He made a gesture for me to go on in. “I’m not sure how you’ve survived this far. Clearly, all grit and stupidity.”
Head down, I took the few short steps into the dank room. Pivoting to face Cassius, I saw the shadows dance over his face.
I looked around and was revolted by where he was leaving me.
Rough blankets were strewn across a stained mattress.
A toilet without a seat.
A tipped-over rusty cup.
“I won’t stay in here,” I said. “I can’t. . I would rather die.
“A fate worse than death?” He slammed the cell door shut and then started to lock it. “Guaranteed.”
Once he secured me in, he held the keys up in his hand, and did the worst thing imaginable, he threw them across the hallway out of my reach. They landed with a loud clank.
Ass.
I ran toward the bars and gripped them, knuckles white. “You can’t leave me in here.”
He tucked his hands casually into his pockets. “Bet that bedroom we just left looks like a palace now?”
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” I called after him.
Cassius was already walking away.
Anya
A door slammed down the corridor, throwing me into pitch darkness.
My hands wrapped around the metal bars, and my neck strained to see if he was seriously leaving. Seconds felt like hours. Time moving too slowly.
I could feel my chest tightening with a heavy feeling of panic as I waited.
That brief moment of connection had dissolved into dust.
Even after I’d coaxed him on.
Even after I’d yearned for more.
The way he’d touched me had left me reeling. Like a magnet I had struggled to pull away from.
Unable to understand these twisting feelings, I stepped back as though trying to put distance between us, despite him already being gone.
Cassius could never have known the truth. That not only had I never been intimate with a man, but it was also even rarer to feel the brush of affection by my parents. I’d grown accustomed to it. Numb, but now a part of me was stirring from Cassius’s touch.
I’d go mad if he made me stay in here.
Slumping onto the thin mattress, I felt like my flesh was crawling with confusion. Why was I intrigued by the man who’d removed all control? The man dishing out one punishment after another.
His presence. . . I both hate and crave it at the same time.
Eventually resigned to the realization that he wasn’t coming back anytime soon, and that he’d refused to talk more, I lay on my side. Not wanting to take a closer look at what it was I was lying on, I drew my legs up and rolled into the fetal position.
Cassius, the man with the deep brown eyes that contradicted the depth I’d seen in him. A glimpse of kindness when he’d looked down at me that first time when I’d hidden in my closet.
Back home, in the Garden District, felt miles away, and yet it wasn’t that far.
I wouldn’t survive this place if I couldn’t contain my impulses.
Still, rebelling against my captor felt so damn sweet. Like it riled him up but also stirred something in him. Maybe because he was clearly rebellious and saw that in me. Or maybe he just liked to fight in all its sordid forms.
There came an inexplicable familiarity with this stranger.
“Your father showed me what kind of man he is.”
What did he mean by that? For a man to kidnap a woman, something terrible must have triggered it. The kind of hostility that would leave a deep scar. Enough to have him come after us like this.
Curling into a tight ball, I refused to believe a man could make my body feel alive yet tortured. The way it felt when he pressed his body to mine. Like it was right and wrong all at the same time.
Dragging the scratchy blanket over myself, I tried to block out the sound of silence. The way it highlighted every sigh. Every panic-drenched breath. Every whimper.
I dozed off, grateful to disappear from this hell.
Familiar nightmares twisted reality into terrible pieces as my mind tried to make sense of what I saw. Always the same hallway. The same voice calling to me from the darkness. “Don’t go down the hall.”
But I did. Just as I’d been ordered by our school teacher.
We assembled with the others. Those who, like us, had been selected to gather in the lunch room. Girls lined up in the back of the room. Dark circles beneath our eyes. Our clothes hanging off us like dolls. My hair in knots that would eventually take hours to comb through. We’d clung to each other, reassured we’d stay together.
All of us waited for the elegant visitor to pick one of the prettier girls. Like they always did. The plump middle-aged woman walked around scrutinizing each one of us. Finally, a nod from her to say she was done. She pointed at the one she wanted.
Me.
Stirring, the dream began to fade, but this time I was able to hold onto a thread of it. A memory wrapped in a nightmare.
Then a sinking feeling hit me when I remembered where I was.
In hell.
My sob echoed in the darkness.
I was still lying in a cell.
My stomach growled at the lack of food. When would Cassius come back?
A voice in the darkness broke through my thoughts. . .
“Anya, wake up.” A man called from the void.
The sound of metal keys echoed through the air.
Then I was blinded by a light.
I blinked into the brightness,raising my hand to protect my eyes, which had not yet adjusted to the shock of a flashlight sweeping around me and illuminating this small space. On the other side of the bars stood the man I’d almost hit with that chair.
“Hurry up,” he whispered.
A clank of keys.
“I’m going to get you out of here. Quick, before anyone wakes up.”
I was on my feet and moving fast toward the door. “What time is it?”
“Three.”
“In the morning?”
He slid a key in the lock, and it made a rusty scrape before he eased open my cell door. Grinding metal of the door opening. His gray suit was creased; he looked like he’d slept in his car.
“Why should I trust you?” I snapped.
He looked annoyed. “Do you have any choice?”
“What’s your name?”
“I’m just a friend.”
Hurrying through the cell door, I followed him, retracing my steps from where Cassius had led me down last night. The chill of the dungeons lifting as we made our way up a stone stairway. That memory of him telling me if the place flooded, it would be bad. Bastard. I had a revolving door of reasons to hate him.
But this, this could be my way out.
The stranger led me around corners and down hallways.
“Why are you helping me?”
“Shush.” He tapped at a security panel, giving a nod that it was done. “This is the right thing to do.”
“You’re getting me out of here, right?”
“Yes, we don’t have much time.”
Staying was insane but going with this man, equally as risky.
The cool warmth of the early morning hit us. He scurried toward a waiting sports car. It was a gamble going with him, but there was no choice. Not really. We climbed into the front seat, both of us shutting our respective doors quietly. Trembling fingers reaching for my seat belt.
“No.” He pointed at my feet. “Down. There’s a guard on the front gate.”