CHAPTER 3
The late afternoon sunlight filters through blinds like dirty prison bars, casting tiger stripes across knotty pine walls that have seen too many men's secrets. I blink against the glare, my head pounding with the kind of ache that feels like someone reached inside and rearranged everything.
The first thing I notice is that the discomfort and fullness of the catheter is gone.
He took it out.
This thought makes me want to throw up.
The invasion.
The violation.
My wrists burn. The zip ties have carved red valleys into my skin while I was sleeping, raw and angry from hours of desperate twisting.
I try to swallow but can't. My tongue feels like sandpaper glued to the roof of my mouth. Whatever drugs Marcus has been forcing into me have left me desert-dry, like all the water's been sucked from my body.
The cup with the bendy straw sits on the nightstand—it's empty. So I must've drank—he must've helped me drink—but I don't remember him returning.
He's been here while I slept. Watching.
The thought makes my skin crawl beneath the restraints. I force myself to push the image of Marcus 'cleaning' me out of my mind.
That's a trauma for another time.
If I get out of here alive, that is.
He's not going to kill me, right?
Surely, he will let me go.
Won't he?
I'm not sure. This isn't the man I knew. That I dated. He's a stranger to me now.
Which is why I can't rely on him being rational. I mean, does a rational man kidnap the Little Ashby Princess?
No. Crazy people do that.
I need to get out of here. I test each binding methodically, starting with my ankles. No give. Left wrist—still tight. Right wrist?—
There.
A give. The tiniest weakness in the seal where the ridges lock together.
I freeze, not wanting to damage it further until I have a plan.
The cabin settles around me with familiar creaks as my gaze travels up to the photographs Marcus has arranged like some sick shrine.
They are all watching me now. All these versions of me, trapped behind glass just like I am.
Don't think about that.Focus.
I turn my attention back to the tear in the zip tie. It's small, but it's something.
Something is better than nothing when nothing is all you have left.
The door opens with such deliberate slowness that I can count the seconds between the first creak and the full swing.
