staircase lined with red carpet leading upstairs.
A man I can’t see greets Baron, who quickly orders him to get the others. “I want everyone who lives here standing in front of me within the next five minutes.”
The man rushes away, and I expect Baron to set me down, but he doesn’t. He merely paces the long room back and forth with me wrapped like a bundle in his arms.
Eventually, people join us.
They stand in a long line in front of the stairs. All men, and all wearing black. A final man joins us—I recognize him as the man who came to the carnival with Baron the other night—and he has a woman on his arm.
She is older, but not at all frail looking. Perhaps in her late seventies. One arm is threaded through the accompanying man’s arm and the other rests on a cane for more balance. She joins the others but stands slightly in front of them.
“Some new house rules,” Baron says, still pacing the room in front of them. “The girl in my arms? She is mine. You do not look at her. You do not speak to her. Hell, you do not even breathe the same air as her unless I explicitly allow it.”
His steps grow quicker as he walks, and there is a murmur from the assembled people. “All of you need to lower your eyes. Right now.”
“Not you, silly woman,” he continues.
I glance up to see he’s talking to the older woman.
“Oh sorry, I thought she was Medusa herself the way you’re ranting and raving,” the woman replies sarcastically.
I cringe at the gall of her. Every interaction I’ve seen with Baron has been tense. People lower their eyes. They follow orders. They never speak back.
Except this woman.
She must be a relative. His mother or grandmother perhaps?
Baron stops pacing and stares at her. “That’s quite enough from you. Back to bed.”
She huffs as the man leads her away.
“Everyone else, do I make myself clear?”
There are nods and mutterings of agreement before Baron orders them back to work.
We take the main stairs, turn left, and then take another set before turning right. “Pay close attention,” he says. “My home is not the easiest to navigate.”
I look around him and try to seek out any distinguishable features, but it’s too dark to really see anything. I guess I will have time to learn it. Well, the fact he’s told me to pay attention and the big speech downstairs must mean he doesn’t intend to kill me tonight. At least that’s what I’m telling myself to stop from panicking.
We reach a room at the far end of a dimly lit corridor and Baron turns around to open the door with his elbow. Inside it is pitch dark, and I hear the click of the lights a few times as he tries to turn them on.
He sets me down and steps around me, moving farther into the shadows of the room. “I’ll have them fixed tomorrow,” he says, sparking a lighter and drawing it to the candles.
The room grows lighter, but everything still looks dark.
I take a step in, caught somewhere between wanting to run for my life and wanting to see if my eyes are deceiving me.
Everything looks black.
Black walls. Black floor. A huge four-poster bed complete with drapes that looms black against the dark shadows. It looks made for someone like him.
“This is your room?”
He laughs and turns his back, lighting a few more candles that are attached to the walls. “No. This is your room.”
I exhale a breath of relief. It appears it doesn’t go unnoticed by him, because he spins around to face me. “I’ll visit frequently though, don’t you worry.”
“Thanks,” I say dryly.
Baron takes a seat in the corner of the room and nods his head toward the bed. “Sleep. It is almost dawn. You’ll find we keep strange hours here.”
“You’re not leaving?”
“Does it look like I’m leaving?” He brings his leg up and rests it over the opposite knee, leaning back in his chair.
“You’re going to watch me sleep? I’m not going to run. I have nowhere else to go.”
He lets out an amused sigh. “The place I fear you’ll run to, it isn’t the physical sort, my sweet girl. You’re on suicide watch.”
“You expect me to sleep with you watching me?”
“I expect you to do as you’re told.”
I stare at him from across the room, wondering how far I can push it. The other night I tried to disobey him, but that was