Page 7 of Beautifully Ruined

In my dark fantasies, I lay out the pretend I want. I have control and power in my safe word.

And more importantly, it’s not real. I want what is happening to me. It’s consensual.

The sex is, the intimacy and…when I think back to a few hours ago, a day ago, a million years in my other life, I see the difference.

Being with Cade as Cade or Cade as The Ghost is hot, dark, dirty.

It doesn’t matter if he’s chasing me, holding me down, locking me up, using me…it’s part of a controlled fantasy that feels wild, but I have the key, the power, the ability to stop it any time I want.

My fantasies and her reality are worlds apart.

And I ache for this girl and what her future might hold.

As for my own?

I can’t even go there.

They’re holding me. And Cade…He’s either on his way, or they have him, too. For something I don’t understand. But if he’s a world-class hacker, it’s going to have something to do with that.

As for what they might want with me…I can’t even go there.

I shift position on the cool concrete floor.

She’s been quiet for a long time after my stupid attempt at a joke to see if she’s getting food and water regularly.

But what can I do if she’s not? Nothing. The hole isn’t big enough for anything but talk. A connection in the cool underworld we’re in.

“Do you at least have an ensuite?” I ask.

She makes a sound like a sob, and my heart squeezes tight. “I don’t get hungry now. Sometimes, they make me eat.”

I lean my head against the wall, taking a sip from my bottle, thinking about the horrible, dry sandwich I’ve got tucked under my blanket.

I took a bite a little while ago, just to keep up strength.

I ate a lot of pizza with Cade, but time seems to move strangely in here, and I have no idea how long I’ve been here.

Not overnight, though. My eyes aren’t burning through lack of sleep, just with the tears I refuse to let fall.

“You should eat…” I stop. I don’t ask her name again, because when I asked her to repeat it a while ago, she ranted nonsensical things about secrets and how they wouldn’t reward her if she told.

And then she went so quiet I thought she’d passed out.

Or worse.

Because in her deluded ramblings, she sounds delicate, weak. Broken.

She often breathes hard, and her voice gets muffled, like she’s moving, and movement makes her tired.

Then after what seemed like a year, she whispered, “If I tell you again, they’ll kill me. Shhhh…I’m a secret.”

So, I keep the conversation light, even as I try to keep finding out things about her.

“Did they give you a cheese sandwich?”

“Yes, cheese today. Sometimes, just cheese, sometimes bread. Once, I got soup. And I spilled it.” Jean pauses. “I don’t like soup anymore. It still hurts…but bones heal.”

Fuck…they…did they beat her for spilling soup?