Lost forever, because by trading her freedom for Rachel’s, Evangeline had surrendered herself to her stepfather’s custody. His legal custody. He’d never let her out of the house again, unless it was in a casket.
His footsteps prowled up behind her. Slow, precise thuds of his leather soles against the wooden floor. The footfalls stopped. His fingers twisted in Evangeline’s hair, yanked upward. An involuntary squeak escaped her throat as several strands ripped from her skull.
She clamped her mouth shut tight. She hated to show pain. It brought him too much pleasure.
He let go, smacked her on the back of the head, circled into view. Smiling, of course.
With a smirk, he wiggled the keys and was gone.
Evangeline struggled to her feet and hopped toward the front door. She was just turning around to twist open the handle with her bound hands when her stepfather strode back into the room, another glass of whisky in his hand.
“Now, now,” he drawled. His brows arched. “What did I tell you I’d do if I caught you trying to escape again?”
Oddly, it took her a long moment before she could recall his threat. She’d no doubt blocked the possibility from her mind. She’d rather he kill her right here and now than lock her up in that godforsaken pantry.
“Ah.” He smiled. “I see you remember now. It’s not so very terrible in there, is it? So very dark, so very small, so very tight? We’ll have to see if you still fit inside.” His fingers squeezed her upper arm as his voice dropped dangerously.
“I won’t go in there,” she whispered. “I can’t.”
“You will.”
When he pulled on her arm, Evangeline’s knees gave way beneath her. She thudded heavily to the ground, legs limp, eyes wide with terror.
“Get. Up.”
Her lungs wheezed. Her body shook. Her pulse faltered. She couldn’t move.
Neal bent down, hooked the fingers of his free hand through the rope binding her ankles, dragged her dead weight across the room feet-first. He hauled her down the corridor to a tall narrow door that haunted her nightmares.
He flung open the door.
An icy draft rippled across her skin. The gaping maw of the long-abandoned pantry yawned blacker than ever in the absence of both sunlight and candles. What if he lost the key? What if he never released her? What if he left her to die?
He tugged her toward the open doorway. “In you go.”
“Not again.” She shook her head from side to side. “No. No!”
He hauled her forward by her ankles, dropped her legs, kicked her shoulders inside with the heel of his boot.
She thrashed, ready to die before being confined in that tiny slice of hell. When he reached down to shove her face into the darkness, she bit him. Hard.
“Littlebitch.”
He hurled his glass of whisky over her head. It shattered behind her, sending a pungent spray of sticky liquid and tiny shards against the back wall. He kicked her the rest of the way inside, hard enough to bruise, hard enough to maybe break the bone.
No. He hadn’t broken any of her bones this time. She was lucky.Ha. Lucky. If she was lucky, he wouldn’t shut the door and lock her inside. If she was lucky, he’d just kill her and have done with it. If she was lucky—
The door slammed shut with enough force to blow strands of damp hair from her face. Keys jangled. The lock snapped in place.
Evangeline opened her mouth, but the darkness swallowed her scream.
It was worse than being lost in the walls at Blackberry Manor. So much worse. The pantry was darker. Smaller. Tighter.
Her limbs were bent. Cramped. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. The air was cold, dank, stale. The shadows smelled like sweat and liquor and fear. Or maybe that was her. She was a shadow now, too. She was nowhere and nothing.
Cobwebs clung to her cheeks and arms. Were there spiders in her hair? On her face? In her clothes? She yanked at her bound wrists. The twine dug into her skin until blood coated the bindings, but still she could not break free.
Something brushed against her toe. A rat? There. Skittering across the floor. She couldn’t see, but she could hear them. Lots of them.
