Page 5

Beth closed her eyes as the man finally released her chin, and she tucked it against her chest, trying to wipe away his touch — as useless as the effort was. She knew he was still standing beside the bed, in a tailored suit that probably cost more than the rent for her shitty apartment in Santa Rosa. She could tell from the elegantly sterile room, and from the man standing over her, that he had enough money to do whatever he had planned.

Another sob threatened to choke her airway, but his eyes glinted whenever she cried. He clearly enjoyed it, and that meant she needed to stop.

Her head was just too damn fuzzy, her mouth too dry, and it was making it hard to think.

The ropes around her wrists and ankles, combined with whatever was around her neck, only made it worse. She wished this could be a nightmare, that when she opened her eyes she’d be home. Safe and sound. Laughing about her ridiculous nightmare as she took the stopper out of a bottle of wine and poured until she forgot his cold blue eyes.

But it wasn’t a nightmare.

She knew that.

Which was why opening her eyes and finding him there wasn’t a surprise, but it did make something ache deep inside. He stared at her like a bug under glass, held down with pins instead of ropes. There was something off about him, more than just the fact that he’d taken her.

He didn’t feel real.

Although his touch definitely had. It made her skin crawl, made her want to pull away even though the restraints made that impossible.

What do you want from me?

Everything.

The word echoed inside her like a funeral dirge. He’d implied that he wouldn’t kill her, because it wasn’t fun, but when he was done with her she wondered if she wouldn’t wish for death.

“You can let me go.” She found enough of a voice to speak the words softly, as if she were speaking to a wild animal, but the way he looked at her answered her plea before he’d even spoken.

“That would be a waste of effort,” he said. Almost robotic. That strange, cold tone remaining in his voice even as he stood and walked away from her towards a doorway that she guessed to be a bathroom. The sound of running water confirmed it, and she desperately pulled at the ropes again, even though her skin tingled and burned as she struggled.

He returned to her with a glass and the sandpaper scratch of her throat urged her to lift her head so he could press it against her lips. “Drink,” he commanded.

All of her panicked breathing had dried her mouth. The first wash of clean water on her tongue almost made her choke, but she managed to swallow. Again, and again, feeling the cool rush hitting her empty stomach, waking up the hunger she’d ignored in her terror.

Dinner.

She had missed dinner because she had never made it home after work — but when had he taken her? Turning her head away from the glass she swallowed and tried to focus on her blurry memories. The evening hadn’t felt any different from a normal one. She had walked towards her car, parked in the public lot like it always was, and then… nothing.

Nothing except waking up in this godforsaken bed, with the devil sitting at the foot.

Only now the devil was holding a half-full glass of water, staring down at her like some science experiment.

“Who are you?” she asked, speaking easier now that her mouth wasn’t a desert.

“Your current Master. You should try out the word, get used to it.”

“No.” Beth felt her nails pricking her palms as she balled them into fists again, but her answer only seemed to entertain him.

He placed the water glass on the bedside table before he walked to a long poster on the wall across from the bed. Resting a hand near the second line, he pointed at it: You will address me as Master. Everyone else as Sir or Ma’am.

As hard as it was to focus, she tried to read the long list, but the first one drew her attention and kept it. It was as sterile as he seemed to be, and just as terrifying.

You are not your own. You are property.

“I’m not property,” she said.

“You are, you just haven’t accepted it yet, but I will help you understand.” That odd curve of his lips happened again, something she might call a smile on anyone else — but not on him. When he did it, it wasn’t a smile, it was something more sinister. Like an animal baring teeth before it tore your throat out.

“I don’t want to understand. I want to go home!” Beth tried to make her voice strong, to make it as decisive and calm and collected as his, but there was still a tremor when she said the word home. A flash of her mom, her dad, her sister and brother and their families. Her two-year-old nephew. It weakened her, made her shudder, and so she tried to push them away as his fingers drummed against the poster.

There were weapons, tools, on the walls on either side of the list, and she knew without asking that they were meant for her.