I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m safe.
“You coming?” Keaton’s voice filters through my spiraling, snapping me back to him.
Jerking my chin in his direction, I lick my chapped lips. “Keats…” I swallow my words, the sound embarrassing,vulnerable. Squeezing my eyes closed again, I push through. “Am I going to be safe here?”
Silence engulfs us…Dead fucking silence.
Keaton’s brow furrows. The sharp lines of his high cheekbones could cut through the thickest of steel. He tilts his head, his eyes skating over the top of me as he checks one side of the garage to the other, then his stormy blues latch onto my matching ones.
He white knuckles my duffle bag. “Did something else happen tonight, Blaine?”
Not just tonight.
Every laceration burns, sizzles with torture and the grizzly abuse of my captivity.
He has no idea that he nearly lost me, that I only just have air in my lungs, that his sister was so close to death, and he had no fucking control over it.
It would kill him if he knew.
It’s why he never will.
“Now keep your eyes open, Blainey.”The words he said to me back at my apartment before I was kidnapped echo through my mind like a circling Ferris wheel.
I swallow, then lift my hollow eyes to his, moving toward him. “You were the one who told me to keep my eyes open. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
My feet shuffle past and away from him, only he latches onto my elbow, pulling me to a pause. Spinning around, I meet his hard eyes again.
“I would never put you in danger, you know that, right?”
My breath stutters at my lips.
“My man!” A deep voice comes from in front of me, though I keep my eyes locked on my brother’s. He knows something’s wrong, or I’m just fucking paranoid. He can’t,there’s no way.
Keaton squints as he assesses me, tilting his head to the side.
“Right?” he asks again.
I nod.
Because I do.
I know Keaton would be the last person to hurt me.
He would take himself out long before he did that.
My toes curl when the frigid water touches the soles of my feet. I’m standing at the edge of the large open-panel shower in the spare room of Keaton’s friend,Caleb’s, apartment in the city. A chill twirls around my spine, and I wrap my arms around my waist, allowing my eyes to trek across the space. It’s modern, all black trimmings snake their way around each panel of clear glass, the white subway tiles with gray grout are a strong statement, and a large timber panel sits behind a circle mirror, extending to a matching vanity.
Vanilla and caramel fill the space, along with an abundance of greenery. It looks like a jungle. A thriving monstera deliciosa sits to my right and a cascading pothos hangs from a chrome black pot in the corner of the room, draping over the large mirror. It’s gorgeous, for a bachelor pad.
When we arrived, I kept my head down while Keaton showed me around before leaving me to freshen up. He is still here. I heard Caleb mention something about ordering pizzas, and at the thought, my stomach rumbles.
I’m fucking starving.The last thing I attempted to eat was the disgusting plastic cheese sandwich at Shadow HeadsHospital. I took one bite and spat it out. I haven’t eaten a proper meal in well over a week. I’m surviving on, well…nothing.
I close my eyes, reaching out to check the temperature of the water sprinkling from the rain shower head above. It’s warm, welcoming, yet it still has the power to make me shiver. Squeezing my eyes closed, I find the strength to guide myself beneath the light stream, and when the water envelops me, I repeat over and over and over…I am safe, it can’t hurt me, I am safe.
I suck on the inside of my cheeks and whimper, my eyes still firmly shut when every laceration burns to new extremes. It’s like death all over again. The torture I was forced to endure at the hands of the triangle has me trembling violently as I feel each wound opening.
It’s fucking horrific.
