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She’s sitting on the couch with Meatball in her lap, her hair braided again, just like in the nightmare. For a terrifyingmoment, I imagine a streak of red across her face. I blink, and it’s gone.

“Did you scream my name this morning?” she says.

I flinch. Was I that loud?

“Uh – yeah,” I grunt.

“Why?”

“Bad dream. No big deal.”

“You had a bad dream about me?”

“It started as a good dream, then turned into a nightmare.”

“What was it about?” She sighs when I don’t answer. “You don’t want to talk about it?”

I can’t talk about it, never have.

“I need to head to work. I came to check you were okay.”

“That depends on your definition of ‘okay’.” She looks annoyed when Meatball hops down and walks over to me, rubbing against my leg. I kneel and stroke the little fella. “He doesn’t normally like strangers. Or anybody, really, except for me and Tash.”

He purrs as I tickle behind his neck. “He seems friendly enough.”

“Not usually,” she mutters. “How long will you be gone for? We need some fresh air, and Meatball’s litter tray will need to be changed today.”

I stand, tilting my head. She stands, and tilts her head like a mirror image, a sassy display that would make the coldest of men smile.

“Why are you looking at me like that, Warden?”

“I don’t like that nickname.”

“Newsflash – that’s why I’m using it.”

I laugh gruffly. “I’ll be gone for eight or nine hours. If I were able to call the cops, you wouldn’t have to stay here. They could keep you safe instead of me.”

She folds her arms, seems conscious of the fact that this draws my gaze inexorably to her breasts. Her cheeks flush at the realization.

“You’re probably just using that as an excuse to keep me here. Because, if you were imprisoning me just because you want to, that’d make you a bad guy. You don’t want to see yourself as a bad guy.”

When I flinch, she says, “I just hit the nail on the head, didn’t I?”

“Do you think I want to keep you here?” I growl. “Do you think I want to be the goddamn bad guy? Do you think I want to look in the mirror and see a man taking advantage of a woman half his age–his prisoner? Well?”

She bites her lip, emotion entering her honeyed eyes. Then she visibly beats it back. “You don’t owe me anything. You could let me go.”

“And let you die? Never.”

“So you’re the hero,” she says sarcastically.

“I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

“Like messing with my…” She grits her teeth. “Nevermind.”

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out she was going to finish that sentence with ‘head’. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I’m playing with her. But if that’s true, I’m playing myself too.

I say, “When I come home?—”