stubbled jaw is a perfect square with a slant to it that I’ve only ever read about in books, and his mouth is all pink and plump, full.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mouth like that on a man, and I never thought it would be so appealing if I did see it.
Even his ears are appealing. As symmetrical as the rest of his face.
With a scar on the left side.
That continues down from his eye, cutting through his sharp cheekbone and his lush lips, bisecting them like it does his thick brow, and going all the way down to his jaw.
It’s like someone dragged a piece of glass or a knife, something sharp, along the entire length of his face, from top to bottom.
It’s brutal. It’s vicious. It’s so barbaric that it has to be tragic.
But whatever or whoever did that to his face should know that despite the severity of the carnage, it’s not the first thing you notice about him.
That spot is reserved for those eyes of his, and then his lips.
Followed by any number of things on his heartbreakingly beautiful face.
What happened to him, though? And why am I wasting my time wondering about it?
Slowly, he comes to his feet, and my thoughts shift as I crane my neck up.
Up and up and up to be able to see him. I was right when I said he’s taller than the trees.
He’s definitely tall enough to cast a shadow on my small, hunched, tied-up form, even when he’s all the way over there, on the other side of the smoke.
Then he starts walking toward me, and the ground shakes under his powerful feet.
At least, I’m shaking as I watch him come closer, his eyes locked with mine.
He finally reaches me and before I can take another breath, he drops down to his haunches.
It’s so abrupt, his action, that I draw back, pressing my spine into the tree.
Not that there’s anywhere to go, but still he notices.
My retreat. And something happens to his eyes, I don’t know what, but it makes my heart race in my chest. Something happens to his face, too, tightening his cheeks and making that scar ripple, and my heart races even harder.
With fear.
But then his features become blank, and I gather enough courage to speak when I notice a bottle in his hand.
A juice bottle, orange in color. I don’t know how I missed him carrying it over to me, but I did.
It’s uncapped and tipped toward me, and it takes me a second to realize he’s offering it to me.
He’s offering me… juice?
Is he insane?
I do the only thing that makes sense. I scream.
I throw my head back, bang it against the tree again, and let out the loudest scream of my life.
I scream and scream and fucking scream to the sky as I struggle against my bonds.
I jerk my body. I kick my feet. I wiggle on the ground like I’m throwing a tantrum and don’t let up until my throat is hoarse and hurting and feels like it’s bleeding.
Panting, I look down and meet his eyes again.
They’re just as cool and beautiful as they were before.
His expression is the same as well, calm and unchanged, like I didn’t scream up a goddamn storm.
Even his hand hasn’t moved, not even an inch.
The bottle is still tipped forward, as if waiting for me to put my mouth on it and drink.
With a heaving chest, I command, “Untie me.”
His response is to simply stare at me. As though saying, without words, that’s not going to happen.
I clench my teeth. “Untie me.”
Again he says nothing, and yet I know exactly what he’s telling me with his silence.
But I don’t give up. “Right the fuck now.”
Nothing. Not a single word or even a blink of an eye, and I practically shout at him. “Fucking untie me, you asshole, or I’ll—”
“Not much you can do,” he says finally.
And I almost gasp from surprise. I wasn’t expecting him to speak.
Not when he’s somehow so capable of communicating things with his silence.
I certainly wasn’t expecting him to speak in anything more than a whisper like he did last night.
Definitely not in a voice that sounds unused.
Deep and rough, laden with cobwebs. Like he hasn’t spoken for some time now.
Like I’m the first person he’s speaking to in days.
Not to mention, I notice something. That when he speaks, the left side of his mouth moves slightly slower than his right, probably due to his scar.
It’s so subtle, though, that I doubt it’s noticeable to most people.
He runs his green eyes over my face before adding, “The way you are, bound and roped.” Then, “’Cept maybe scream some more.”
I want to speak. I do. But I have to clench my teeth first to battle the onslaught of goose bumps over my skin. I somehow get myself under control and threaten, “So then, if you don’t untie me, I’ll scream your fucking head off.”
He looks at me a beat. “Got a thick skull.”
“You—”
“Gonna need sustenance, you wanna make the attempt to break through.”
I glance down at the bottle for a second. “Oh, is that sustenance?”
Again, he speaks through his silence.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Get that thing out of my face.”
He does not.
“Get it the fuck out of my face,” I state again.