“May I ask you what your name is?” she asked.
“I’m sorry. My name is Angus.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Angus. Now get ready to lose.”
His laugh bounced around the room. “You’re going to be good for me.”
Beth knew she was stuck, but it helped to know she had a friend. The last bit of resistance bled away. She nodded. “Yes, I think we’ll be good for each other.”
****
“Hey, Alastair, she’s on the move,” Tony said over the intercom in his office.
“It’s about fucking time,” he said. His Beth had been there eight days and every day and night was the same. She never ate during the day, only when he made her at night. It seemed he had to pull every word she said out of her mouth. In the middle of the night, he’d wake up to find her gone. He always found her on the sofa and brought her back to bed.
Alastair quickly turned on the large screen that could show him every inch of the house whenever he wanted to. He saw her right away, peeking out their bedroom door, and smiled. She looked so fucking cute trying to be stealthy.
She turned to go one way and started trying to open doors. He hadn’t realized everything was kept locked, and he smiled at her discouragement.
She got to his father’s room and rushed in.
His gaze went to a different monitor to see her lean against the door, with her eyes closed, pressing on her chest, trying to control her breathing, he guessed. He laughed when his father said something and scared the shit out of her, making her jump.
“Fuck, man, she’s in Angus’s room. Do you want me to send someone up?” Tony asked through the intercom.
“No, it’s okay. The woman doesn’t know how to be mean. Angus is safe.”
He sat back and watched his father laugh really hard several times and smiled. They were going to be good for each other. He hadn’t seen his father laugh at all for a long time.
He was surprised when she sat down at the chess table, and by her first few moves of a chess piece, it looked like she knew what she was doing. Very few people in the house knew or wanted to play chess with Angus. Alastair was one of them who would, and it got nasty because they were both so competitive until he let his father win because he got so angry.
Alastair watched as his father sat back with a shocked look on his face. He looked down at the game and realized she’d won in a very short amount of time.
The chessboard was set up again, and he could see his father try to concentrate intensely. One look at Beth showed her gazing out the window while his father studied the board. Most people had to concentrate on the game, but it seemed she didn’t.
When it was her turn, she looked down at the board for a brief moment before she made her move.
It would be interesting to play a game with her.