He exhales—a patient man exasperated. Then he circles the truck and yanks open my door?—
I bolt.
Two steps. That’s all I get before his arm coils around my waist and lifts me off the ground. I flail, boots kicking, nails clawing at his back, but he carries me like I weigh nothing.
“PUT ME DOWN!” My fists hammer into him, useless blows.
He strides to the front door, kicks it open in one brutal motion, and hauls me inside like prey draped over his shoulder.
My feet hit the floor—adrenaline propelling me toward escape—but he’s already there, a wall of muscle and menace. He shoves me backward; my spine slams into plaster, skin scraping against rough white. His hand snaps beside my head, caging me in.
“Do you think I enjoyed dragging you here like a fucking animal?” His voice is unyielding steel. “Do you think this was what I wanted?”
My lungs constrict. The room shrinks around us, oppressively small. His chest presses into mine, heat blistering through my ribs, pinning me in his orbit. Then—softly, dangerously intimate, like a secret carved from darkness?—
“You don’t get freedom here. You get me. And I can be good to you…” His fingers catch my chin, tilting it up until I have no choice but to meet his eyes. “But only when you’re good for me.”
The hold is brief but absolute. He releases me after a moment, stepping back, leaving me pinned to the wall by the weight of his words.
“Your room’s upstairs. Second door on the left,” he says without looking back. “Don’t make me lock it.”
His boots echo down the hall, each step sealing the truth deeper in my chest.
This isn’t merely a nightmare.It’s a life sentence.
I wait until his footsteps fade, then another beat after that, just to be sure.
The house is quiet, but it isn’t empty. It’s the kind of quiet that listens. I take the stairs slow, every sound too loud. The hallway is narrow, lined with closed doors. One lamp at the far end bleeds a tired glow onto the carpet.
The second door on the left is already open.
The room is bare but not unwelcoming—somehow worse. The bed is neatly made with crisp white sheets, a folded blanket at the foot. A dresser. A small desk under the window. Fresh toiletries lined up in the bathroom doorway, like this has been meticulously prepared. It isn’t a guest room. It’s a holding cell with better linen.
I step inside. The floorboards creak under each timid step. The air smells faintly of detergent and cedar—his cedar.
The window draws me before I’ve decided to move. I part the curtain enough to peek through. The yard is swallowed by dark, the tree line a jagged shadow against the sky. No lights. No roads. No one to hear me if I scream.
A movement below catches my eye.
He’s outside, standing in the drive. The glow from his cigarette flares, bright against the dark, before fading back to ember.
Watching the house. Watching me.
He heads to his truck and pulls my suitcase from the back.
I let the curtain fall. My pulse hammers in my ears.
The bed is too precise, like it’s waiting for me to lie down exactly where he wants me. I don’t sit. I stand there in the middle of the room, listening to the house breathe around me.
Because it’s not the walls that make me feel trapped.It’s knowing he’s out there.
Chapter 2
What He Keeps
Summer
Living with Jacob was meant to be temporary. That’s what he told my parents, anyway. Just until things “settled down.” Just until the men who took the photos of me were caught.
