“Come on, come on.”
Behind me, I hear footsteps. I can’t turn around though. I would rather spend my last few seconds on Earth trying to escape than accepting that I’ll die in this damn cage.
A hand slams against the door, and I shriek, but when I look at the long fingers, and the ink I’ve spent hours studying, both terror and bittersweet rage war within me.
Ares.
“Going somewhere, Pet?”
I sob and lean against the door as he pulls my hair away from the nape of my neck and presses a kiss to the soft flesh there. He snakes an arm around my waist and draws me back against him. I flinch at his touch, struggle in his grip, desperate to get away.
“Shh.” His breath brushes the shell of my ear.
“Y-you lied to me.”
“I lied to us both.”
“You’re going to sell me.”
“No,” he whispers, and my heart seizes, but before I can ask what that means he slams his hand down on the keypad. It beeps, the lock unlatches, and the door opens.
I turn in his grip. “What are you doing?”
His jaw is tight, clamped shut. “Go,” he bites out the word.
“What?”
“Fucking go, Pet! Go before I change my mind.”
I hesitate, my eyes glued to his, my feet cemented to the spot.
He grabs my arms and forcefully shoves me through the doorway. “RUN!”
My heart hammers against my ribs. The cold seizes my chest as I gulp in huge lungsful of air, and I turn and run down the icy stairs and onto a tree-lined street. Snow drifts line the sidewalk. Winter sinks deep into my bones, numbs my bare feet, freezes my heart. My senses are on overload. I don’t know what to do, what to look at first. People pass by without so much as looking at me. Oh my god, this whole time I’ve been in fucking Manhattan? I halt on the sidewalk, unable to breathe. I glance back at the doorway. Ares is no longer in it, but stalking down the steps toward me, as if he’s changed his mind. “You have three fucking seconds to disappear before I catch you, Pet.”
I suck in a sharp breath, turn on my heel, and run, past a restaurant, a theatre, through an intersection. The streets are full of people. I don’t have time to stop because I can sense him right behind me. I tear through the streets, the pavement slick with ice. The adrenalin and fear keep the cold at bay for the most part, but my eyes and cheeks sting from the bitter wind. I dodge people in coats and scarves, rugged up against the bitter winter of New York. Some of them turn and look at me, others are quick to move out of my way. Everyone thinks I’m crazy. I can see it in their incredulous gazes. Why wouldn’t they? I’m dressed in only a pale pink slip, no shoes, no coat, running for my life as the devil chases me.
I turn and glance back. I can’t see him, but that doesn’t mean I’m safe. The wall of bodies in front of me thins and I run smack into the back of a young tourist girl whose mother quickly pulls her out of my way. I stumble forward, right into the middle of Times Square. Billboard upon billboard flashes advertisements at me. People stare while giving me a wide berth. My heart pounds in my chest and my ears whoosh. It’s too loud, too bright, too much. I double over, my hands covering my ears as I scream. I’m panting, but I can’t hear my breaths. I’m surrounded by people, flashing signs, cars, smoke, smog, and snow in the world’s largest tourist attraction, and all I want is my Sir, and the quiet confinement of my room where my birds’ songs are a comfort. I left them. I left them in their cage. I escaped mine, but left them there to rot. Will he kill them? Set them free like he did with me? Oh god, what will happen to him when Hermes wakes and finds me gone?
Sir’s face flashes unbidden in my mind. That face, so familiar, so cold and stoic in its beauty, and yet so filled with . . . what? Love? Compassion? Humanity? Surely not. Ares is cruel and vengeful. A god—at least in my world. My captor, my creator, my punisher, my executioner, and that’s exactly what he’s done by letting me go. He’s destroyed me.
My breath turns to clouds of smoke as I sob and shiver uncontrollably. I stare up at the billboard. Feathers, white then black flit across the screen in quick succession. Over the din of the busy street, the faint sounds of a classical piece that I know well float on the air to my ears, and the wordsSwan Lakeflash up on the screen. The face of the swan is familiar. It’s not mine, though I know instantly it should be. A beat is all it takes for me to unravel, for my past to come surging at me like the flashing billboards and lights of Time Square.
“I’m the swan,” I say breathlessly. I’m dizzy, nauseous, whether from the realization or the running, I don’t know. What I do know with blinding clarity is who I am. Or who I was supposed to be before he stole me. “I’m the swan.”
Several people turn and stare at me and I crumple to the ground from the noise, the exposure. My teeth chatter, my heart pounds, and the need to purge the contents of my stomach overruns me. I puke on the dirty pavement. My lungs suck back air that I can’t feel. I miss my room. I miss the warmth of Ares’ arms, his cruel touch, the peace I found in waiting for him to strike me.
“Miss.” A thick New Yorker accent chases away my thought, and I look up at the dark uniform, shiny badge, and blue hat of a police officer in full uniform. “Are you okay?”
I don’t realize the keening cry piercing my eardrums is coming from my own mouth until he says, “Ma’am, calm down. I need you to talk to me, okay?”
“I’m the swan.”
“What?” He turns to the officer beside him, who shrugs as he stares down at me with a bored look. “Okay, listen, miss, you can’t be outside here in your unmentionables. Especially not in December. It’s snowing. What’s your name?”
“Pet,” I say automatically.
He turns to his partner. “What’d she say?”