7 days, 8 hours, 52 minutes remaining
“Hey, princess! Good news!”
The clanging sound that announced Diggy’s arrival was louder than usual. As was his whistling.
I wasn’t sure if I was dying or just dehydrated, but I’d started shivering early this morning, and no matter how much I burrowed into the stiff, scratchy blanket, it wasn’t doing any good.
“The whore you call Mom said she’d pay the money. Shouldn’t be too much longer.”
I peered around the blanket to see him leering at me. He couldn’t see anything beneath the blanket, but based on his expression, he saw everything.
“You sure you don’t want that shower?”
It was tempting, if for no other reason than I needed to get warm. But the mere thought of him watching me while I was naked … I let the tremors rack my body and shook my head.
“Your loss, princess.”
5 days, 3 hours, 13 minutes remaining
“Dude, she’s sick or something,” Diggy said, his phone to his ear.
I remained curled on the floor, the bread and water he’d brought me for the past two days untouched nearby.
“She ain’t eating.”
Pause.
“I’ve tried.”
Pause.
“I can go in there if you want. I’ll be happy to check her for a fever. You do that by sticking a finger up her ass, right?”
The chipper sound of his voice had me stirring, attempting to sit up. I would pretend I wasn’t tormented by fever if it would keep his nasty hands off me.
“She’s moving now. I think she’s better.”
He disconnected the call and tucked his phone in his pocket. If only I could get that phone, then maybe I could call for help. But I’d tried persuading Diggy already, so I knew he wouldn’t cave easily. And I damn sure wasn’t going to sell my body for a five-minute phone call. I would rather die here than do that.
3 days, 15 hours, 6 minutes remaining
“There’s a bunch of shit about your mom on the internet,” Diggy mused. “So much shit.”
He was sitting on the other side of the bars with a laptop in front of him.
“Did you know she was at a party last night?” He snorted. “I guess she don’t care too much about you, huh?”
I tried to mentally calculate what day it was, but time had ceased to exist. The only thing I had to go on was the countdown clock. Assuming I hadn’t been here long when he first turned it on, my best guess was that it was Tuesday, March 20th. Eleven days since my arrival. Which meant my mother hadn’t been at a party but a fundraiser, one of many she participated in. Not because she wanted to raise money for a worthy cause. No, Monica Quinn was far too narcissistic for that. She went so she could be caught on camera doing something that made her look like she cared. If I had to guess, she took some poor, unsuspecting sap back to the house and pretended she was in love with him.
She did that a lot, both taking people to her bed and claiming she was in love. It never lasted more than seventy-two hours at most, and I’d long ago stopped thinking she would fall in love. I didn’t think she was capable of it—another trait I had acquired from her. Although I told Rory Bingham that I loved him, I was lying. I’d wanted to lose my virginity to him, and those three words had gotten me what I wanted. Since then, I’d told him the same thing at least a hundred times. I even smiled when he returned the sentiment, but deep down, I felt nothing.
“You sure you don’t want that shower now?” he asked, once again leering as he closed the laptop. “I could help you out. Wash your back.”
His cackling made my head pound, but I shook my head and feigned a sweetness I no longer felt. I’d done my best not to lash out because I didn’t doubt for a second that Diggy would hurt me. He wanted to. I could see the gleam of menace in his eyes. Why he was keeping his distance, I didn’t know, but I was grateful.
0 days, 1 hour, 18 minutes remaining
“Time’s almost up, princess,” Diggy announced as he strolled in, clanging his metal pole along the bars of my cell. “Good news is I get to do whatever I want to you when that clock hits all zeroes. I’m thinking I’ll start by shoving this pole up your twat. Get rid of that pesky virginity.”
