My journal.
“Hey,” Miles says softly when he notices me move. He sets the journal down, stands up quick, crosses the room in three long strides.
“Don’t,” I rasp out, backing as far as the knotted sheet allows.
He crouches in front of me anyway, hands up in surrender. “Easy. You’re okay.”
“Okay?” My voice cracks. “It kind of feels like I’mnot.”
He glances over his shoulder at Jamie. “You said she’d be out longer.”
Jamie groans, dropping the ice pack. “She hit me with a mug, man. Forgive me for misjudging her recovery time.”
Miles’s attention snaps back to me. His eyes that pale gray I used to think looked kind are unreadable now.
“Chloe,” he says, his tone careful. “He didn’t mean to hurt you.”
I bark out a laugh. “Oh, well, that makes it so much better.”
“Please,” he says, lowering his voice. “You’re safe now.”
“Safe?” I tug at the bedsheet around my ankle, then hold up my other hand—the one handcuffed to the metal frame. The cuff bites against my skin when I move. “Does this looksafeto you?”
He winces. “We had to—”
“Don’t. Don’t even start with that.”
For a moment, neither of them speaks. The silence stretches until I can hear my own pulse pounding in my ears.
Then Miles exhales and moves closer. “You’re dehydrated,” he says. “Let me get you some water.”
“I don’t want your water.”
“Chloe—”
“No!” My voice breaks. I pull again, the cuff cutting deeper into my wrist. “What the hell is this? Some kind of kink thing? Because if it is, I’m not into it, okay? Whatever sick game you’re playing, I’m not part of it anymore. Now untie me!”
Jamie makes a sound that could be a laugh or a groan. “Jesus, Chloe.”
Miles turns on him. “You’re not helping.”
I can’t look at either of them. My head is spinning too fast. My throat burns. There’s a weird, metallic taste in my mouth and I can’t stop shaking.
Miles crouches again. His hoodie rides up when he bends, and I see a dark line of ink curling over his forearm.
It’s familiar. Why the fuck haven’t I noticed it before?
The tattoo. The same one from…
For a heartbeat, the world narrows.
It’s faint, just the edge of something familiar, but I’ve seen that pattern before. Months ago. A flash of it when the man who’d dragged me through the warehouse reached for the blindfold.
A shiver tears through me.
No.
No.
