Chapter 16
Yesterday was something different altogether. After he fed me lunch, he didn't shackle me back to the bed, but he didn't speak to me again, either.
My brain's been running wild with how I'm going to escape him. Buttering him up hadn't worked. He seemed repulsed by the idea. But when he leaned into me yesterday morning, closing his eyes to breathe me in, I knew he had to feel the weight of what was between us.
There's an attraction, no matter how dangerous it is to both of us. I don't know what'll happen if I don't find my way back out of here and to my camp. Will the show come looking for me? When Alyssa and I watched it before, they didn't do camp and medical checks until the last three contestants had passed the month mark. So, being only nine days in, I'm sure I have time to get myself out of this pickle I'm in and get back to camp. But how they'll find me when I've veered far off the track they set for me is another thing entirely. Unless they have a way to track my equipment.
I spent last night trying my damnedest not to look at my captor. He still won't give me his name. Won't even speak to me. He cooks all my meals, feeds me from his hand as I sit in his lap, and then dismisses me as if he can't be bothered by me any longer. He spends his days outside doing god only knows what. While I sit under the covers, stark nude, reading random books that I fished off a shelf in the living room.
Tears roll down my cheek as I read Inman's death in Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. I've never been a reader as I didn't have time to read before. Now, I have nothing but time as my captor wars with himself on what to do with me. There's a torture basement below me, the door just behind the back of the couch I'm sitting on. I'm trying my damnedest to stay the fuck out of it.
"What's happened?"
I snap my head up, wiping my eyes that haven't stopped leaking. "Ada is now a pregnant widow," I tell him, foregoing trying to hide what I'm doing as I lift the book from my lap.
He grunts, his face stoic as he looks at the book. "Is she now?"
I sniffle. "What do you mean?"
Some warmth, not a lot, but some, strikes across his face briefly. "The author didn't tell you he was dead. Did you see his death?"
I look back at the book, rubbing my hands over the cover softly. "Well, no. But he's shot, and it's a mortal wound. She was holding him and…"
He shakes his head. "But did you read his death?"
"No. But I don't know what that matters." I realize this is the most he's spoken to me in English. He sits on the arm of the couch opposite me, and it feels like he's worlds away as his eyes drift off.
"It matters a lot. It means you're not living in the pink," he says, his eyes never regaining my company.
"What?" I'm baffled. I've no idea what point he's trying to make, but my tears have dried up. Even if my soul shatters by the bittersweet end of the novel.
"En direct la vie en rose," he says, looking over toward me. —"Live life in the rosy."
It's a French saying, meaning keep your rose-colored glasses on, and be optimistic.
He goes on, "Charles Frazier has done interviews about the book, especially after the movie premiered. He said the ending is ambiguous on purpose. Not all stories have neat bows on their endings. Some are left open-ended for the optimistic reader to interpret."
"And what ending did you interpret?" He's clearly read the book, the spine shows a lot of use, and he speaks about the work of fiction as if he knows.
"I imagine Inman and Ada having many happy years together. That they raised Grace until age parted them," he tells me, pinning me with a hard glare. One you'd not expect from a man who's read this kind of book.
Shit, the men I knew in my life back home have never touched a book.
"So," he says, breaking up the moment, "which will you choose? Which ending will you give Ada and Inman?"
I look back at the book on my lap longingly, a smirk lifting my lips. "The happy one."
He stands, nodding his head once as if his job is done. "Well, then. I'll start dinner."
He walks off. Like nothing just happened between us. While I'm left sitting on the sofa with my mouth hung open in a state of emotional shock and awe.
For a moment, my mother's image passes through my mind. I wonder if this is how she was with Dad and if it's what he meant about having to get to the center of her when she allows you. Because for a moment, it almost felt like I'd seen this man's center, and then he pulled his layers back on, and it was done.
But for a brief second, I was in utter amazement at the beauty I was in the presence of. To look at a story so deeply, to look at life so uniquely, is a gift. I wonder what more he's hiding beneath that hard outer shell.
Then, I remind myself he kidnapped me, took my clothes, and was holding me hostage. I scowl.
The lines between us keep attempting to blur, and I feel as though I'm out of control over whoever is holding the blending tool.
* * *
The restof the night went the same as it has been. Until my captor announced that I'd be staying here alone tomorrow. My ears hear that there'll be an opportunity to escape, and they perk up.
"I have an errand to run, and if you behave while I'm gone, you'll reap the reward you'll have earned," he says, standing and knocking me off his lap. Grabbing up the plates, he moves into the kitchen to clean up the dinner mess, and I'm left standing confused near the table.
He has a presence that affects me like nothing else can. I'm usually outgoing and domineering with men. Alyssa and I both are. But he leaves me wanting to be dismissed before I leave a room and wanting to know what I'll earn tomorrow if I don't try to escape.
But that's utter madness, isn't it?
I blame this entire experience for that madness. I went from so cold I couldn't sleep without moving my body constantly, to sitting nude in the lap of a kidnapper, being hand-fed foods, and lathered in Italian soaps that I can't pronounce.
I'm not myself, and how can I be under the circumstances?
He's literally and physically stripped me bare as if he's trying to get a handle on who I am while he holds me hostage. I'm wondering the same damned thing.
I wonder if either of us will understand it before my eventual escape. He knows it's coming, just as I do. It's why he's given me the incentive to stay put tomorrow.
"So, I'm to behave, and you'll shower me with attention like I'm some kind of dog? You're going to give me treats if I sit pretty for you?"
He turns, throwing the rag he'd been wiping the stove down with on the floor in a huff. "Excuse me?"
Clearly, he hasn't been stood up to that often. Looking at him, I can see why, but when my mouth and my wits are locked in a battle, my mouth usually outweighs my wits. It's what's gotten me into a lot of shit. Especially with my mother.
"I said," I begin, and he steps toward me, coming to a stop before any part of us touches.
His hand raises, and I grow silent. So, apparently, I have some wits. "I heard what you said."
"Well, then why ask me to repeat myself?" I cross my arms over my breasts. Not in defense, but because my nipples have hardened under the heat of his eyes.
Hiding my body's reactions to him from him has become one of my goals. He doesn't need any egging on in the way of things he can taunt me with.
If I'm honest, he taunts me just by breathing.
"Because I was allowing you to apologize," he says, his voice filling with heavy gravel that grates down my spine.
I know I shouldn't push him, but when he's angry, it does something to me.
I scoff. "Me? Apologize? You've lost your fucking mind."
He smiles, and it's terrifying. His eyes deaden further like something has taken him over completely. "Was it not an apology these pretty lips spewed down in my basement?"
I take a sharp breath. "That was different and you know it! I don't enjoy shooting things. I don't enjoy inflicting pain!"
His eyes darken, the black edges seeming to close in around the chocolate brown of his irises. "Well, I do. And you'd best keep that in mind next time you step toe-to-toe with me, bunny. It's nothing for me to peel this silky flesh from your muscles while a speculum keeps these beautiful eyes open to watch every single slice."
My mouth had dropped open by the time the word silky left his lips. What's even more horrifying is that there's life teeming just beneath the surface of his features. A buzzing vibrancy that wasn't there a moment ago. As he speaks of removing my flesh and making me watch, he's grown excited.
I look down his body, following each hard line until my eyes roam over his cock, stiff and exhilarated beneath his jeans.
He stands straight, letting me look my fill as my feet back my body away from him.
"There it is, bunny. Look your fill at just how fucked up your keeper is. Take in what the idea of inflicting pain upon you does to me. How it rises and enlivens the beast that I try my damnedest to keep caged. Don't test me, Brynne. You've no idea who's captured you. I hope, for your sake, you never find out."
I swallow, looking toward the door to the bedroom he keeps me in, and he steps aside.
"Hop away, little rabbit. Burrow out of sight and behave yourself," he teases, snapping his teeth at me in the air as I rush past him and into the room, shutting the door as a shiver moves through my body.
Looking back at the door, I wish I could lock it.
The things he said. The images in my head… I can't shake the feeling I'd been too comfortable with a killer. Not someone who has the capability of killing, but rather a bloodthirsty hunter who kills for sport.
He gets off on what he was talking about. I could see it in his eyes. In his body.
I swallow, trying to calm my racing heart.
I have to get out of here, and tomorrow is the perfect opportunity to do so. So, while my captor paces the floor in his room that's next to mine, as he always does, I plan.
And not just one plan. I plan for the plans that will fail. I plan for the event I'm tied to the bed with cuffs, locked in the room from outside.
If I have to burrow through the floor with my fingernails, I plan for that.
Because I'll be damned if I don't get away from him. He'd drawn me in on how he cares for me, but it's all for show.
He's feeding me to make me complacent, as I once hoped to make him. He wanted me to drop my walls because, when I did, he was going to cut me deep.
I won't be his victim.