“He was undergoing Mind Phantom experiments. I think it caused him to abduct people.”
Oh shit.
“No…” I do remember Krimson mentioning Uncle Niles being subjected to these experiments at one point.
“How are you positioned right now?” he asks.
“Uhh—” I readjust my legs splayed out, toes wiggling as my bare feet are kissed by the abyss of frosty air. “I’m lying down on a mattress I think. My arms are spread wide with some kind of leather cuffs around my wrists.”
He sighs.
“And you?” I ask.
“I’m on a hard chair with similar restraints on my wrists against a cold, stone wall and ankles bound to the legs of the chair.” He pauses, and his breath is uneven. “I still have my pants on, but not my shirt.”
I look down, even though I can’t see my own body. I don’t know how I didn’t notice before. Pins and needles bite into the pebbled skin across my chest and stomach. I only feel tight fabric across my breasts and pelvis.
My head drops down to the mattress, causing a sharp creak.
“What?” Niklaus adjusts in his chair. A low groan of old wood.
I gulp and roll my eyes. “I don’t have any clothes on. Well, I have a brassiere and underwear. That’s it.”
The room gets so quiet, I can’t even hear him breathing anymore.
“Goddammit, we need to get out of here,” he growls, straining against something, possibly his own manacles.
“I’m so sorry, my friend.” A sliver of bright, blinding light bolts down from the far-right corner of my periphery. “No one is going anywhere for a while.”
My eyes water as I strain to see a door open, and a man take shape.
My Uncle Niles stands at the top of a staircase, glaring down at us in his…
Basement.
13. Sweet Cupid
“What the fuck have youdone?” Niklaus grits through his clenched teeth. He’s not speaking to the young man who essentially has no idea who we really are.
Niklaus is talking directly to his father. Betrayal stains his cheeks a soft ruby red.
The glaring sterile light spills over his pale chest. Strands of black hair hang tangled and damp across his eyes, bloodshot and half-crest with rage. Weathered, old leather manacles bite into his wrists binding him to the gritty concrete wall behind him. A light sheen of sweat glistens across the dark hair on his chest. And with that deep brow line carving into his forehead—I can taste the fury bleeding off him, as thick and palpable as the sour rot clinging to the air.
“I’m not crazy,” Uncle Niles says quickly.
What’s happening? My gut twists and churns with the slow creeping understanding that this man I’ve grown up trusting with my life and the lives of everyone I love…is now a serious threat to my existence.
“It’s just… No. No, I really can’t explain.” Uncle Niles bangs his fist on the wall as he takes careful, performative steps down the stairs. “You two are going to be my houseguests for a while.”
“What’s—wrongwith you?” I blurt out in horror. “Please, let us go. You’re a good man. I know you’re a good man.”
Hold it together, Sapphire.
I swallow that sticky lump in my throat.
Uncle Niles races down the last few steps to kneel at my side. The industrial light behind his head paints his face with gruesome shadows.
“Of course, I’m good!” He smiles and nods with unfocused eyes. “That’s why I’m doing this. It won’t seem like it for a while…”
