different. I had a knife in my hand. And that was before he killed me.
That was a dream.
I need to remember that—he didn’t actually kill me.
“And if I don’t?”
He sighs and rolls his neck before standing.
I take a step back, clutching the blanket around me.
“All these questions,” he says, taking slow steps toward me. “So many questions. You really do test me, do you know that?”
I back up until I reach the edge of the bed. With nowhere to go, I glance around and try to find an exit. A place to run. But I said it myself a few moments ago—I have nowhere to go now.
Baron is up in my face, staring down at me. Since I’m trying to keep the blanket covering me, I can’t even push him away.
“Questions, questions, questions. Should I spell it all out for you? Write you a manual? No. If I were to do that, you would never learn.”
He pushes me back, hard, and I fall onto the bed but quickly recover.
Just as I sit up, his knee lands on the mattress beside me.
I don’t wait for the other one before scrambling back.
The blanket gets tangled in my limbs and panic runs through me as I realize that if I want to get away from him, I’m going to have to drop it.
Fuck it. He has already seen me. And it’s dark enough in here with the drapes.
I slide out of the blanket and can now get enough space between us. He follows on his knees until I reach the headboard, inches away from him.
“See. Now you are learning. It’s only a shame it was a moment too late.”
“I learned,” I say, my voice breathy from the panic of having him so close.
“Have you, though?” His hands snake around my ankles and he drags me down the bed toward him, just as he did the first time we met. My heart thunders in my chest. My legs are spread around him, his knees keeping me from closing them.
“Please,” I beg. “I learned.”
Even as I say it, I get the feeling it’s hopeless. It feels like this has been inevitable since we stepped inside the room. Him sitting in the chair was just a distraction, just another game to knock me off balance.
Could it be that no matter what I’d done, I would have ended up here… in a bed, naked, with him on top of me?
And he is on top of me now. His chest hovering inches above my naked breasts.
“Tell me, my sweet girl. How do you feel about me?”
What?
His question, yet again, sends my thoughts spiraling into confusion. I know exactly how I feel about him. I’m terrified of him. But I don’t know what the correct answer is.
“I… I don’t know,” I reply.
“Lies,” he says, his tone accusing. “I don’t enjoy being lied to.”
“Well, I don’t enjoy your games.”
He chuckles at that and falls on top of me when his hand reaches up to cup my cheek. “Good. Then I shall take that as my answer.”
I feel the coldness of metal against my forehead as he leans down. “You don’t enjoy them now, but perhaps one day you will. We’ll have to see, won’t we?”
I don’t foresee a time when that will happen, but I do know when to shut up.
“Sleep now, for if you don’t then I will need to think of a game to exhaust you… and you already told me how much you dislike my games.”
With that, he gets off me and returns to the chair in the corner of the room. My heart is still racing from what just happened, and I fumble around with the bedsheets trying to get under them and cover myself.
I lie awake for what feels like hours, just listening.
The wind battering against the windows. The sound of water traveling through pipes. Baron breathing, or shifting his position. It is so noisy here. In the caves there was nothing. And this bed is nothing like my bed there. It is hard and flat and not the mound of pillows I’m used to.
All I want right now is to go home, back to my silent cave with my pillows. But that place doesn’t exist anymore. I have no home now. Only uncertainty. Only threats and games. Only Baron.
I need to work out what all of this means. What is this place? What is my part in it? What does he want with me?
That is my priority now. I will try to be good.