“Whatever you say.” He stands, grabbing something off my desk I’ve never seen before and tossing it onto the bed. “Anyway, before I go to hell the way you think I should, I figured I would give you this. You want to take care of that—keep it clean so it doesn’t get infected. And use this on it.”
I can barely even focus my eyes, much less read what’s on the bottle he dropped on the bed. “What are you talking about?” Even saying those few words is enough to exhaust me. He needs to leave the room so I can lie back down. I don’t trust him enough to do it now, but he’s still standing here.
“It’s lotion. For aftercare.”
“Aftercare for what, though?”
He tilts his head to the side, smirking. “You mean you really don’t remember? I thought for sure. Don’t you feel it?”
Dread begins tickling the back of my mind, spreading its way through my brain. “Remember what? Feel what?”
“The tattoo you wanted. You asked for it and everything.”
“Just stop fucking with me, please? That’s all I want.”
“You think I’m fucking with you? You’ll feel differently once you look in the mirror. It’s pretty nice work, actually. I’m almost jealous.”
A tattoo? No way would I ever ask for a tattoo—and I wasn’t even conscious. He’s just trying to scare me. I’m not going to make it that easy.
On the other hand… Wasn’t that the whole reason I was going to get up in the first place? The feeling that something was wrong, something I needed to check out?
I forget about the way my head feels, tumbling out of bed and stumbling toward the bathroom. No way. They wouldn’t do this to me. I go in and close the door, then lower my jeans and turn around.
Tears spring to my eyes at the sight of it. A small heart over my left butt cheek, low enough that it’s hidden by my clothes but most definitely there. I squint my eyes and move closer to the mirror. Even though it’s backward, the word is clear. Alistair. They had their last name tattooed on my ass.
Frantic, I rub at it, but it only hurts, and the ink doesn’t move. It’s a real tattoo, not something they drew on in pen to mess with me. A helpless, hopeless little whimper works its way from my throat. I can’t believe this. Just when I think I’ve seen it all from them, they go and remind me how much worse things could be.
“You asshole.” I fling the bathroom door open, buttoning my jeans, prepared to give him hell. But he’s already gone—and, big surprise, he locked the door. I pound my fist against it as loud as my poor head will let me, but there’s no sound from the other side. Not even laughter.
Fuck this. I am sick to death of the way they’re treating me. I have a little money in the bank now—I need to go somewhere, anywhere. It’ll mean digging into my savings, but that’s still better than being stuck here with them, afraid to leave my room even when they decide to unlock the door.
A plan is already forming in my head by the time I sit down to put on my sneakers. I can’t get out through the door? Fine. The window will do. I didn’t spend all those years training to not be able to climb out a window and make it to the ground safely. Sure, I’m on the second floor, but a downspout runs alongside one of the windows, and I can shimmy down.
I open the window and lean out, testing it. It’s firmly attached to the side of the house. I grab my phone and tuck it into my back pocket before sitting on the windowsill, swiveling my body and ducking my head and shoulders out. It’s a little scary at first, especially since I’m still shaky from whatever drugs they gave me, but muscle memory is an amazing thing. I reach out with my right hand and foot and grab the metal tube, finding the closest bracket used to hold the spout in place. It’s attached to the wall and doesn’t budge when I put weight on it, so I brace my foot against it before swinging out the rest of the way and gripping the pipe like my life depends on it. Now that I’m out, it’s easy to climb down, almost like a ladder, my feet finding the rings screwed into the wall as I lower myself closer and closer to the ground. Finally, I hop the rest of the way down and wipe my hands on my jeans. No sweat.
Next step: getting an Uber out of here. I pull up the app on my phone, careful to duck under any windows I pass while walking alongside the house. I didn’t go to all that trouble for Colt or Nix to see me out here. Either I’m good at sneaking around, or they’re not paying attention. Either way, I make it to the driveway with no trouble and start walking down, glad to have the house behind me.
I don’t know what’s going to happen. All that matters right now is putting distance between us. I never thought they would do anything that cruel. What am I supposed to do with a tattoo on my ass?
It’s the sound of an approaching car that catches my attention first. My head snaps up from the phone. No. It’s impossible. I can’t be seeing this.
The car pulls to a stop in front of me, and the driver’s side window rolls down. “What are you doing out here?” James asks once he sticks his head out from inside.
No. No, no. I had over a week. Why is he here? “I was taking a walk,” I lie, closing the app.
“Well, surprise. I’m home early.” The way he smiles is the way he used to, back when he was pretending to be a normal person. It’s even more chilling than if he flat-out acted like a psycho.
“And Mom?” I ask since I don’t see anybody in the passenger seat.
“She’s still at the resort. It’s all paid up after all, and it’s not her fault I had to come back early for an important call that came up out of nowhere.” He lifts a shoulder, chuckling. “Some people, right? No respect for a man’s honeymoon.”
He’s back. Alone. Not that I would trust my mother to protect me, but I figured there’d be less chance of him hurting me while she was here. He’d want to keep up appearances, right?
“I know the guys will be happy to see you. I’ll be back in a little bit.” Nothing in the world has ever been more important than getting away from him, from this house, from all of it.
“No. You’re not going to do that.” The smile is gone and replaced by a scowl. “You’re going back to the house, and that’s where you’re staying. Right now. I’ll follow you the rest of the way up.” He rolls the window up but doesn’t move the car, staring at me from behind the wheel. Like he’s challenging me to go against him.
There isn’t just one red flag waving in front of my eyes right now. There are about a hundred. So many red flags that it’s basically all I can see.Red.