His (10 page)

Why did I have to be the killjoy? The realistic one, always. I’d killed off her fantasies left and right already.

“I won’t,” she said softly, still eyeing the forest beyond the windowsill. “I wouldn’t fit through the window, anyway.”

True enough. My eyes swept down over her backside. Her hips, wide and curving. I longed to run a hand across them. Not yet, though. A long dark smudge of dirt ran down the back of one leg, stopping at the ankle. On closer inspection, she was filthy. That wouldn’t do. She would have to wash up first. Not now, but maybe later.

“Don’t be too long,” I said, closing the door. I heard the lock click shut, then the sound of running water in the sink. I sat on my bed and waited for her to be done. It didn’t take long for the door to click open. She looked back once, longingly, at the trees through the window.

“It’s beautiful outside,” she said.

“It is,” I agreed. Her eyelashes flitted up, dark brown lashes framing dark brown eyes. I called her kitten, but those were a puppy’s eyes: innocent and desirous. They made me want to do terrible things, wonderful things. I grabbed her roughly by her uninjured arm, more roughly than was necessary.

“Back to the basement with you,” I said, shutting the door on the emotions that threatened to seep from the watertight compartment inside of me. I did not want to kill her. I wanted more. So much more than I could ever have.

So much more than I could ever deserve.

CHAPTER NINE

     Kat    

The hours blended into each other. It had been two days since I had gotten kidnapped. Two? Or three? I could feel the effects of my meds beginning to ebb. Anxiety was creeping back into my body.

In the darkness of the basement my fingers twitched as I huddled against the wall. Blind as I was, I could almost conjure up the vision of the pill bottle in my mind. The feeling of twisting the hard plastic lid off, digging through the cotton balls for the tiny small pills that would calm me down.

There was no calm here, and I breathed slowly, trying to keep myself from having a panic attack. As much as most people mind the dark, I didn’t particularly care whether or not I had a light on in the basement. When I was a kid, I never had to have a nightlight. I loved building fortresses under my bed and hiding there.

Kat, you can keep calm. Breathe in. Breathe out. The darkness was actually quite soothing.

The door opened with a sharp crack, light pouring in. I started back, my breaths catching in my throat. The anxiety I’d been trying so hard to suppress flooded my system, and my heart pumped harder. My limbs wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go.

His silhouette filled the doorway, and when he stepped forward I saw that he had brought food - bread, cheese, and a package of dry salami.

“Good afternoon, Kat,” he said.

“Is it afternoon?” I couldn’t tell the difference between dawn and dusk, trapped as I was below the house with not even a single window to look out of. Why had I tried to escape? I could have had a window, at least, down here. Now I had nothing.

“It’s getting late,” he said. “Getting closer to your birthday, actually. I thought we might have a trade.”

“I don’t have anything to trade,” I said mechanically.

“You have a lot to trade,” he said. “Your obedience, for one. Do what I want you to do.”

“Why?”

“It will make me happy.”

I glared daggers at him. If he wasn’t joking, he was an idiot.

“Do you really think I care at all about making you happy?” I asked.

He tilted his head.

“You’re a strange creature, kitten,” he said. “Let’s try this again.”

He strode forward and dropped the food on the blanket in front of me. The smell of the salami wafted through the dim room. It made my mouth water. I reached out for it and he slapped my hand away.

“Not yet, kitten,” he said. “Not until I say you can eat. You must be obedient, you understand?”

I trembled, my nerves shot through from not being able to take my medication. Another game, that’s all this was for him.

Well, I wasn’t going to play his game. Not anymore.

“Can I eat?” I asked flatly. He wasn’t going to hurt me without some trouble.

“No,” he said.

I leaned back against the wall, crossing my arms. Breathe in, breathe out. You can stand up to him, Kat.

“Awful waste of steps to come all the way down here with food to
not
feed me. Were you just getting your exercise for the day?”

“Saucy girl.”

“How about you go back up to the kitchen and bring down some chocolate cake so I can
not
eat that, too? Your quads will thank you.”

He frowned and began to gather the food back up in his arms. My stomach growled, the ache shooting up through my body. I reached out and touched his arm, and he froze.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “It’s my meds. I don’t have my meds. I get nervous.”

Under my fingertips, his muscles were hard.

“Please,” I said, my stomach growling again, even louder.

“Ask me to feed you,” he said.

What? I blinked at him. What was he doing down here? The smell of the salami was seriously making my stomach churn, though, and I was definitely rethinking my earlier stance on his game. If all he wanted was to feed me… it was weird, sure, but it wasn’t what I thought he was going to ask for in exchange for food.

“I—will you feed me?” I asked.

“Yes,” he responded, and sat in front of me on the basement floor, cross-legged. “What do you want to eat first?”

“The—the salami?”

“With cheese as well?”

“Um, yes.”

I watched as his long fingers broke off a piece of cheese and then wrapped a piece of salami around it. He leaned forward and offered it to me. I opened my mouth and he slid the food inside.

Like a pet, I thought. I was an obedient little pet. That’s what he wanted. The taste of cheddar and meat made me even hungrier, though, and I swallowed fast, opening my mouth again for the next bite.

Slowly, bite by bite, he fed me the whole pack of salami. At the end he produced a bottle of water and held it to my lips. I drank, water spilling from my lips and dribbling down my cheeks, my neck. He paused and wiped off the trickle of moisture with the back of his fingers.

“Good, kitten?”

I nodded.

“Excellent. You’re learning. This is a good trade. You do one thing for me, I do one thing for you. Thank you for obeying so well. Is there anything you want, now?”

I looked up at him. That? That had been
me
doing
him
a favor? How weird.

“I won’t let you go,” he said quickly. “Don’t ask for that. You know I can’t do that.”

“I want you to answer a question for me,” I said, licking my lips. The traces of fatty meat and cheese lingered on my tongue.

“Yes?”

“What
are
you going to do with me?”

He paused, and I thought he might be angry, but when he spoke again, there was only confusion in his voice.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You—you haven’t thought it out?”

“I never had this problem before, kitten. For now, I’m going to keep you here.” He didn’t look irritated with me. More amused, if anything. I didn’t understand it.

“But they’ll be looking for me.”

“Not here,” he said, chucking me under the chin. “We’re safe.”

Safe. That was one way to describe it. Anger bubbled through me. He hadn’t even thought of what he was going to do with me. For some reason, that indifference upset me more than if he had told me any of his terrible plans.

“So you don’t know.”

“Sorry, kitten,” he said, standing up to go.

“Wait,” I said. “That’s not a fair trade.”

He looked back at me.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I insisted. “Can I have something else?”

“What?”

He hadn’t agreed, but I blustered ahead anyway. If this was a game of fair trade, I was going to get my share of the bargain.

“Something to wear,” I said. “It’s cold down here in my underwear.”

He didn’t even pause for a second at my request. Immediately, he stripped his t-shirt off and threw it down at me. I saw his broad shoulders in silhouette, his bare chest gleaming in the dim light. Blood rushed to my cheeks and I looked down at his shirt quickly, grasping the soft fabric in my fingers.

“You won’t fit into my pants,” he said. “We’ll find you something else to wear later. For now, will that do?”

I nodded and pulled the shirt over my head. It smelled like him—a faint scent of deodorant and musk. The shirt was tight across my chest, but I was grateful to be covered up at all.

“Good trade, kitten,” he said, and left me sitting in his shirt on the basement floor.

     Gav    

A good pet. She was learning to be obedient. Maybe soon she would learn to obey more, to be mine fully and truly. Maybe I would convince her that staying inside was for the best.

Later that evening, I brought her up to the bedroom again for her to use the bathroom. I would have to convince her to stay of her own accord, or else I would forever be distracted by her needs. As of now, she was like a pet that needed constant looking after.

Cats, at least, were independent creatures, but I had to watch over her for every one of her physical needs. And tonight… I needed to find something for her to wear. Not just a shirt. The soft curves of her backside peeking out from under the bottom hem made me stir inside in a way that even her bare undergarments hadn’t.

And she would have to wash soon.

The shadow hadn’t come around yet. It normally stayed away for a few days after a kill, but I hadn’t even thought about it since she had come to the house.

Caring about her was starting to distract me.

     Kat    

He let me up into the bathroom again, and I made sure to lock the door behind me. In the bathroom, I scrounged around and found what I had been searching for earlier. There was a spare razor blade at the back of a cabinet drawer, hiding in the pine board gap. It was old and rusted, but it would serve its purpose.

He could think that I was an obedient little pet, but I wasn’t going to let his game get between me and freedom. As stupid as I’d been before, I wasn’t going to be stupid now that I was in real trouble.

Chickenshit. Boring. I was not that person. Not anymore. I wasn’t going to wait here for a Prince Charming to come save me from this monster. I was going to save myself. That’s what Jules would do. That’s what I needed to do.

If he didn’t know what he was going to do with me, I’d have to figure out how to escape before he decided to use me as a torture experiment.

I used the rusty edge of the razor to slit open the side of my bra and tucked it through the slit carefully, between the padding and the wire. I pulled his shirt back over my head and looked in the mirror. You couldn’t see the outline of the razor; the padding of the bra hid it well.

If I had to use it, I would. On him or on me.

Preferably on him.

CHAPTER TEN

     Kat    

I opened my eyes, lying on the basement floor. The blanket was bunched under my neck and my arm was still handcuffed to the pipe. My ankle twinged slightly with pain, and the only rays of light that came into the room were from under the basement door.

It was my birthday.

The meds had worn off, and I didn’t know how long I’d been out. Anxiety surged through me, and as I sat up my arm twisted and hurt. He’d said he was going out, and that’s why he had to cuff me. My wrist screamed in pain, and as much as I tried to do my deep breathing, nothing was working to stop my nerves from shooting panic signals across my brain.

I raised my head as Gav opened the door, half relieved to see him, half terrified. He had a bowl of something in his hands, and I smelled the oatmeal as he crossed the room. I lifted my arm weakly.

“My wrist hurts,” I said. “Take off the handcuffs.”

“You must obey first,” he said. “We’ll eat breakfast now.”

He spooned up a bite of oatmeal and held it out in front of my face. Panic gripped me in a vise. I didn’t want this to be the rest of my life. I didn’t want to be his pet.

“Please,” I said. “It hurts—”

His hand whipped across my cheek so quickly that the sting of the slap came before I could realize he was lifting a hand to me. The spoon clattered in the bowl. My cheek stung hot, and a wave of panicked anger rose up, closing off my throat.

“Obey first, kitten,” he said, lifting the spoon again. “Then we will trade.”

I stared baldly at the spoon, hate boiling inside of me so hot that I couldn’t think straight. All I knew was pain and hunger, and I didn’t want to be here and I didn’t want him to feed me.

“No,” I said.

He grabbed my chin and lifted it, gripping my mouth so that my lips pursed.

“Eat, kitten,” he said, bringing the spoon to my lips.

“No!”

Not today. I wouldn’t be his pet today. I whipped my head sideways and kicked out. The bowl of oatmeal overturned, spilling everywhere.

Before I could be pleased about the results of my rebellion, his arm was under my armpit, dragging me up the side of the wall. I yelped as he shoved me back and pressed the spoon against my lips.

“Stop,” I whispered. Panic was making my legs shiver and shake.

“Obey,” he said, through gritted teeth.

“Stop,” I cried. “Let me go!”

“You know I can’t do that, kitten,” he said. His thumb scooped the oatmeal out of the spoon, and then he shoved it into my mouth. His thumb ground against my teeth and oatmeal dripped out of the sides of my lips.

“Stop!” I sobbed. “Please, stop!”

He didn’t, though. Throwing the spoon aside, he tilted my head up. At first I thought he was going to force feed me more, but then his lips crashed down on mine.

The kiss stole my breath, his body pressing the air out of my lungs. My body burned with pain, and I twisted under him, but he held me fast. The feelings that my meds would have cut off sprung into high alert, and at the same time so too did my body.