11. Luna
LUNA
Itrace a thin crack in the ceiling as Sawyer tends to the wounds on my calf and shin. Eight punctures—bloody and tender—one for each tooth of the spring trap.
It looks nasty now, but my skin doesn’t easily scar, and this isn’t the first trap I’ve run into.
The ceiling slowly fades as I’m taken back to ten years old.
The butt of a rifle presses to my shoulder while I creep along a set of hooved tracks.
I’m so focused, I don’t notice the metal jaws until they sink into my leg, and I scream so loud I spook every deer within two hundred yards.
Somehow, I’m only half as loud as my father.
“You’re gonna be all right, Luna,” Sawyer says. I shut my eyes against the softness in his voice. It’s a lie crueler than the words themselves. Exactly what you’d expect from a world-class trafficker.
“I read about you in the Times.” I say, stilling the cotton in his hand. “Sawyer Hansley. Owner of Paradise Island.”
Seconds pass without movement. I open my eyes to find Sawyer watching me, his eyes slightly narrowed with a question I hear as clearly as if he spoke it. How do you know?
“The bearded guy said your name.”
Eyes closing, he sighs. But only a few moments pass before he goes back to applying a greasy salve to my gash, the scent of lavender and pine needles fighting against dusty, stale air.
“It’s probably better that you know.” He picks up a large bandage and peels off the back. I wait for him to say something else, something to explain himself, but… Silence.
He wraps the cloth around the wound.
“You’re a monster.” I rise up on my hands, heels of my palms digging into the black cushioned bench he chose to lay me. “You wanted me to believe you were a victim of this place, but you’re probably their leader.”
“Their leader?” Sawyer laughs without a trace of humor. “I don’t know if you noticed, but they forced me from those woods same as you. And if I hadn’t convinced them that your little escape attempt was according to plan, we’d both be dead. So you're welcome.”
My lips part, air bursting past. “For what? Saving yourself?”
When he goes to put another bandage on my leg, I yank away. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
My voice hits an octave too high—feminine, shrill, weak. It echoes off the walls and ricochets inside my skull.
Father’s voice.
Don’t be dramatic.
Shake away the thought.
“You’re a liar,” I sneer, wrapping my arms around my knees. “All you’ve been doing is screwing with my head. You don’t want to help me.”
With more than necessary care, he sets the bandage back in the little leather bag—ominous, like the room.
Strange objects clutter the walls, furniture arranged a hair too orderly to be mistaken for storage.
A wooden chair, two workbenches with shallow drawers, a padded pole, some curved, cloth-covered contraption whose purpose I don’t want to guess.
Everything obscure.
Everything intentional.
“Helping you isn’t my biggest priority, no… But I don’t want to hurt you, either.”
His calm presence suddenly looms sinisterly as he stands.
I shuffle backward until I slip off the bench. I hit the floor hard—tailbone first, breath punching out of me.
“Stay back,” I snap, scrambling backward until I can get to my feet. “Don’t come near me.”
His eyes—his true eyes—track me with surgical precision as he stalks my way.
Menacingly calm. “I know you won’t believe me, but …
I didn’t come here to hurt you. I didn’t come here to hurt anyone.
Hell, I asked to initiate as a Keeper.” He laughs bitterly and slowly closes in as my back bumps the wall.
My eyes dart left and right, searching for escape until his palms slap a centimeter from each of my ears. I jolt, eardrums spasming.
“You saw how that turned out for my friend,” Sawyer says, voice low, sky blue eyes lingering on my lips.
Intimate, way too intimate for the tension strangling the air between us.
“This is what they want from me, so this is what I have to give them. What we have to give them… Because trust me, beautiful, you need this to work out as much as I do.” My lungs hitch when he leans in, as if savoring my fear.
His lips brush my open mouth, barely a breath of contact, and then something even lighter—a slick whisper of tongue along the crooked ridge of my front teeth. So faint, so subtle I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t taste the cool trace of mint. Like he brushed his teeth for this.
“Remember that.”
One hand slips from the wall and edges onto my shoulder. It travels the curve of my collarbone, fingers curling beneath the collar of my sweater.
He yanks hard while twisting his body to propel me forward. I gasp; stumble; catch myself on the foam-wrapped pole.
Sawyer’s there in an instant. He spins me around and pins me with an elbow.
“What are you doing?” Another gasp escapes as he disappears behind me and pulls each of my arms around the pole. I jerk, pull, panic, but his grip is unflinching. “Let go!”
“I will. I promise. This’ll only take a minute.”
“What?” I turn my head to search for him, but am forced straight by his arm wrapping around my neck.
Can’t breathe.
Can’t breathe.
I kick and yank so hard, one hand frees from his grasp. He lets go of the other—voluntary—and doesn’t bother securing them again while I claw and pull on his arm.
“Stop struggling,” he commands, calm yet firm. My face feels thick with blood. “You’ll want to stay perfectly still for this. Trust me.”
Trust him.
Trust the man choking the life from me. Who stole the lives of hundreds of women before me, luring them with false promises and superficial charm.
No.
My nails scrape the golden plain of his arm before I dig around his wrist in search of a pressure point.
But he’s smart—everything stays tight, every vulnerability just out of reach.
I feel myself slipping. My knees wobble, legs tripping more than they kick. The claws raking his arm slip into weak drags, two hairs short of a caress.
And then…
Sawyer’s arm releases. Air springs into my lungs so viciously I choke on it, hacking through each frantic exhale.
His presence leaves, but I don’t think to move. I’m too struck—to run, to question where he went, what he’s doing…
Mistake.
A polyester strap drops over my head and tightens like a noose. It fastens me to the pole. I grasp the material, my breath cutting off mid gasp as it squeezes.
“You can think of this like a seatbelt. If you move, it’ll tighten.
Already, you’re suffocating yourself.” Sawyer’s warm breath ghosts the tender lobe of my ear.
The quiet of his voice is a sharp contrast to the panicked ringing behind my eyes.
“I’m going to loosen it, but only this once.
After that, it’s up to you whether or not you breathe. Understood?”
I kick the pole while yanking at the belt, but Sawyer’s right. It only gets worse. I’m only certain he isn’t pulling it himself when he steps in front of me, his hands resting at his sides.
“Is that understood, Luna?” He sounds so innocent. So level. Like this really is my fault.
My nod tightens the strap. Polyester digs into my flesh, already rubbing my skin raw.
His chin bobs with a curt nod. “Good.”
My eyes squeeze shut as he steps around me and loosens the belt. The moment there’s slack, I drag in a harsh, almost painful breath. My neck arches, back sliding up the pole as I rise onto my toes—like someone drowning, mouth straining toward the surface.
“Ready to try again?”
“No.” I shake my head before remembering what it’ll do. He must be holding the choker in place because it doesn’t tighten. Not yet.
I flatten myself against the pole—body going rigid—and still for a game I never agreed to play. “Sawyer, please. You made your point.”
“This isn’t about proving a point.” He adjusts the belt so it’s snug then comes around to stand in front of me.
When his hand lifts, I flinch—a mistake I pay for with a quarter sized shrink in the polyester. I draw in huge gusts of air just to make sure my lungs still work.
They do.
Minimal friction.
Thank God.
Sawyer’s knuckles skim my jawline with a caress so unwarranted, it pulls a pathetic whine from my chest.
“This is about you learning to accept physical touch while feeling discomfort.”
His knuckles travel lower, his first two fingers cutting a slow path through the valley of my breasts before finding the hem of my sweater.
He gives a little tug … why? Testing me? Announcing himself before he commits his next sin?
“Does this normally work for you?” I ask, ignoring the warmth of his hand crawling beneath my sweater.
He smiles—sadistic—as his knuckle lightly carves a four inch path on my waistline; a cruel back and forth just above the button on my jeans. Suggestive. Taunting. An invitation for me to cinch his wrist and choke myself with the movement…
Now I realize why he didn’t tie my hands.
“Like a charm.”
I open my eyes when he pulls away abruptly, back to me as he walks to the workbench. I sigh—relieved, stupid.
My palms plant on the cool padding by my hips while my breaths even. Deep… Slow…
This is fine.
I’m fine.
Sawyer slides open a shallow drawer and lifts something out—pecan-shell sized, white, nameless. He pockets it without a word, then reaches into a lower drawer to retrieve a coil of strange, cherry-red rope.
There’s a camera on a tripod that Sawyer turns on, the ominous red light cutting like a laser. I stare wide-eyed into the lens as Sawyer comes toward me. “You’re filming this?”
“We want our new friends to see your progress… Keep your hands at your sides.”
The words, “go to hell,” almost jump from my throat, but fear holds them back. Real fear. Genuine fear. More than I know how to feel.
What happens next?
I try to think it through, analyze, plan—but that only works when you know your opponent. The man who saved me in the woods is gone. This is a new Sawyer entirely.
He crouches in front of me and positions my palms flat on my hips, then wraps the rope around my belly several times to lock my arms.