I quenched my thirst by drinking water from the tap at the sink in the bathroom. After all, if there was one positive thing you could say about this place, it was that it was clean.
I started to get bored, and then I started to panic again. What if this crazy fucker had left me in here to die?
But just as I was starting to lose it, because the window I couldn’t break had gone dark, and I was starting to have even worse thoughts about slowly starving to death in that room, the door clicked again, and there he was.
The smell of food was the first thing that hit me, and it was practically orgasmic. I closed my eyes and reminded myself that this jerk was probably going to poison me. So I wasn’t going to eat that...
I opened my eyes.
Lobster? Was he fucking kidding me?
“I don’t eat seafood,” I said, lying about as unconvincingly as I have ever done.
He pushed the cart into the room and closed the door behind him. “That’s fine,” he said plainly, and removed the lids from several plates, the silver cover and all—to reveal that there was steak, chicken, and some kind of really fancy pasta in a bowl. And salad, and fancy-ass potatoes and sides that I couldn’t identify but knew were... really pricey.
He didn’t elaborate, but there wasn’t any need to.
My stomach, doing me no favors, growled slightly.
He opened the door and retrieved a basket from the hallway.
“Clothing. An e-reader with one thousand popular titles. A computer with preloaded movies—”
“How long are you going to keep me here?” I interrupted. My stomach growled again, which made me angry.
I regretted asking him this almost as soon as I had: my bottom burned with the memory of his discipline and I could hear the defiance in my voice. It hadn’t been my plan, I reminded myself. My plan was to play nice and get out of here.
But Mystery Man had a weird reaction to this question. A strange look flashed across his face, and then he closed his eyes.
Almost like he was counting to ten, dealing with an unruly child.
He set the basket on the bed.
And then, without a word, he turned and opened the door.
“Look,” I said, getting up from the bed, moving toward him, trying to show him I really could play along nicely. “I didn’t mean to sound—I just... want to know.”
And then, to my complete and total horror, my eyes welled up instantaneously with actual tears. I was thinking about Lucy, how I needed to help her, and that was right at the tip of my tongue, but then I decided not to give this guy any more ammunition than he already had, if he really was the sadistic bastard I thought he was.
He lifted a hand toward my face—not so much like a slap, more like a he was going to touch my cheek.
Then he jerked his hand away and growled, “You’ll leave when I say you can. Now eat something.”
He put a hand on the panel outside the door to shut it.
“And no antics,” he added with a snarl. “Or else.”
The door slid shut in my face.
“I’m not hungry!” I whisper-screamed at the door.
My stomach growled right after that.
I wiped my tears away impatiently and whirled around. First things first; I wanted clothes. I wantedmyclothes but I guessed whatever this jerk gave me would be better than nothing.
Unless it was really fucked up.
The basket was expensive and hand-woven, which I dementedly admired for a moment as a nice accessory to my dream living room.
