“What are you doing?” I say, backing away from him like he’s a land mine.
“I have to change,” he says, completely indifferent to the fact that he’s now naked. I childishly cover my eyes. “I’m not going back to the house covered in blood.”
There’s a little bedroom tucked into one corner of the cottage, and when he heads in there to pull on some new clothes, I edge experimentally toward the front door. Someone screams, and it sounds like it’s just outside.
He’s fast, damn it, he’s crossed the room and his hand is already gripping my wrist as I reach for the doorknob.
“Let go of me! We have to-”
“We have to stay in here,” he cuts me off. “You can’t stop what’s happening.”
“But you could!” I snap, trying to pull away from him. “How can you just…”
For a moment, I swear I see genuine frustration in his vivid eyes, and then they grow cold again. “The difference is that theywantto be part of the Lord’s crew. You didn’t.” He leans closer to me. “Now that you’re here, what you want means nothing. I can keep you alive if you shut up and do what I say. If you’re too much trouble, I’ll throw you to the wolves.” His smile is cruel.
There’s another scream outside and then wild feminine laughter as he pulls me away from the door. Is it one of the horrible girls chasing someone? Or are they being chased and they think this sick shit isentertaining?That rapturous expression on Theresa’s face makes me think this might be some nightmare combo of initiation and torture.
“You’re so-” I shake my head, wanting to pull my hair and scream. “You’re monsters, all of you.”
He stares at me expressionlessly. “You’re right. Wearemonsters. But I’m the monster who will keep you alive if you do exactly what I say. Go sit down by the fire and stay quiet. I don’t want to chain you to the hearth, but I will.”
Looking over, I see thereisan iron loop embedded in the tile around the fireplace with a chain and shackle dangling from it. “You use that a lot, do you?”
He’s pulling up a clean pair of jeans over his hips and doesn’t bother to look at me. “What part of sit down and shut up was not clear?”
Pressing my lips together, I sit on the shabby chair and lean closer to the flames. The warmth doesn’t really help; there’s a core of ice in me that is impervious. My soul is frozen, and a flood of terror and fury will pour from me if it melts.
He ignores me for a while, moving around the cottage with his phone, sending off text after text. I notice he doesn’t bother to put on a shirt. I also notice how the firelight gleams along his broad shoulders and makes the countless tattoos on his skindance and writhe. A massive dragon is inked on his back, wings spread from shoulder to shoulder. The scales and glowing red eyes are so vivid that it feels like the dragon is watching me.
The silence stretches taut like barbed wire, scraping along my nerves, but I keep my mouth shut. Whatever he’s reading in those texts is not making him happy.
He heads back into the bedroom. I hear drawers being slammed, and he’s speaking to someone on the phone; his low, urgent voice makes it clear he’s not hearing what he wants. More slamming of furniture. What does he keep in there? A collection of bloody weapons? The taxidermied remains of his ex-girlfriends?
“What’s your name?”
Looking up, I flinch as he takes a picture of me on his phone. “Why?”
His smile is unpleasant. “Always the hard way with you, aye? Let me guess your sad story. Traveling alone, first time for a little lass in the great big world? You’re ready to trust the first person who’s nice to you?”
A sense of shame, like boiling water, pours down my back. He’s right, and it’s humiliating. I thought I was being cautious. I was wrong.
“I may look like a sucker to you, but there’s people who will be looking for me if I don’t call them by morning.” As I’m lying to him, I can see the first, faint light of dawn between the cracks in the curtains. Daylight. If I can get away from him, I could signal someone for help. The channel of water between the mainland and here was busy last night.
No reaction. He’s scrolling through something in his texts.
“I mean it,” I snap. “Just let me and Marla go. Don’t make this worse.”
He ignores me for about ten minutes and then gets a notification on his phone.
“Luna Jones, twenty-six years old from Iowa City, Iowa,” he says, reading off his phone. “Graduated from Cottonwood High School with honors. Works as a waitress and a house cleaner.”
“Wh- where are you getting this?” I say angrily. How did he get my info so fast from just mypicture?
“Parents died in a car accident when you were twelve,” he murmurs. “You lived with your aunt until she threw you out of the house the day you turned eighteen. You finished high school while sleeping at friends’ houses and showering in the high school locker room. Very resourceful.”
The shame is back, and my skin feels like it’s on fire. “This is none of your fucking business!” Rising from the lumpy chair, I try to grab his phone. “You have no right-” His hand closes around my throat, not enough to hurt but definitely making it clear that he could. I’d watched him snap Red Leather Mask’s neck within seconds.
“I have every right,” he says indifferently. “I own you until I decide to get rid of you. There’s no one looking for you, lass. You’re on your own.”
