I was afraid to move in the helicopter. I might touch something I shouldn’t. I might make someone hurt me. I’d said yes to him and had consented to this. If not for my visitor, I’d have imagined the words—nothing except pain and punishment—as being some kinky punishment.
What if he eventually meant to kill me?
An hour to half an hour later, the glasses were removed and then the headphones. The helicopter was making a sharperthwack-thwacknoise. Someone picked at the edges of the tape sticking the covers to my eyes, then carefully peeled off the tape, before they removed the eye covers.
Dr. Romanus peered down at me from the adjacent seat. Behind him, the bright sky in the side windows blinded me, and I squinted. The helicopter seemed to be descending, judging by my stomach and the blurred, flamed-out horizon where sea met sky.
I reached up to cover my face, despite my need to see where we were.
In those few seconds, I’d glimpsed where we were heading. An island shaped like a ragged crescent floated in the middle of the ocean, with a square tower thrusting skyward at one end. Stretching beyond the island, long shadows hinted at deep ocean and ponderous waves. A strip of sand carved the edges of a beach. On this side, golden sunlight burnished the crests advancing toward a cliff-lined, rocky shore, before playing across the fringes of the pine trees above.
All I needed was a phone connected to the internet to identify the island.Haha.
I squeezed my eyes open again, straining against the instinct to shut them. The helicopter landed, rocking only slightly as the blades spun slower.
The engine noise ran down to nothing except distant ticking.
“There.” The doctor patted my thigh. “You were very good.”
I felt thoroughly patronized but kept my mouth shut.
He helped me from my seat, after unbuckling the belt. Maybe the doctor thought this was gentlemanly. If so, it was an enormous contrast to his kinky inclinations.
The side door was slid open by the co-pilot, and he saluted us. Shocked, I recognized my suave, British, blond-haired visitor. The lick of hair caressing his forehead looked to be exactly where it had been at the house. Perhaps he was a porcelain imitation of a human.
I had no name for him. Had I even asked?
“You look unhappy,” the doctor said. “Is it because of our guest?”
He was now a guest? What had happened to the once-a-week visitor doing, what had seemed, an imposed appraisal of the doctor?
Wind blasted through the doorway, and I swayed and grabbed the back of the seat nearest. Papers rustled. A loose belt flicked on the upholstery.
“This is Cassius,” the doctor added. “I know you’ve met. I invited him along for a day.”
“Yes. We’ve met.”
“Good. Then we all know each other. Come. We have to walk to the cars since the road washed away recently. It’ll be brisk and chilly, this late. Night is falling. I have a flashlight, and some of the help will be here, but we should hurry.”
Numb. I was numb—my fingers, my lips, my toes in my sneakers, and not because of the weather. Did the doctor know what my visitor had said to me?
Fearing the presence of this conspirator who was taking this secret stuff far too casually, I joined the doctor on the tarmac, ducking to clear the blades with my clothes and dust whipping about. The engine or fuel smell was strong until we put distance between us and the chopper.
Cassius strolled up last, his hands in the pockets of his navy-colored jeans. His black coat flared in the wind, and his black shirt was a little crinkled, but I’d smelled the freshness of his linen shirt back at the house. The two men could compete for being precise and well laundered, like they’d been cut from a box with molds of perfectly elegant and controlled males.
Were they pretending and playing me off against each other?
I didn’t know. How could I? The only person whose mind I knew was my own. My thoughts braked. And that was who I should rely on, from today—myself and nobody else. I’d been using the doctor as a crutch of sorts, and then Cassius, seeing them, weirdly, as my rescuers.
The helicopter had landed on a pad not far from a beach. The pine trees surrounding the clearing allowed the last flickers of dying sunlight to reach us, along with the gentle roar of surf rolling across sand. Nestled in those trees was a concrete shack that must be a modern addition, with one door and window at the front.
The tower I’d seen from the air wasn’t visible, but it hinted at a solid history of human occupation. I clasped my arms about myself, gathering the coat in closer, and followed after the doctor…Dr. Romanus. I wondered if or when I would get to know his full name, and I wondered what was to become of me.
Brave as I often told myself I was, I feared. I feared death and torture, and things I couldn’t bear to imagine. This was even more of a nowhere place for a woman to go missing without a trace than the house.
To my right, the mysterious and possibly lying Cassius caught up, easily matching my shorter strides.
“You,” I muttered.