If that protection is even still in place. If it ever was. I’m probably a dead girl already. At least I’ll have put up a fight.
I slip a hand into my pocket, touching the key, a sudden thought popping into my head.
What if I didn’t wait for Angel? What if I escaped by myself?
But the next moment, I brush that thought away. I might be able to get out of the apartment, but there are so many protections in place. There’s a code for the elevator, cards for every door. Plus, there are all the surveillance cameras. I didn’t even make it out of the door with the stapler, and I doubt I’d get much further this time.
Vaguely, I wonder how Angel will manage to pass through all those levels of protection. But they found out what happened to me at the poker game. I have no doubt they know what they’re doing.
The quiet woman walks in with the breakfast tray, and I eye her thoughtfully. Something isn’t right, but I can’t quite figure out what.
She saw everything that happened but didn’t say a word to defend me. And now, she’s given me the means to escape.
I have the strange feeling I’m playing right into her hands. Or, if not her hands,someone’shands. But pride makes me push my misgivings away. I’m determined to resist, and if doing so costs me my life, so be it.
The quiet woman takes my tray without a word, but she looks up at me and seems satisfied by what she sees. I guess she knows I kept the key.
-
I spend the rest of the day in a comatose state, too anxious to sleep, too anxious to do anything but wait. I avoid the television like a plague, for fear of accidentally hearing more things about the Cole case that might send me spiraling. I pick up one book, then another, but I can’t seem to focus.
Time never passed so slowly before. Not when I was waiting for Damien to return, after each of the times he’d made me happier than I’d ever been, only to leave so abruptly. Not even when I was waiting after he’d handcuffed me to the bed.
Remembering those times he made me so happy with just histouch makes my resolve waver, but only for a moment. He’s not coming back anyway. His touch belongs to the past.
At last, the hand on the clock shows 12 a.m.
I stand up, grab my large bag, and head toward the door. There, I hesitate again, wondering where Angel is waiting for me. Am I supposed to try to go downstairs? Do they really know about the code, the cards and the cameras?
I take one last sweeping look around the room, then slip the key in the lock, my heart hammering.
I shouldn’t have worried so much. Because when I open the door, a man is standing right in front of me.
He’s tall, very tall, though probably not as tall as Damien. But Damien has never stood exactly like this, towering over me, as if he’s determined to make me fully aware of his height.
This man has curly brown hair, a smooth, dark face, a straight nose, small, black eyes, and pink lips that are currently parted into a wide smile, revealing a set of surprisingly sharp teeth.
Like a shark, I think with a jolt.
He brings a hand up, and after a second of confusion, I realize he wants to shake hands with me.
I lift my own trembling hand, and he clasps it in his.
“Hello, Seraphina,” he murmurs in a low, full voice. “I’m Gabriel.”
26
Damien
“What the fuck do you mean, she’s missing?”
“I mean… I mean…”
“Speak, woman!”
“I… I…”
I’ve never been so close to shaking the fucking life out of a woman before. I stand before Lucy, breathing hard, as she quakes against the wall, her face white.
