“No, I gave myself a contingency plan because I needed to know that this was my choice. That I had options, but that I was picking this.”
“You threatened to leave me.”
“No,” I hiss, spinning around to face him. “I warned you in the only way I thought you’d understand that I wasn’t your victim anymore. When January and Clay got married, I told you and your merry band of psychos that I wouldn’t allow you all to do to anyone else what you did to me. But even after I warned you not to, you all did it again. Hunter blackmailed, coerced, manipulated, and threatened Bunny into marrying him. He lied to her over and over again. He tried to ruin her family and used her aging grandparents as pawns. And you helped him. You all helped him. Didn’t you learn the kind of damage that can do to a person? Fucking look at me, Sebastian. I’m living proof of the damage that shit does to a person, and you stood by and let him do it. No, you didn’t just stand by, you helped. You tried to ruin her, the way you ruined me and I warned you, Sebastian. I warned you.” Hot tears spill from my eyes, but when he reaches for me, I bat him away.
“Little Bird?—”
“Stop calling me that,” I say, interrupting him. “You broke me so you could put me in a cage, but the cage is suffocating me, Sebastian. I opened the door and destroyed the lock, and now you’re trying to break me into tinier pieces so you can make me your prisoner again. But I’m not that person anymore, and if you break me again, there’ll be nothing left of me for you to try to put back together.”
His nostrils flare and his eyes widen in reaction to my words, but he doesn’t speak as I side-step him and head for the bedroom, opening the closet door and stepping inside. Our closet is a girly-girl’s dream, but for someone who spends most of their life in jean shorts and athletic gear, it feels like overkill. Sebastian’s side is full of custom-tailored suits, button-downs, and designer clothes. My side is pathetically empty. We have a personal shopper who comes every few months, but even withthe clothes he insists that I buy, I still don’t have enough things to fill even a quarter of the rail. Heading for the dresser, I pull out baggy sweats and a sports bra. Not bothering with panties, I dress quickly, then rip the towel from my hair and roughly drag a brush through the strands before I pad barefoot out of the room and head downstairs.
Grabbing my backpack from where I dropped it, I pull out my laptop and open the Kingsacre student portal. Fresh tears burn the backs of my eyes when, instead of the usual options, the screen has an online student header and links to prerecorded lectures and resources I’ll need to take my classes from my laptop without leaving the house.
Sighing, I find my earphones in my backpack and push them into my ears, opening the first lecture link. Pressing play, I reduce the size of the video screen so I can open my notes app and start typing.
I barely move for the rest of the day, listening to all the available video lectures and even starting the first couple of assignments that aren’t due for a few weeks. While I work, Sebastian watches me, sitting in the chair opposite me, his cell resting on the arm, his attention focused on me.
“Where is your cell?” he asks when I pluck the earbud from my ear and close the lid of my laptop.
Shrugging, I put the earbud back in the case before looking at him. “I dropped it on the beach this morning.”
“Bunny and January have been messaging you.”
“You should inform them I’m a prisoner now, and that they’ll have to ask the warden if he’ll grant me a phone pass,” I snark.
Rolling his eyes, he taps exaggeratedly at the screen of his cell. “I’ll track it, then you can reply to them.”
“I’m not explaining your bullshit to them. You tell them why I’m not at school. Own your shit, Sebastian, admit what you did.”
“We’re having dinner at Evan and Sammy’s tonight,” he says, ignoring my tirade.
“You can if you want. I’m not.”
“What?” he questions. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to. I’m embracing my prisoner status. I’m staying here.”
“Little Bird,” he says warningly.
“I’m not doing this, Sebastian. This is what you wanted. You wanted me locked in a cage, and this is the cage you’ve created for me. So, this is where I’ll stay. I’ll run on the treadmill in the gym, I’ll finish my degree online, and I’ll stay right here with the doors locked so you never have to worry about your little bird flying away.”
Pushing out of my seat, I start to put my laptop and earphones back into my backpack, then stop and leave them on the couch, putting my backpack in the mudroom before I head upstairs, change into gym shorts, and head to our home gym.
I run until my legs feel like jelly, and I have to hit the emergency stop button on the treadmill and cling to the sides so I don’t fall. Our gym is in the basement, a windowless room that has every piece of gym equipment known to man, far more than either of us will ever use.
Once I’m confident I can stand unaided, I step off the treadmill and grab a bottle of water from the small refrigerator, opening the lid and drinking thirstily. By the time half the bottle is gone, my legs are starting to cramp, and I sink down onto a mat and start to stretch my overused muscles.
Surprisingly, Sebastian hasn’t followed me down here, probably because unless I pull aShawshank Redemptionand dig a tunnel through the walls, there’s no way of me escaping a windowless room. Along with the gym, there’s a media room down here, similar to the one at Hunter’s parents’ house, that Sebastian forced me to visit when we first met.
Unwilling to go back upstairs to deal with my husband, I open the thick insulated door to the media room and walk down to the front, collapsing onto one of the huge sofas that are set up in rows. Grabbing the remote control, I turn on the massive screen and click into the menu, selecting an old romantic comedy that I watched almost every night when I first moved in with my dad and I was terrified that Sebastian would break in and steal me out of my bed while I slept.
Pressing play, I pull my legs up onto the couch, shoving a cushion beneath my head as the familiar opening sequence starts.
“Little Bird.” Sebastian’s soft voice lures me awake, my eyes blinking open slowly to find him sitting beside me, his fingers stroking my jaw.
“What time is it?” I ask groggily.
“Eight thirty p.m. You need to eat; you didn’t have lunch.”
