“I have to go. Tell Jinx I’m leaving for me?”
A curtain of blonde hair surrounded the faux innocence in L’s black eyes. She was too close, and the air around me thickened. I laid my hands over her shoulders to keep her at a distance, but she was too drunk to take notice in my placid rejection.
“It’s okay. We’re alone in here.” L’s voice hit my skin, sounding like syrup pouring from sticky red lips. She gripped my bicep, and naturally, I jerked away from her.
The wall behind me was the only source to steady myself through the swaying fog. Time didn’t pass normally in this black hole. “I need air … I need to find air. I need to find Mia.”
“Is she your girlfriend?” L asked, and my head snapped forward at the sound of Mia’s name coming from somewhere else other than my head.
She’s my love. Why couldn’t she meet me? We’d made a promise. Hell, we fucking made promises. Plural. “I can’t feel her anymore.” I scratched at my chest. The alcohol was poisoning me—my heart and mind. “Why can’t I feel her? Something’s not right. I don’t feel right.”
My back hit the wall again, and I dragged down until two hands gripped my hips to keep me upright. “Oliver,” my name slithered into the space between us. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay! I’m fine!” I pushed past her, stumbling through the other door, into a garage, until reaching the side of the house. My fist punched the stucco, breaking the skin, and I turned and slid down the rough siding until my bum hit the floor. Fist pounding and blood spilling, I was drunk in despair and stuck in the middle of nowhere.
I shoved my hands into my pocket for my mobile.
Ringing Travis, he picked up with a tired tone, and my fingers pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m not okay, Trav,” I finally admitted, dropping my forehead into my hand. My shoulders shook against the side of the house. “I’m not fucking okay. I’m a fucking mess right now.”
“Where are you?”
“She’s gone, man. Fucking gone,” I slammed my eyes shut as the world spun around me, “What if she left me? What if she doesn’t want me to find her? I don’t know what to do anymore,” I turned into a bloody drunken wreck, “I have to believe something happened, that she wouldn’t leave me like this. She wouldn’t turn her back on us—”
“That’s it. I’m coming to get you.”
AFTER COUNTING three sunrises and three moons, the days smeared into a never-ending blur. Every day had been the same old routine, Ethan fed me breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Then he’d bathe me before rescuing me from the terrors in the middle of the night. Between all this, I’d stayed locked in this room and over this mattress. Dolor had prepared me for confinement, and Ethan wasn’t forthcoming with words or reasoning.
A few hours a day, I’d overheard muffled sounds coming from upstairs as Ethan talked on his cellphone, or no sounds at all. He’d hardly left, and when he did, it was only for a short period. The times I didn’t have tape around my mouth was when Ethan fed me. And the only times he didn’t have my wrist bound was when he’d let me go to the bathroom on my own.
I didn’t fight him or speak a word, even when the tape was gone.
A time would come when he’d slip or learn to trust me, and each day he was trusting me more and more. Or maybe I was trusting him. Regardless, I hadn’t had an opportunity to get away yet, and each day that passed, I felt myself falling deeper into a dazed and paralyzed state. Every second spent here made the past seem like a dream, losing grip on what was and what could have been.
None of it actually happened.
Ollie never existed.
It was all in my head.
Because if he did exist, he would have come for me, and he didn’t.
So, that’s what I’d decided.
Ollie was a dream.
The large white tees were the only clothing to keep me warm. Ethan was kind enough to wash my clothes, but today was wash day, and my legs were left bare to the cold.
It was morning, and my eyes never left him as he cooked sausage over the griddle. Ethan had cracked the window above the sink open, allowing in the brisk morning air. I shivered inside the shirt, but my bare legs had nothing to hide behind.
Ethan wore jeans and a plain black shirt, his red hair in disarray.
He cut off the griddle and placed the sausage over a plate before turning to face me. His eyes roamed down to my chest to see my nipples responding to the cold. There was a longing in his deep blue eyes, but it was short-lived before he yanked the chair out and dropped the plate over the table for two.
He always looked at me with conflict. It wasn’t a combination, more like flashes from one need to another. Flash. I want her. Flash. I have to keep her safe. Flash. What have I done? Flash. I’m going to hell. Flash. Might as well drag her with me.
Every single time.
“Ethan,” I whispered, and the single word slowed his cutting of the sausage. His eyes didn’t leave the plate in front of him. “I miss the way we used to be.” It had only been half a lie. I did miss how we used to be. I missed being able to see him as nothing more than my security blanket. But I missed my fantasy of a man with green eyes, a warm heart, and a loving touch more. “Talk to me. Why are you doing this?”
The knife clanked against the plate, and Ethan adjusted in his chair. “I can’t think right now, Jett,”—he stabbed the sausage with a fork and dropped his elbow over the table between us— “Eat.”
I opened my mouth, and he slipped the sausage in before he took a bite for himself.
Swallowing, I locked my gaze on to a book of matches next to a candle over the counter. “Untie me. You can keep my ankles bound, Ethan. I’m not running anywhere. Just let me feed myself.”
After a long pause of silence, Ethan stood and cleared the table free of silverware, dropping both knives and forks into the sink, then crouched behind me and undid the zip ties from around my wrists. Instant relief set into my arms, and they felt like Jell-O as I tried bringing them up to my plate. “Thank you.”
He knew I wasn’t going anywhere either. Not yet, anyway. With my ankles bound, I couldn’t run. Ethan returned to his seat and picked up a piece of sausage with his fingers. A smile fought its way through, knowing he shed the table of weapons I could stab him with, but it was just as easy to force the smile back down. I was a caged animal in these restraints, in this cabin, and my mind.
After breakfast, Ethan cleaned the mess, hand-washing every article of dishware and placing everything back where they belonged. He swiped the book of matches from the counter and dropped them into a drawer beside the small fridge. Once the kitchen was spotless, Ethan lifted me into his arms and proceeded to carry me down the flight of stairs. How long would he be able to keep this up?
He kept my arms free, and I laid over the mattress, ready for my morning nap.
This routine was my life now, but I refuse to let it be my forever.
“I’ll grab you pants today,” he offered, looking down at me.
I kept my eyes forward, glazed, unblinking.
Believe it or not, this was me fighting.
Each day was a struggle to not surrender to the fade. Instead, my body stayed in reserve. Comatose and utterly compliant on the outside, but on the inside, I never stopped planning my escape. Smart. I had to be smart.