by Riley Ashby
“Shit. Fuck!”
I was angry for an entirely new reason now.
I hit the mirror once, then twice, hard enough to crack it and send a few shards clattering to the sink basin. A sharp pain ran through my hand, but I barely noticed the cuts. She was right. I’d fucked everything up when I decided to bring her here instead of dropping her back off at home like a responsible person would have. Instead, I’d lied to her from the beginning. Drugged her. Put her in the hands of a dangerous man who had me under his heel. Everything she said was spot-on. She didn’t owe me any gratitude for how I treated her.
I should have known better.
When did this happen to me? When did I become someone so consumed by myself that I began to disregard other people’s feelings like this? The whole point of this endeavor was to pay back the cruelty done by others, not for me to become so enmeshed in their cruelty that I couldn’t tell myself apart from them.
I needed to talk to someone. She’d be pissed at me for calling, but I didn’t have a choice. My hand was bleeding, knuckles sliced by the glass in the sink, but I didn’t bother to clean or bandage them. I charged down the stairs to the library, past the door code, pulled open the hidden cabinet, and pulled out my personal computer that no one, not even Vin, knew about. I logged on through three levels of identification, logged in through the VPN, and sent an encrypted message.
She answered almost immediately.
Has something gone sideways?
I could hear the brusque tone of her voice even in the plain, blocky text on the screen. We hadn’t talked in weeks, and I knew she was itching for an update.
All according to plan. No developments. None I was going to tell her about, anyway.
A full thirty seconds passed before she replied. What’s the problem?
She was irritated. I was only supposed to contact her if there was an issue or something else significant to report. I wanted to talk to her, but here I was, withholding information.
Am I a good person?
A shorter pause this time. Are you hurt?
Ha. She thought it was some sort of code. No. I’m serious.
Do you want me to answer that honestly?
She waited. I pulled at my hair. She wasn’t going to prompt me anymore. If I wanted her help, I had to ask for it.
How do I not fuck this up with her?
The reply came through right away. I knew it. I told you this would happen.
I could almost hear her laughter even hundreds of miles away.
Just help me. I pressed my forehead against the desk, waiting. Parker would hate me for this—calling her late at night to bare my soul and ask for advice. She wasn’t one for pep talks.
Look. Another long pause. I could imagine her on the other end of the line, index finger tapping the J key and deleting it over and over while she pondered what she could say to keep me from calling the whole thing off. From throwing away years of hard work and planning because I decided I couldn’t take it anymore, right at the crucial moment. When her next words came through, they came all at once. Any chance you have of this being normal is shot. There’s no use pretending to be someone else in order to lure her in.
She hates me.
Then make her love you. Don’t give her a choice.
I’d tried that already. She was crying upstairs, and I had a bloody hand.
Parker sent another message. Not the way you’re thinking. You’ve got to tap into that little bit of humanity that convinced me to be your friend. Show her that. But don’t sit on it; you don’t have much time.
It had taken a long time for Parker and me to connect as friends even though we’d been in each other’s vicinity for years. She caught me off guard one night, the night I made my first kill, when I thought everyone else was gone. I almost killed her just to keep the secret of the cracks in my armor, but we became friends instead. And in that time, I’d learned that more often than not, her advice was spot-on.
Thanks. Most people would be put off by such a short reply, but Parker didn’t mince words and asked the same from me.
You’re welcome. Back to the normal Parker. Call if something happens.
She severed the connection.
I sat in silence while the sun sank lower in the sky, casting long shadows through the window. My computer screen turned black as it went to sleep. The dark swallowed me, alone in the house, my only company a woman who was scared to death of me.
Gunner didn’t come to my door in the morning. I had been sitting in my bed hugging my knees, waiting for the sound of his fist pounding on the wood, but it never came. My spine ached from sitting so rigidly, muscles held tight with tension and fear. But not the fear I would have expected.
The last thing I remembered from the night before was falling asleep on top of the covers, waiting for Gunner to come back in a rage. I thought I’d heard glass shatter somewhere in the house. I didn’t trust him to leave me alone, not when he was so angry. I hadn’t expected to hurt his feelings—didn’t think he had feelings, to be honest. Not beyond lust. But then I woke up in the morning tucked under the blankets, my head resting peacefully on the pillow. I was still wearing the clothes I’d had on when I fell asleep.
The monster came back and tucked me into bed.
That wasn’t an act. Who would he be performing for? There were no cameras up here, and I had been out cold.
What did that mean for me? For us?
I’d read about girls who fell in love with their captors, won over by what seemed like kind actions. Why was he here alone with me when, as far as I could tell, I should be at Vin’s mercy? I had a feeling Vin’s methods of getting what he wanted would push me over the edge into full-on panic. Around Gunner, I could keep my hysteria at bay.
Most of the time.
After last night, I should never want to see him again. I should move the bed in front of the door to keep him out. Starve myself before I let him touch me again. Instead, what I was really fighting was the urge to go to him.
When my stomach rumbled, I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. I unfolded my body muscle by muscle and walked to the door, turning the handle noiselessly and opening it an inch at a time. No one waited for me in the hallway, but pots and pans clanged in the kitchen below, and the smell of food reached my nose.
I tried to walk as lightly as I could, but Gunner’s head snapped up the minute I peeked around the corner into the kitchen.
“Hi,” he said, wiping his hands on his pants and putting down the pan he was holding. He crossed the room to me in three strides but stopped just out of arm’s reach. He held one hand toward me, palm up, wavering the slightest bit.
I couldn’t stop myself. I placed my fingers lightly in his palm.
He closed his hand around mine like it was made of glass and tugged gently. I took two steps forward, keeping a foot of distance between us. I looked at our joined hands, my tan skin somehow pale against his, red cuts standing out like neon lights.
When he noticed me staring, he squeezed my hand once and dropped it. “Would you like breakfast?”
I nodded mutely, not trusting myself to speak. Was that an apology? I’d heard him say sorry to Vin, words with no meaning behind them. Maybe he didn’t know how to apologize. We ate in relative silence. I couldn’t think of what type of small talk to make with him after the events of the past several hours. I had been concerned he might try to starve me or put me back downstairs, but it was like someone had flipped a switch. He was acting … normal.
“How did you hurt yourself?”
He looked at his hand for a moment, as if he’d forgotten, then tucked it beneath the table.
“An accident.”
“Did you clean it?”
He shrugged. “It’s fine.”
I set down my fork and pushed away my empty plate. “Come with me,” I said, standing up.
He remained in his seat. “Seriously, don’t worry about it.”
“Can we not argue today?” I took a deep
breath and closed my eyes, trying to keep my voice level. Why was I trying so hard to help him? “Let me do this.”
“If it makes you happy.”
I opened my eyes and looked at him, and I was pinned in place. It was as if the weight of a thousand suns suddenly dropped on my shoulders as he stared at me, a little sad and a little lustful and a lot of restraint. Something else had happened when I passed out last night. It was as if the solar system between us had shifted, and the obstacles were gone.
“It would.”
He led me to the bathroom on the main level, where I tried to wash his cuts as gently as I could with soap. Under the sink, I found a well-stocked first-aid kit and smeared antibiotic ointment over the bloody area. I taped some gauze around the wound, then dropped his hand like it was a burning coal. My fingers tingled where I had touched him.
“There,” I said, not meeting his eyes. “That will help it heal faster.”
He was so close to me in this small room, and I could feel his aura radiating out toward me. It wasn’t dragging me in like it had the night of my birthday, but it wasn’t pushing me away either. It was just…padding.
“Thank you,” he said softly, and before I could react he ducked down and kissed my cheek. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath as he left the room.
I was so caught off guard I stood stock-still for a moment as he walked back to the kitchen to clear the table. I stared at myself in the mirror. My cheeks burned, and my entire body came alive. I could feel his lips on my skin as clearly as if he’d slapped me, and I placed my hand over the spot where he’d touched me. It was the only place he’d touched me. No other part of us had as much as grazed each other, yet I still felt as if he’d pushed me against the wall and kissed me like he threatened to do the night before.
Why was it that the thought didn’t scare me today?
I washed the dishes so that he wouldn’t get the new dressing on his hand wet, and he dried and put them away. I expected him to drop in front of the TV as soon as we were done, but he hovered for a second.
“Come with me,” he said after an interminable silence and then walked toward the library. I followed at a distance. When he reached the keypad, he beckoned me closer.
“Watch,” he said, indicating the numbers. “The code is five-seven-two-oh-three-seven-three-three. Then you hit the green button. When you hear the click”—he paused while we listened for it—“it’s open, and you can go in. Don’t try to force the door if it doesn’t click, or you might trip the alarm.”
Inside the library, he gestured toward a desk I hadn’t noticed the day before. “Please don’t bother anything over there. You can come in here whenever you want, whether I’m with you or not, as long as you stay away from that. Understand?”
“You’re letting me have free rein in here?”
“I am.” He reached out and grabbed a small box sitting on one shelf. Opening it, I saw white gloves intended for use with the older books. “I never knew what these were for, but I guess they’re for the stuff in the cases. If you know how to handle those books without damaging them, then go for it.”
My throat was too dry. “Thank you,” I said, unsure of what to do next. It seemed absurd to thank him for anything, but the gift he had just given me would have knocked me flat on a normal day. In this situation, when he had no motivation to give me anything at all, I was obliterated.
He shrugged. “It’s the least I can do.”
His eyes burned into me. I tried to corral the uncontrollable urge to wrap him in a tight hug. It was clear this was difficult for him. First, he admitted fault for his behavior the night before, and now, he gives me access to this space. I didn’t understand this game.
“Don’t cry. Not right now.” He stepped forward, and my hand came up to touch the tears on my cheek at the same time his did, trapping my palm between my cheek and his hand.
I took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to freak out on you last night. I got too worked up. It’s not that I don’t …” Fuck. Was I going to admit this? “I don’t understand this. What you’re doing.”
“You will.”
I shut my eyes before placing my forehead against his. I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t admit I was letting his game get to me. But I wanted to touch him more. “You’re hurting me more by doing this.”
His other hand came behind my neck. “That’s not what I mean to do.”
“Why aren’t I more afraid of you?”
He stepped closer, turning his head so our noses brushed.
Pull away, my mind screamed, but I couldn’t. He held me tighter now than he had the night before, his thumb brushing away my tears and breath stirring the hair on my neck.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
I believed him.
I sniffed and stepped back, and his hands fell away. I wiped my face and looked at the light streaming in through the window at the opposite end of the room. The dogs ran by, knee-deep in the snow, tails low as they surveyed the perimeter of the house for threats.
“Is it okay if I sit in here today?”
“Of course.” He dropped his hands and turned his back on me, heading for the door. “I mean it, you can come in whenever you want, for as long as you like.”
I rubbed my eyes until they burned, and fresh tears sprang to life from the pain. His socks made next to no noise on the hard floor as he turned to go.
“You can hang out with me if you want.”
He paused in the doorway, one hand on his face. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
He walked over to a gas fireplace built into the wall, lit it, then opened a drawer and grabbed a large remote control. He pressed several buttons, and a panel in the wall above the fireplace slid aside to reveal a TV, already set to ESPN.
I settled into a chair, but I couldn’t focus. I was trying to reconcile his attitude today with last night. I had thought what he showed me last night was his true self – a monster tucked underneath layers of charm and good looks. But I wondered now if I had it backward.
He’d lied to Vin the night before. I could hear them even through the thick door. He wasn’t just covering for himself being tricked. I would still be in the basement if that was the case. But he never mentioned it, never threatened that punishment again after our initial confrontation. When he’d tried to trap me upstairs, I thought that was his endgame, but then this morning, with the apology and the blankets so carefully tucked around my body …
And now this.
Could it be that this part—the part that gave me the library, that made me my favorite meals, that put himself between Colby and me whenever he could—was the real one? Was the harsh aggressiveness the real veneer? He wasn’t the same as those other men. Some part of me knew it from the beginning. Even when I woke up in that strange room and realized he’d tricked me, I gravitated to him for protection. And though he was still more beholden to his boss than to me, he’d given it as much as he could.
The thought chilled me, made me more afraid than I had been last night, knowing he could overpower me at any moment. I didn’t know what was real or who to trust. With Vin, at least I knew what to expect. There was no gentleness in his touch, no hidden gestures to put me at ease. But with Gunner, every interaction surprised me. And even when I tried to stay away from him, I kept finding myself pulled back, deeper into his world until the order I’d created for myself started to fall apart completely.
If I thought I had trouble focusing with her around yesterday, today was ten times worse. I didn’t hear anything from the TV; couldn’t tell you any of the stats or who was playing tonight. Quinn didn’t seem to be faring much better. She was too still in her chair and didn’t turn a page for twenty minutes.
Fuck this. No more pretending. I turned off the TV. “What are you reading?”
She started as though I had jerked her out of a dream. Fumbling with the book in her hands, she looked at the cover.
“Um, Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen.”
&nb
sp; “I saw that movie once.”
She closed the book, holding one finger between the pages to mark her spot. “Which one?”
“The long-ass one with Colin Firth.”
She laughed out loud. “I can’t believe you sat through something that long that didn’t have running commentary.”
“It still had commentary. I just had to provide it myself.”
She gasped lightly. “You dared to talk over the most romantic movie of all time?”
I started in with some smart-ass reply but cut myself off. This was important to her. “No, not really. It was a nice movie. I can see the appeal.”
She traced over the letters on the cover. Embossed gold reflected off her fingertips. “Did you read the book after?”
“Why would I?” I shrugged. “Everyone says the movie is just like the book, so I don’t see the need.”
“You have to know the source material,” she insisted. “Jane Austen isn’t famous for a movie script.”
“Well, as I said, I’m not much of a reader.” My voice was harsher than I intended.
She raised both eyebrows in surprise at my tone. “Why not?”
I looked at her hard, trying to figure out how much to reveal. She didn’t look scheming, just honestly curious. She had shifted in the chair to face me, resting her cheek on her fist with her knees curled against her chest. She could be at home—her home—talking to a friend.
You have your opening. I was supposed to be getting close to her. I’d done so much damage to our … relationship … last night, and she was giving me a chance to fix it. A chance I didn’t deserve. But when I opened my mouth, I couldn’t find the words.
“Forget it,” I said, turning the TV back on.
She placed the book on a low table and stood, losing her place in the book. She snatched the remote out of my hand and turned off the TV, then fell onto the couch next to me.
“Tell me.”
“Stop, Quinn.” Even to myself, I sounded like a different person. “Let it drop.”
She shook her head and leaned back, letting her head fall against the back of the couch. “No.”
