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He moves toward me without saying a word. I can tell, somehow, that it’s a struggle for him to keep looking at me. Good, I think.

His fingers work the silk ties at my wrists with a gentleness that feels obscene given the circumstances. No gentleness now will earn him absolution, if that’s even what he’s looking for. When the fabric falls away, and I’m left staring at the twin bands of abraded skin, the evidence of my captivity marked in darkening lavender.

I may not be his victim, but he’s still my captor.

Even if he doesn’t look like it when he rolls up the ties with meticulous care. Or when he offers me a hand, like he’s about to help me out of the car instead of the chair I’d been unceremoniously dumped in and tied to. I walk past him with a scoff. I’d feel like more of a badass if my legs weren’t shaking.

I don’t look back at him when he sighs, and murmurs, “Come on.”

Yet I have no choice but to follow after him when he exits the room. What’s the alternative? I can’t keep standing in this bedroom for one more second without getting sick. He leads us down the corridor, past the rectangles of stained-glass windows not obscured by thick velvet curtains unlike the bedroom. It’s dark outside again.

Back in the main space, with its endless bookshelves and the deep emerald rug, where there once must’ve been rows of pews. Instead, there’s a dog—Div, I think, clocking his disposition more than being able to differentiate between him and Mara’s physical appearances—sprawled on the sofa I’ve been sleeping on. He lifts his head, attentive, when we enter. I don’t understand how they can react so jovially to a monster like this man. Mara pops out of somewhere, her tail happily wagging, and bumps her head into Leonid’s waiting hand. She’s excited to see him. She adores him.

My head spins, and I sink onto the couch, burying my face in my hands. I have to force myself to breathe.

When I look up, he’s pacing. There is an anxious quality to it that doesn’t at all fit with the blunt and cocky personality he’s met me with since I first opened my eyes in this place. His expression, once he finally whips around, is troubled.

Teach a bunch of impetuous high school students for long enough, and you learn how to read faces and anticipate actions. It’s how I know I’m about to get an apology.

“Don’t,” I snap, because I’m not interested.

His mouth closes again.

“You don’t get to make an excuse to justify what you’re doing to me. You may not have taken me from the street and tossed me into this situation, but don’t you dare act like there’s some bigger picture I’m not seeing. Who the hell are you to take me and trap me? To interrogate me like I’m some criminal, when it’s obviously the other way around.”

Anger slips into his features, too. I see the tips of his ears turn red. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Leonid says.

“I know that you are cruel. That those men are, too. You are not a good person. You have no right to keep me here—to do this to me.”

With a heavy exhale, he looks around, almost like he’s searching for something. When he can’t find it, he has to look back at me. My eyes condemn him.

“I know, Meera.”

My mind and body are rearing for a fight, adrenaline coursing through my body with every notch my anger spikes. His acceptance throws me off. Resignation is the last thing I expected to receive in response.

I deflate. “That’s it?”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I want you to explain to me,” I say, “what possible moral framework you’re operating within that makes any of this acceptable in your eyes. I want you to explain—”

“Well, if only wanting things was all it took to get them,” he sneers, his eyes narrowing to slits.

An animal sound of outrage escapes me, and I’m not necessarily proud of the fact that I channel my rage into grabbing the cushion beside me and hurling it, full-force, right at his head. The man who likely has a gun tucked away somewhere. Genius, aren’t I?

Leonid blinks at me. “Really?”

I refuse to back down, despite the embarrassment that prickles my skin. “You almost made me think you have some capacity for shame when you defended me in there,” I scoff, gesturing at him with disdain, “but you’re a man who stands by while his brother puts his hand on a woman. Who let him attack me, before he did that.”

He grimaces. “He had to go there. You’re—”

“I’m a teacher!” I shriek. “That’s what I fucking am. I teach seventeen-year-olds about biological processes in plants and insects and people. All I was doing was walking home from my mother’s house. I’m a good person, who’s done nothing to deserve this. And I have to justify myself to you?”

Where he clenches his jaw, I can see the tic in the muscle. To see his own frustration made manifest brings me no comfort. Nothing but my freedom could do that. Least of all the way he snarls, “Do you think I don’t know none of this is fair? That, either you’re a great actress, or a tragic victim? Do you think the possibility has somehow escaped me?”

I force away the lump in my throat. “All I know is that my mother will know I’m gone,” I say, pivoting. “She’ll have called me a dozen times by now. My little brother texts me constantly. I have a best friend who’ll show up at my place to check up on me. My students will wonder where I am. I’m—” Loved. Lucky. I clear my throat. “People will notice I’m gone. You won’t just get away with this.”

“You’ve already been gone for over forty-eight hours,” he points out. “No Missing Persons report has been filed. That doesn’t strike you as odd?”