“Jan, do you love me?”
“You know I do. That’s such a stupid question.”
“Then don’t hurt him. Please.” She glanced across the table at Anton to see an eyebrow raise.
“What do you mean don’t hurt him?”
“I mean… I have feelings.” As insane as it was, it wasn’t a complete lie. Otherwise how could she have been hurt by Anton being with Katya at the party?
“What is that supposed to mean? You just met him, and he’s a psycho!”
And here was where the acting came in. This was the moment when all the phone sex lies had to pay off because never had she needed to sell a story more than now.
“He’s not a psycho. Think about this for a minute. He didn’t even mean to kidnap you. He thought it was me. It was just a sex game gone wrong. That’s it. You have to see this from his perspective. He didn’t have to let you go at all. They could have killed you. They could have killed me. I am attracted to him. Believe me, being with him is no great trauma. Just leave this alone. Don’t destroy us all because of some weird moral code you’re following. I realize this is unconventional, but please, if you love me at all, just leave this alone. You would know if I were lying. Do you think I’m lying?”
There was a long pause. Annette thought for a second the call might have dropped but then her sister spoke. “No, I don’t think you’re lying. But I think you’re crazy.”
“What kind of future was I going to have? Do you want me to be a phone sex operator my whole life? Did you think I was going to find some better catch of a man to whisk me off and take care of me? You are getting everything with school and your bills paid. Can’t you let me have this one thing? This one fucking thing, after all I’ve done for you?”
Janette sighed, exasperated. “You know it’s not like that. I’m just scared for you. You’re a hostage.”
“That was my choice. Just wait it out. If you do anything else you are risking both our lives, and you would be taking something away from me that I want just because you’re scared.”
“Okay. I’ll wait it out. But I have to talk to you every day, or I will go to the police. I have to see you, and I have to know you’re really okay.”
“Talk to Anton about it.” Annette handed him the phone.
“Yes?” he said.
A couple of minutes of silence on Anton’s end passed.
“Done,” he said and disconnected the call. He pocketed the cell and just looked at Annette until she thought she might crawl out of her own skin.
“How much of that was lies?” he asked.
“I had to tell her what was necessary to make sure she wouldn’t go to the police.”
“Why do you care if she goes to them? What if they could safely get you out and capture me?”
Annette looked down at her plate, the remaining eggs having gone cold and inedible. She felt the tears start to slide down her cheeks. She didn’t want to be having this conversation.
“Today we start fresh. I expected too much from you without training. But I think the situation has finally sunk in with you. Yes?”
“Yes, Master,” she said quietly.
“You will see and talk to your sister, but you are never going home. You are mine. You agreed to this. There is no out with me. So you will not behave like you did last night at the party.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t help that I was hurt and scared.”
“Scared of what?”
She wiped the tears off her face with the back of her hand. “That you’d get bored with me. And how badly that could go for me and my sister.”
“If you think I get bored with absolute power, you don’t know the first thing about me.”
“Are you going to hurt her?”
“Because of her threats? No. I think I made my point. She knows it’s too big of a risk. She’s just testing boundaries. Just like you are.”
Annette let out a slow breath. She was determined to just let this play out. It was the only option.
“I have some things to do. You’re free to wander around, but I want you back here at three. There are clocks all over the house, so you have no excuses.”
He put everything on the cart and rolled it back inside.
Annette took a quick shower and put on some shorts and a T-shirt from one of the guest rooms. She also found panties and some socks. What about shoes? She wanted to go outside, but all she had were heels.
She remembered again the bags on the floor of the closet. She kept forgetting about them in all the hysteria. The bags were all from trendy clothing stores, shoe stores, and lingerie stores. She didn’t open the bags with the lingerie or even the clothes. She could dig through all of that later.
She went straight for the shoes.
“AH!” she shrieked. It was the happiest moment she’d experienced in days. This must be what Janette thought she would love her for. In one of the boxes were a pair of expensive running shoes she’d had her eye on for months. She’d tried them on in a store not too long ago, back when her life had been normal, knowing she would never be able to afford them. They were the most comfortable shoes she’d ever put on her feet. They were also pretty cute.
She put them on and went outside. It was weird standing outside the front door. Her first day, she’d lounged by the pool, but she hadn’t had the nerve to explore the property. Partly she’d been afraid Brian or one of the others would think she was trying to escape, and Janette would be in danger.
But the question was, how far did the perimeter go? Brian pulled up in a black SUV as if on cue. He took a couple of black bags out of the vehicle which Annette was sure probably contained weapons. It could technically be anything, but what else would he be carrying around in reinforced nylon bags?
“S-sir?”
Brian looked surprised at being addressed. She was a little surprised, too, but Anton had been clear about forms of address and she knew Brian was the type who wouldn’t take kindly to familiarity from her.
“What?” came his gruff reply.
“How far out does the perimeter go?”
A dark smile spread across his face. “Why don’t you go find out? It won’t kill you. It’s just a little zap when you cross the line. It only gets bad enough to knock you out the farther you go outside it.”
He could be lying. But Anton said Brian was in charge of security, so he’d be the only one who knew. She couldn’t ask anything else because he’d already gone into the house.
Annette took a few tentative steps in one direction. With each step she was afraid she’d get shocked. After going a decent distance from the house in an open clearing, she started to think the perimeter was made up and didn’t really exist. Or else the bracelet didn’t do anything at all.
Until the shock came.
“Ouch!”
She jumped back and made a mental note. From there, she went around the house to see if the perimeter was equal all the way around. The pool was nestled into an alcove at the back of the house closest to the cafeteria. Behind the house, a few yards off, was a big cluster of trees that went dark and deep.
When she got closer, she found the trees were thick enough here to be considered woods, but they weren’t so thick you couldn’t easily move through them. Some areas were sparser than others. There was one spot with a break in the trees where sunlight shown through in almost magical strips of light beside a stream. She stepped over the stream and continued tentatively forward each step bracing for the shock.