by Vivian Wood
“You can talk in front of me,” the woman says. “I want to know.”
No, you don’t. I want to tell her that.
Damon looks at me, reading the truth in my eyes. “In private,” he says.
She doesn’t give up. “Why? What happened to her? Does it have to do with your father?”
Only when Damon pulls away from me do I feel the cold. It’s deep in my bones, settled like ice that will never melt. I want the fire back, but I know it will hurt. It doesn’t matter what I want. Damon is already getting dressed, already leaving. Already riding away on his invisible white horse.
“Stay with her,” he tells the girl. “Her name’s Penny.”
“What happened to her?” the woman says again, her voice desolate, knowing he won’t answer.
Of course Damon obliges, leaving without another word. Then it’s only this woman and me, someone who was auctioned off like some rare and valuable object, and meanwhile I’m cracked into a thousand pieces like a worthless one. The princess and the pauper.
She doesn’t undress like Damon, which is a small relief. I don’t think I could handle any more vulnerability in this night. But she does join me in the bed, stroking my hair gently until I fall asleep.
I wake up with the room darker, the shadows deeper.
Her body feels warm and still beside mine, as if she had drowsed too.
Who is she? And why does she care what happens to me? Or maybe she does whatever Damon tells her to without question. I’m all too familiar with that unblinking obedience.
“Are you one of them?” I ask, half in the dream world.
“One of who?”
The whores. I can’t say the word, not only because it would offend her. Because I’m one of them. What are we called, anyway? “One of the girls. The ones Damon collects when someone can’t pay the loan back.”
“Do you mean the strippers?”
“Are they strippers?” I ask, my voice thick with sleep.
I guess it makes sense. A way to make money where none had been. And probably some of the customers are the very same men who owe money. It’s a complete circuit, powering Damon Scott’s rise to power.
But I can’t really imagine Damon on a cigarette littered floor, tossing dollar bills onstage.
My eyes flutter closed again. “I thought he kept them for himself. I imagined a harem of girls, one for every day of the month.”
At least that’s how he had made it sound. Was that supposed to make it more palatable?
So I would go more easily into my captivity?
She sounds contemplative, as if she’s wondering the same thing. “There aren’t other girls. At least not here. What made you think there were?”
Come to terms with what you have to do. “He threatened to take me. If Daddy didn’t pay.”
“Maybe he wanted you to work off the debt,” she says, uncertain.
But I swear to God you’ll be mine.
“No,” I say, drifting back into sleep. He said he’d make me like it. The strange thing was, I believed him. “He told me what he wanted to do. Him and me.”
She holds my hand when the doctor comes.
He doesn’t wear a white coat or carry a black bag. Instead he wears only black slacks, exposing his broad chest with pale red hair and silvery scars I’ve seen on men who fight a lot. His soft-sided grey cooler looks more like it should carry body parts rather than heal them.
“Trust him,” she whispers, squeezing my hand.
I close my eyes, holding onto her when he examines me.
The doctor may look like a thug but his manner is professional. Impersonal, even. He doesn’t express any surprise over finding my ribs bruised or my rectum torn. It’s with a fast, impersonal touch that he cleans my wounds and applies topical antibiotics.
And blissfully he has pain medicine. Serious, hardcore pain medicine. The kind you can get addicted to. That’s what I need right now. I need to escape my own mind, my memories. I need oblivion.
The pain medicine backfires, because I can’t wake up. Not even when I want to.
In the darkness of my nightmares Damon can’t reach me. I’m deep underneath the water, where it’s only black. And on the surface, a thick layer of ice. I don’t know if he could have made me like kissing, if I would have ever liked sex, but there’s only fear now.
Only a cold certainty that whatever comes next will hurt.
Only the strange dread that I’ll like it that way.
The next morning I wake up encased in ice, the events of last night frozen away. And I’m sure I can stay this way, as long as I don’t talk or move or think. I stare up at the blank ceiling, carefully not imagining about Damon sleeping in this same place night after night.
Avery is the young woman’s name. She stays by my side the whole night, only leaving briefly to confer with the doctor and someone who brings clothes for us both.
She dresses me in a loose tank top and yoga pants.
On an intellectual level I know the clothes are comfortable. They feel like velvet against my skin. Apparently rich people even have different workout clothes.
But on a physical level I don’t feel anything. Not pain.
Definitely not hunger, especially once I see the table heavy with food.
Damon sits with another man at the table, speaking in low tones. Both of them stand when we come into the room. It’s an old world courtesy, but one lacking any warmth. Damon’s eyes are as cold as I’ve ever seen them. And they don’t linger long on me.
Avery leads me to one of the empty chairs before taking one opposite me.
I stare at the teacup in front of me, only distantly curious. It may as well be a flying saucer. Something to be poked and prodded. Examined. Nothing that could provide comfort.
The whole world seems foreign now.
“Did you find anything?” the other man says. I remember Avery talking to him. Gabriel.
There could be a thousand meanings, but I know which one it is. The same way I could count cards and calculate statistics—without really wanting to. Did he find anything in that abandoned mental hospital?
“Nothing useful,” Damon answers, his voice low and flat.
Gabriel presses forward. “You know him best. What’s his next move?”
“He thinks he’s teaching me a lesson. What does any teacher do?”
Reinforce the lesson. Give homework. My mind flashes to Damon in the old trailer, holding that damned book of trigonometry. My stomach turns over, threatening to spill over the nice shiny china.
“Does that mean Avery is safe?”
A cold smile crosses Damon’s handsome face. “The opposite.”
Gabriel makes a low growling sound. “Then we can’t wait.”
“No,” Damon says agreeably.
The men will go looking for Jonathan Scott. Will they find him? That seems doubtful. This is an elaborate game. I haven’t seen enough of the cards to count them. And I’m only a chip in the pile, moved around on the velvet without a thought.
“So I’ll bring Avery back,” the other man says.
Damon nods. “We can meet this afternoon.”
Avery seems to perk up. “Can you maybe talk to me instead of about me?”
“I’ll bring you back to my house,” Gabriel says to her, his expression a strange mix of possession and deference. “And then meet with Damon this afternoon.”
“What about Penny?”
Everyone in the room looks at me, the heat from the gazes searing. Look away, look away.
“What about her?” Gabriel finally asks.
“Who will take care of her?” Avery demands.
Damon doesn’t move a muscle but I feel his fury as if it flickers, his own flame. “I’ll find someone,” he says, nothing in his voice giving away his anger.
“I’ll stay with her,” Avery says, though I can hear the uncertainty in her voice.
“Absolutely not,” Gabriel says. “My house is the safest place for you, especially when bo
th Damon and I aren’t there. The security team is already installed there.”
“Then she can come with me.” Avery kicks me softly under the table. She wants me to say that I agree with her, but I don’t really. I like Avery, but she’s probably safer without me. “If it’s safer there, then she’ll be safer, too.”
The force of Damon’s discontent takes the air from the room. In the tense silence I imagine a million things he could say. I’ll take care of you, Penny. The fantasy gets stronger.
“Take her,” he says, his voice cold as he stands and tosses down his napkin.
Then he leaves the room, as if he decided on his dinner order instead of my fate.
Avery struggles to meet my eyes, but I can’t deal with that. Can’t deal with the empathy I would find. Can’t deal with the questions she would ask.
“What happened to her?” she asks Gabriel instead, a sweet relief. Someone else to answer her questions. Someone else to field the useless empathy.
“You don’t want to know,” he says, his voice hard.
“I should know if I’m going to help her.”
“I’m not sure there’s any help for someone who’s been through that.”
That almost makes me laugh. Maybe if the ice were a little thinner, I would have. But every second that Damon is away from me, the ice hardens. Every time he pushes me away it gets thicker.
It should be a relief that he doesn’t seem to be claiming the debt. That he’s giving me time to heal. But he’s the only person who really understands what I’ve been through. Because he went through his own hell, with the very same devil.
“Are you speaking from experience?” Avery says, her innocence heartbreaking.
“I saw a lot of fucked-up shit at the whorehouse growing up. Women raped, hurt. Beaten until they weren’t recognizable. And still I never saw anything like this.”
She makes a sound of sympathy. For me. For him. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, little virgin. I could have freed you. Never forget that. I could have paid a million dollars and then walked away, never fucking that pretty little cunt.” A pause, as if to let the words set in. “He fucked her. And then he drowned her.”
A sharp breath. “How did she—”
“Survive? She left a trail of breadcrumbs for him to find. He didn’t know if he’d make it in time. He had no idea if he’d find a dead body at the bottom of the pool.”
Didn’t he? Like that day on the river I don’t quite remember being pulled from the pool. I don’t remember much of last night except the hard currents, the sharp rocks. The metallic taste of blood in the water. That must have been horrible for Damon, but it’s hard to feel sympathy.
Hard to feel anything at all.
“Thank God he didn’t.” Avery sounds painfully earnest.
“What Jonathan Scott did to her… Most people would rather have died.”
I know I should feel something about that. Shame, probably.
But all I keep thinking is, what if I did die last night? What if the only parts of me worth saving sank to the bottom of that cold pool? I can be dressed up and fed like a doll, but I’m not a person. I can walk around, my body controlled by the people around me.
What makes me human? What makes me want to be human?
It seems like a horrible thing to be, so weak and unwilling.
Chapter Fifteen
Avery tucks me in at night, murmuring things about Gabriel’s huge house.
“It’s very comfortable,” she assures me. “And very safe.”
That last part seems to be the sticking point. Not only because of the threat of Jonathan Scott looming over us all. There must be something less than shiny, something not quite gilded in her past. Because she keeps glancing at the walls, as if something terrifying might jump out of the plaster.
She leaves the bathroom light on for me, the door cracked open an inch.
Then she closes the door, probably going to sleep with Gabriel. She doesn’t say, but I saw the way he looked at her. The way she looked at him. The lion to the gazelle. Only this gazelle wants to be eaten.
I hear the footsteps first. My heart is a muscle overworked in the last twenty-four hours, already sore and weak from beating so fast. Now it strains against my ribs, making weak protest.
The doorknob turns, a polished silver handle reflecting the light.
Most likely it’s Avery checking on me.
Possibly it’s someone out of my nightmares.
Damon Scott slips into the room, as casual as if he were visiting for tea. He’s still wearing his shirt and vest. Only his shoes are missing, the sole nod to being in his own home. I suppose that counts for casual with him, those black socks on the plush carpet.
He enters the way I imagine he'd visit a lover. A woman in lace lingerie should be waiting for him, not a broken girl in an oversize T-shirt.
He sits on the edge of the bed, his expression unreadable. “Hello, Penny.”
Such a mundane greeting.
I want to do something drastic in response. To scream or tear out my hair. Something to show the utter chaos inside me. He must see it. He must feel it, having that monster for a father.
Screaming would require feeling something. I would rather not feel, so I say nothing.
That earns me a small smile. “You’ve been holding up well.”
An iceberg holds up well, floating like a massive rock. Congratulations, I tell myself with bitter appreciation. I’m a natural phenomenon. And where I’m made from ice, he’s a flame.
Even from two feet away I can feel him burn.
“Would you like to stay at Gabriel’s house?”
As if it’s a vacation, meant to be enjoyed.
As if I have a choice.
“Why?” I whisper. Why are you here?
He raises one eyebrow, pretending not to understand. “Avery’s a nice girl.”
My very own mermaid with glitter fins and blue-green yarn hair. A consolation prize. I’m not good enough for someone to actually love me, to care about me. That couldn’t be more clear.
I speak louder. “Why?”
He doesn’t pretend this time. “Do you want me to leave?”
That’s not an answer. My lips press together. Already I’m annoyed that he made me talk. Where Avery could stroke my hair like I was a pet, something about Damon’s blunt taunting requires a response.
His laugh has everything he used to be—defiant and hungry. It has everything he is now, dark and unrepentant. The wild boy may have been alluring in his subtle strength, but the man has a thousand moving pieces. A puzzle I could never hope to solve.
“You’ll be safe at Gabriel’s house,” he says, his tone final.
He stands, about to leave the room.
There was no reason for him to confirm with me personally. It had already been decided at breakfast. And yet here he is, as beautiful and masculine as I can even imagine, taking my breath away. For what?
And then I know the right question to ask. Not, why are you here?
“Why do you care?” I whisper.
He pauses without turning. “Do you know why my father chose you?”
Jonathan Scott had said I was a peach. Ripe. Juicy. I can still hear the smooth slide of his voice. I can still feel the sharp bite of his teeth in my flesh. Every part of me tenses, every muscle in my body taut. It was the right question if he wanted a reaction from me—something desperate or even violent. Something dramatic. I press my nails into my palm, forcing down the bile in my throat.
Then Damon looks back at me, his dark eyes knowing. “Because he knew you meant something to me.”
A man who owns half the city. Wealthy. Powerful.
The sound that bursts from me should be a laugh. Instead it sounds like something cracking. “I thought he would be smarter than that. I don’t mean anything to you except ten thousand dollars.”
Damon gives me a small smile, a little wry. “Smart people don’t always have perspective.”
> Is that why Damon came to visit me? Because he feels like he owes me something? He doesn’t owe me anything. It wasn’t him who hurt me. He already sacrificed himself for me once.
I always dreamed of being a mermaid. How they could swim around, without a care for what happened above water. In their own little world. Only now do I understand how constraining it would be, how suffocating it can feel even when you can breathe. Whether the water is dark or light, tinged with blood or sparkling blue, you’re trapped inside.
“I’m sorry,” I say, though I’m not sure what I’m sorry for.
His grief, even though he doesn’t look sorrowful.
He looks hard and glinting, like a diamond. That’s the way he stares at me, looking almost angry at my words. “I swear to God, Penny. What I would do to you. If only—”
My breath catches. “If only what?”
“If only you weren’t so fucking terrified.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Terror has sunk so deep in my bones it felt like survival. I wasn’t sure what would be left if you tried to strip the fear away. Would there be anything to hold me up? “He said he was leaving my virginity,” I say, the memory sore and raw. Festering. “He took me from… From the back. But he said he would leave me innocent for you.”
Damon doesn’t have any of the surprise that Avery did. None of the pity.
And then he takes a step toward me.
Another one, as if pulled by the invisible string of my pain.
He doesn’t stop at the edge of the bed. It’s his bed, after all. Not my personal island. Not a fortress. He puts one knee on the bed. That’s the only warning I get before his body covers mine. Caging me. Before he holds me down with the very heat of his presence.
I put my hands up before I realize what that means—it means I’m touching him. My palms against his broad chest, my hands feeling warm skin and hard muscle. I yank my hands back as if they’re scalded.
“You’re too young,” he murmurs.
There’s this heat coming off him, like he’s a fire and I’m thawing out. I know it’s not safe, being this close. He could burn me. But there’s also a small part of me that feels alive, only when he’s here. Only when he’s on top of me, his warm breath on my forehead.
