Whatever happened though, I had to protect Merlin at all costs. He was my mouse. I wouldn’t let him die because I was being careless. I couldn’tbecareless. This was the catalyst of my story. The woman would find her strength, she would escape with her pet mouse and come back with weapons. It was all written out, I couldn’t stray from the plot.
The door opened however long later, and I opened my eyes to see Phil walking in with some old clothes slung over his arm. “It’s time to get dressed.”
I eyed the clothes and then found his hazel eyes. They’re giving me clothes now? That was different.
He nodded as he walked over, his cheeks red with anger. “Isaak doesn’t want his men being distracted when I walk you out.”
They did get very distracted when I was around, but clothes weren’t a variable I had considered. Especially not jeans. I had always hated jeans. Sometimes I wore them, but I never liked how restricting they were.
This would be a problem.
I wouldn’t be able to move how I practiced, so if I did escape, I would have to adapt.
I glanced to my ankle and back.
He nodded, setting the clothes on the bed and kneeling down beside me. “It’s time to go,” he told me, sliding the key into the lock and releasing the shackle.
I had gotten so used to that weight, it almost felt like I was going to float away without it. I didn’t have a tether keeping me on this world any longer.
I suppose I did have something. Something without a name living in my chest. A little hum of a current that kept my feet on the ground, otherwise I certainly would float away, and that wasn’t a part of the plot.
I stood slowly, testing out how I felt without it. Interesting, that would take some getting used to.
I picked up the pants and carefully pulled them on, buckling them around my waist, the motion unfamiliar to me now.
“They’re your size.”
It didn’t matter, I had lost enough weight that they barely hung onto my hips. They would fall when I tried to run. Just something else I had to adapt to.
I tested the weight of them before my eyes fell to Merlin’s little cloth rope that I had made for him. Perfect.
I untied it and quickly looped it through all of the belt loops, tying it tightly, pulling on my pants to make sure they would remain on.
The pants were wide-legged. Boy pants, I would guess.
“Here,” Phil said when I was sure the pants wouldn’t fall.
I looked up, taking in the boy shirt he was holding out to me. A regular old shirt. It was a size too small, and it was made of a white that was practically see-through.
My eyes lifted to his.
Phil nodded, his eyes going dark. “They wanted to make sure they were still able to…to see the merchandise,” he answered coldly.
Of course, they did. I didn’t care, it’s not like it was something they hadn’t seen before. I took the shirt and pulled it on, finding the feeling of clothes a little overwhelming now.
But I could adapt.
“I am Olivia Kingsmen,” I thought as Phil inspected me. “I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Claimed.”
“I never asked you,” he said, crouching down to roll up the cuffs of the pants twice. “You used to chant this thing before you went completely silent. You said it like it was a title. ‘I am Olivia Rose, I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Claimed’,” he quoted.
“Because it is,” I answered, watching that door, wondering if he could read minds too. “I am Claimed. I am owned. I like being owned but only by him.”
I had thought long and hard about the words I had said to him and the ones I hadn’t. The ones I may never get the chance to.
Even before I realized it, there had always been a sense of security with him. A sense of safety. In the teasing and arguing, I had never felt truly scared. There had never been a true shred of fear engrained in me like there had been here.
Some part of me, however deep, knew that he would never actually harm me, and I think some part of him felt the same way, that he never had it in him to treat me like the others in my position. The other women he fucked for a night. The other women he kidnapped and tortured because their boyfriends and husbands didn’t pay their debts.
