“Yes, Cove,” he said, voice quieting. “I do.”
I stared at him with wide eyes, wishing I hadn’t said anything. Not because it wasn’t a fair thing to throw at him, considering he had apparently decided I was enough of a flight risk to lock in here, but because the intensity in his eyes had shifted from guilty and exhausted to something much worse.
“You would become nauseated first,” he explained coldly. “Possibly begin vomiting. You might feel well enough afterward to believe no serious damage had been done, which is part of why overdoses of paracetamol are so dangerous. By the time the true symptoms appear, liver injury may already be severe. Without treatment, it can become fatal over a period of days.”
My fingers tightened around the bottle.
“I know what happens,” he continued, and the roughness had returned to his voice now, not loud, not angry, but threaded through with something that made my stomach pull tight. “I know exactly what would happen, and if you think I would leave you with anything that could become a means of harming yourself, then you have greatly misunderstood me.”
I looked down at the bottle in my hand, at the clean white label and cap, and suddenly it didn’t feel like a clever jab anymore. It felt stupid. Mean, maybe, which I didn’t want to care about, because he had no right to stand there looking stricken over a hypothetical when I was the victim here.
Still.
“I wouldn’t,” I said, quieter than before.
Tobias waited silently for me to continue, his eyes dark and intense to the point where I wanted to squirm.
“I wasn’t going to,” I clarified, hating the way my voice softened even when I didn’t want it to. “I just said it because I’m frustrated.”
“Do not say things like that to me unless you mean them.”
I gave a humorless little laugh. “Sorry. I’ll try to be more considerate of your feelings while being held captive.”
He ignored my quip and said calmly, “I’ll be back in a moment.”
He left before I could decide whether I wanted to say anything else, the door closing behind him with a sense of finality that made me nauseous every time. I sat there with the pain reliever bottle still in my hand, the water balanced against my thigh, and the tray of untouched snacks on the floor beside the cot like some bizarre offering to an animal that refused to eat.
By the time Tobias returned, I had put the bottle down beside me and pulled one of the blankets over my lap, less because I wanted comfort and more because I was cold and angry enough to resent my own body for needing anything.
There was a second pillow tucked beneath one arm, an ice pack wrapped in a soft cloth in his hand, and a folded bundle of clothing balanced on top of the pillow. Behind him, Ben appeared briefly at the doorway with a small portable heater, alarger bottle of water, and what looked like an actual camping toilet with a privacy screen folded under his other arm.
He at least had the decency to look uncomfortable. “Bathroom plan.”
“Fuck you,” I muttered, pressing a hand over my eyes.
“It’s not your primary option,” Tobias spoke up, placing the pillow under my hurt ankle and the ice over it. “When you need to use the toilet, just call for us, and we’ll help you to the bathroom in your office since it’s the closest. Even overnight, one of us will always be watching through the camera, so there shouldn’t be any issues, but in the case that we’re not able to get to you in time,” he jerked his head in the direction of the camping toilet, which Ben had begun setting up in the farthest corner from the cot, “there’s that.”
“Great. Thanks for saving me from pissing myself,” I glowered.
Ben cringed from my remark. Meanwhile, Tobias had turned on the small portable heater, sending a gradual wave of warmth through the room that I begrudgingly appreciated.
The clothing turned out to be sweatpants, a loose cashmere shirt, a pair of clean white underwear, thick socks, and a hoodie several sizes too big.
“Are the silk pajamas too bougie for a captive?” I asked grumpily.
Tobias answered, “I thought they wouldn’t be warm enough for this room. But if you want them, I’ll go grab them for you.”
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Cruel would have been easier to understand. Cruel would have let me hate him without complication, without the sick, exhausted confusion of watching him try to make captivity comfortable. Cruel would not have brought my favorite iced coffee, or worried about my ankle, or remembered that I got cold easily. Cruel would not have spared a single thought aboutwhether the expensive pajamas he owned that suspiciously happened to be my size would be warm enough.
Tobias was not being cruel, and it was fucking confounding.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
The question came out before I could stop it, quieter than I wanted but too heavy to take back.
Tobias lifted his gaze to mine. “I told you,” he said. “You need care.”
