Page 31 of Captive

The look Royal gives her is halfway between jealous and incredulous. I, on the other hand, am firmly on the incredulous side. The balls on this one… they really are incredible.

I pinch the bridge of my nose to try to calm the impending migraine that threatens to take over. This is something we don’t need. With my other hand, I gesture for the three of them to leave my office as I say, “Just go.”

They go. Though my eyes are shut, I hear the door open and close, and I assume I’m alone until I hear Abby’s voice. Turns out, she’s the only one who didn’t hightail it out of here with their metaphorical tail tucked under their ass.

“Don’t be too upset with Royal,” she says, and I am sluggish in leaning back and opening my eyes. She stands before my desk, having moved closer to me. “If anyone’s going to take the brunt of… whatever consequences there are, it should be me. You guys are the team. I’m just a complication, as you like to say.”

I do blame her, but the mere fact she’s willing to take the fall is commendable. I don’t know if it’s commendable enough to get her off the hook for actually doing it, but it’s something I can respect.

She turns somewhat and leans her backside on the edge of my desk as she stares off into space. “It’s a miracle I lasted this long, anyway. When I first started out, when I first made plans to copy D.D.K., I didn’t think it’d actually work. I thought for sure I’d get caught after the first one, then came number two and I swore up and down my luck had run out.”

Abby sighs, and I can’t tell if she’s being wistful or not. “But no one ever came a-knocking, so I kept going. My point is, if this is as far as I make it, then that’s okay. Not everybody lives to a ripe old age, and I’m fine with that.”

Such a blithe way of thinking, it’s not what I’m expecting, so I sit there and stare at her for a few seconds before I say, “I doubt that’ll be necessary, but I’ll keep that in mind. I was only saying that because…”

Because that’s the rule. Because I follow the rules. Following the rules got me to where I am today. If it wasn’t for the Benefactor, I highly doubt I’d be here today, in a more general sense. Much like Abby, I assumed I would spend the rest of my life in prison, or at least a long twenty-odd years.

I might not leave this house now, but I have in the past. These hands of mine are not clean. I have done my part in cleaning up the filth that walks the streets. Too late to make a difference in the life he took, but nevertheless I stopped him from continuing the cycle with another woman, another family.

Abby turns to face me, no longer leaning her backside against my desk. “I get it.” Her voice is softer then, uncharacteristically so. “I really don’t want to mess up what you guys have going. I don’t. You might not believe me, but I really don’t. I’m…” She wrinkles her nose. “I’ve been keeping to myself for so long, I don’t know, it’s just nice to have other people around, people I don’t have to worry about keeping secrets from.”

I don’t know why, but suddenly I feel antsy. I stand and move around my desk, to the bookcase on the opposite side of the room. It’s not an overly large room, but the action does succeed in putting more space between us.

“I can understand that,” I say, staring hard at the spines of the books. Mostly nonfiction, though I do have a sprinkle of fiction here and there.

“What I don’t get, though, is that you guys don’t kill women, but you’d be okay with someone killing Royal or Ezra because they didn’t follow the rules. Explain that to me like I’m five.” Her soft tone is gone, replaced by her usual firm bluntness.

What could I say? That this whole thing isn’t perfect? That we are just humans, trying our best to navigate a system that was never designed for us to begin with? That even the Benefactor himself—or herself—isn’t perfect, either? Everything I could say, it’d fall flat.

I’ve come to care for Royal and Ezra. They’ve become my brothers. We are a family that was born in blood, from blood, and with each D.D.K. victim, we add to it. If something happened and I was forced to say goodbye to one of them, it wouldn’t be the same.

I hear her approach me from behind, but I don’t turn to look at her. I can’t. I fear what I’d see in those gray eyes of hers. My silence is my answer.

“Listen, the rule makes sense when you’re talking about people outside of this house, but inside of it? I don’t think it matters at all. There are no secrets here, and it seems like you—or the Benefactor—has teams who do everything else. As long as that doesn’t change, I don’t think having some fun every now and then can mess anything up.”

Then she says something that startles me, something that informs me she is too perceptive for her own good: “Are you afraid that the Benefactor will want Royal’s head, or are you afraid that things’ll change even more than they already have?”

Something forces me to turn around, an invisible hand guiding my actions, and I meet those crisp, clear gray eyes of hers. “Our routine,” I’m measured in saying, “has been undisturbed for years. You being where you were that night would be enough to throw anyone off their game, but… to get involved—I don’t know what that looks like or how it works.”

“And that’s okay,” she tells me with a shrug. “You don’t always need the answers to every question.”

“It’s what I’m here for.”

Abby shrugs again. “And they’ll always need you. If you’re worried about me taking your place, it could never happen. You guys have a cool thing going here, and I don’t want to get in the way of that.”

She takes a step forward and lets her gaze fall as she sizes me up. “Still,” she says, “I think it’d be nice for everyone around here to get some stress relief that doesn’t involve killing, don’t you?”

Listening to her, it’s almost enough to convince me she’s not wrong, enough to make me say she’s one hundred and ten percent correct. But instead of saying anything of the sort, I say the lamest thing possible: “That’s what TV is for.”

She cracks a wide grin and laughs. “The kind of stress I’m talking about, no TV show could help fix, no matter how good that show is.” When I don’t say a word to that, she adds, “Just, please, don’t go running to your Benefactor about this. They don’t need to know everything, do they?”

“Well—”

Again, she steps forward, and suddenly she’s right there, inches away from me, close enough to touch me—and she does. She lifts a hand and runs it along the center of my shirt, circling the buttons on the way down. “It’s not so bad, you know, having some fun every now and then. I mean, we might not be the best law-abiding citizens, but we’re still human. It’s still nice to have some connection.”

She smiles softly, dropping her hand to her side. “It’s funny, I feel more at home here than I’ve felt anywhere else since—” She abruptly stops herself from saying anything more, shaking it off both literally and figuratively. “I’ll leave you be, Hawthorne, but if you’re ever up for some company, you know where to find me.” As if to remind me she cannot leave this house, she lifts her hand and shows off the bracelet with the tracker.

I watch as she saunters away, holding my breath until she’s out of sight.