Chapter 4
“Ihope you are just foolish,” the man laments, sounding almost genuine. “Because bravery won’t serve you here.”
He turns his back to me, adjusting his clothing with sharp, curt tugs on the fabric. Only from this angle do I catch the scars that riddle the base of his throat. Long, jagged, barely concealed by the fall of his hair.
As if sensing my reaction, he faces me again, giving my body a chilling appraisal. “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors. What happens to those who cross me.” He waits as if for me to confess.
But I wasn’t lying. I know nothing, especially not of him.
“Fine. Perhaps not a fool, but reckless?” he wonders, shrugging. “If you won’t talk, then you will serve another purpose.”
He returns to my end of the bed and snatches my wrist. Pain sears through my arm as he drags me after him. I stagger, flailing for balance while the room blurs around me. He takes me into the hall and down a short flight of stairs. When we reach the bottom, I rush to piece together our newer surroundings. The smells register first.
Men. A lot of them. Their overwhelming stench chokes me, and I remember his threat. His promise.How many do you think you can handle?
It’s darker here. The only light sneaks in through boarded-up windows. In the resulting shadow, I make out featureless faces. Shapes. At least ten figures are crowding this room, maybe twenty. All are suspiciously silent apart from a few laughs as I stagger in their leader’s wake. There’s an animal here as well. It growls as we come too close. A dog?
A large one, I realize, as I spot it crouched in a metal cage in a back corner. Without a word, the leader hauls me to it and undoes the latch with his free hand.
“Get!” he commands the beast, who skulks off, brushing my knee on its way past.
Before the animal has fully left the cage, I’m shoved in its place, forced onto my hands and knees to fit inside the enclosure. Metal clangs as the door is slammed and the latch engaged.
“Enjoy your new pet,” the man announces before leaving the room. “But no one touch her.Yet.”
* * *
I’ve been a bone before: an object placed on display to be watched. Guarded. Coveted.
These men don’t whistle and howl like Robert’s. Even the dog does nothing more than sniff me. In the darkness, I sense a few searing gazes directed my way, but they’re silent for the most part, focused on whatever task is occupying them.
We must be in a house of some kind. An old one. This narrow room with its faded wallpaper and sloped floors might have been a drawing room at one point, envisioned to entertain visitors or gatherings.
Now? Its purpose appears more nefarious. There are boxes dispersed in between the men. What they contain, I can’t tell, but scents irritate my nostrils beneath the overwhelming stench of sweat. Chemical in nature. Gunpowder?
But when one of the men nearest my cage stands, hefting an object beside him, I realize they’re all armed—with more than the small pistols Robert and his men carry. Long guns. Big guns. They prop them along the walls, always within reach.
This space must be a storeroom of some kind, containing materials that need fifteen pairs of watchful eyes to guard them at all times. Five men are sitting at a card table in the center of the room, conversing in snippets of a language I can’t make out. Five more have taken various positions against the walls, while the rest are scattered in between, focused on packing something into the boxes. Something small. Round?
“Uh-huh!”
An object slams against the top of my cage. A hand? It belongs to a man who appears grotesque in the darkness. His eyes are the only feature I can clearly make out. They’re narrowed, focused on my face.
“No peeking,” he barks in accented English. “You want to keep that face pretty? Look at the wall.”
I obey. The wallpaper in this corner is peeling in places, revealing dried, decaying wood underneath. As strange as it feels to admit, it’s a slightly better view than what I’m used to. Ironic, considering that Robert’s room is grand, as is the one he makes me sleep in. The walls are painted white. The floors are polished hardwood. Everything down to the bedsheets is of the finest quality. And every second I spent trapped within those four walls, I feared I might go blind.
I wished I would.
Darkness obscures the horror of my current surroundings. At the same time, it compounds it. There’s nothing to distract me from my own thoughts and what they imply. Briar, beautiful Briar. Did she know all along what trap she was leading me into?
My eyes sting, and blinking doesn’t keep the tears at bay. They spill, hot and burning down my cheeks. For the first time in ages, my initial impulse isn’t to wipe them away. I let them fall and relish the bitter fear that leaves me trembling.
Fear.It’s funny how such a terrible, awful emotion can be welcome. I once thought Robert had driven all emotion out of me—but he hasn’t. I don’t want to die here.
“Relax.”
My cage is slapped again from above, this time decidedly more softly. The blow draws me farther back against the bars with my knees pulled up to shield as much of myself as I can.