could be imagining him so I feel less alone. I’ve never really been right in the head since the storms. “Who are you really?” My tone turns pleading. “Please tell me.”
“I suppose you could call me your roommate.”
Slowly I turn around. “You’re locked inside with me?”
“Don’t sound so horrified. I make a great roommate. I never drink milk from the carton.”
“Why are you here?”
“It’s a long story. Maybe I’ll tell you someday. It involves diamonds. But I’m in no position to throw you on the ground and fuck you, so you can stop hyperventilating.”
“I’m not—hyper—ventilating.”
“Breathe, sweetheart. In and out. In. Out. What’s your name?”
Pinpricks light up behind my eyes before I manage to control my breathing. This isn’t a tornado ravaging our home. It isn’t a tree trunk through the kitchen window. I’m not trapped in a house with a dead person. “I’m Holland.”
“Your name is a country?”
I immediately feel defensive. “Lots of names are places. Brooklyn. Sydney. Even Paris.”
“Those are all cities, not countries.”
“You don’t know. I could be named for the city of Holland. In Michigan.”
A low laugh. That’s when I realize he was baiting me, making me forget my circumstances long enough to breathe. “Okay, Holland, Michigan.”
“You’re trapped here, like me?”
“Not like you. You still have all your ribs intact. And a functioning kidney. I’m probably not going to take up space much longer than a day or two. Then you’ll be rid of me.”
“Oh my God.” I feel along the uneven stone floor until I reach something warm and hard and alive. A shoulder. He sucks in a breath at my touch, but he doesn’t stop me. Not even when I grope along his muscled arms and over his abs. Not even when I find the slickness at his back. I press my hands to my face. Metal. I smell metal. The tang of blood. Fear rattles against my chest. “You’re bleeding. You’re hurt.”
“Don’t sound so horrified,” he says, his voice dry. Only faintly can I hear the stress beneath the strength. He’s hurting. Maybe dying. “I figured you’d like it better here without a roommate.”
“Were you shot?”
“A knife in the back. It’s all very Roman.”
My fingers find the gash by the crust that’s formed around it. “You can’t die.”
“What concern.”
“I’m serious. You can’t. You can’t die.”
“Breathe,” he reminds me. “Is there a particular reason you’d prefer me alive?”
The stench of death. The finality of it. “There was a storm once when I was a kid. My family took this big trip to Jamaica, but I didn’t want to go. I begged them to let me stay home, so I stayed with the nanny.”
“Hell.”
“There was a storm. A tornado. It came out of nowhere. Whipped through the neighborhood. Decimated a few houses. Threw a tree through the window. It did so much damage, but you know the crazy thing? She died because she stumbled and fell down. She hit her head on the quartz countertops, and it was over.”
“Holland.”
“Except it wasn’t over, because the cell phone towers were down and everything was chaos. I lived with her for two days in the house, and I can’t, I just can’t.”
“I’ll try not to die.” I press his shirt against the wound as if such a feeble movement can staunch the blood. He groans in pain. “Of course you might finish me off. My God, woman.”
“You need a doctor.” I crawl back to the bars and bang on them with my fists. “Help. Help.”
A growl comes from behind me, and this time I can recognize the direction. The echo in the chamber makes it hard to figure out where sound comes from. “If you don’t stop that, I’m going to gag you.”
“They can’t just leave you here like this.”
“I prefer it to the alternative.”
“Which is?”
“A quick death. I like it slow. It gives me time to contemplate all the things I’ve done wrong.”
“Things involving rocks?” My mind flashes to years ago in Paris, with diamonds. Now there’s these valuable rocks? Is everyone in France a thief?
“God no. Stealing those rocks was smart. Getting caught, that was the problem. Turns out Adam doesn’t like when people steal from him.”
Adam was on a plane coming back from the States. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough.”
“Help,” I call out, frantic to keep this man alive. He might be a criminal. A killer. In this moment I don’t care. I’d give him my kidney. I’d do anything to save him. It isn’t a saintly act. I don’t want him to die