I know this because I have counted them, over and over as I pace the room. I remember a Bengal tiger I’d seen at the Edinburgh Zoo as a child. He was beautiful, powerful, and sleek. He paced the length of his enclosure, back and forth, back and forth. I know exactly how that tiger felt.
This is the second day of my confinement, and a week now since I was kidnapped. Yesterday was worse, I was chained to the bed by my ankle and I spent most of the time shivering and burying my screams in the pillow. The bastard’s henchmen dragged me in here and threw me on the bed, then he brushed them aside to shackle me.
“There is no one who will help you here,” he told me, his eyes frigid. “This is a lesson, apparently, you needed to learn. You will never want to make this mistake again.”
“Feck you and feck your thugs!” I screamed, “I hope you get shot! I hope you’re set on fire, you evil bastard!”
He didn’t even blink, shutting the door behind him.
How could I have been so stupid, so naive? I really believed that one of this monster’s guards was going to whisk me away to freedom?
“Right magical thinking, there,” I whisper.
***
When one of his thugs dropped my breakfast tray on the table this morning, I didn’t say a word. Looks like Eileen’s no longer allowed to see me.
Later, another guard took my untouched food and put a lunch tray in its place. Starving me is not part of the punishment, it seems. No bread and water for me, it was beef stew and even dessert, but I couldn’t eat it.
The sky darkened and I crawled under the covers and pulled them over my head.
My dreams that night were a muddle of blood and terror.
I was back in the warehouse, the broken floorboards splintering underfoot like rotted teeth, and the door slammed open. It was my brother Cormac, shooting and stabbing his way through the bastards who took us in a grisly ballet of death. But when he turned around, it was not Cormac, it was my captor, blood staining his hair black. He smiled at me. And raised his gun to my head.
I wake screaming. Trembling, and sweating, I bury my face in my hands, trying to take slow, deep breaths that catch in my throat instead, making me cough. Unlike that first night here, he didn’t come in to check on me, and I’m grateful. I couldn’t endure seeing him, I don’t want him to see how pathetic I am, how weak. My brothers will come for me. I just have to be strong.
Day three of my house arrest, as I’ve come to call it.
Another untouched breakfast taken away and lunch left in its place. The guard looks down at the full tray and sighs. I know his name, Karl, because I overheard another guard calling for him. He’s a big guy with red hair in a buzzcut to go along with his ex-military appearance, like most of the arseholes who work for my captor. He’s nicer, though. He smiles at me when he comes in, even though it’s probably against orders.
“Ma’am, I-”
“My name is Sorcha,” I interrupt. “Or Miss MacTavish, or Scorch. Not ma’am. If you won’t say my name, don’t talk to me.”
He passes a hand over his forehead. “Miss…” he settles on, “Miss MacTavish, the boss thinks you’re on a hunger strike.”
That’s not true. I just… can’t eat. My stomach feels like it’s been folded over and over like a paper airplane. I gagged last night, just looking at the plate of halibut and orzo.
I stay silent.
Karl seats himself uncomfortably on the very edge of the chair by the table. “If you don’t eat tonight, he’s going to call Dr. Fujimoto to start a feeding tube. Believe me, you do not want that.”
Despite my determination to be strong, I shudder. They’ll tie me down and shove a tube down my throat? “It’s not that I’m refusing to eat,” I say in a hurry, “I can’t. I’ll just hurl it back up. You go seein’ how hungry ya’ are when you’re chained up like a yard dog.”
Huffing out a breath, he thinks about it. “I’ll talk to the boss. Maybe there’s a compromise, eh? You try to eat and he takes the shackles off?”
This fecking chain gone from my ankle? I nearly rubbed my skin raw that first night, trying to get it off me. “I don’t know if I can,” I say honestly, “but I’ll try, aye?”
He’s faking his kindness, I’m sure of it. Just to get me to do what that son of a bitch of a bastard wants from me. But if I can get this cuff off my ankle, it’s worth it.
When he comes back that evening, I’ve managed to keep down half a sandwich. I could have flushed the food down the loo, but I know my captor has cameras in here. Maybe in the bathroom, too, the perverted feck.
Karl beams with relief. “Good work. Eileen sent up soup and a protein drink. Doc says it’ll go down easier.”
Holding out my leg, I nod to the chain. “Will you take this off now?”
“I’ll handle this. That will be all.”
