Page 33 of Runaway Queen

She sniffed and seemed to gather herself. She straightened.

“Are you ready to play?”

She shook her head, her eyes beseeching me. She wanted the gag off. She wanted to poison my mind with her lies again. I couldn’t let that happen. Not yet. The screaming inside me was too loud to hear her gentle words over anyway.

Blood demanded blood, and Sofia had let me mourn her for seven years.

Now it was her turn to cry.

“Good girl. Now, it’s my turn first, remember? Don’t worry, it’s a fun one. I dare you to live.”

Her eyes widened, locked on me, earnest in a way that tugged at my ragged mind. I pulled the chloroform-soaked rag I’d brought with me from my pocket and clamped it over her mouth. She sagged into my arms a minute later. I smoothed her hair back, allowing myself one second of weakness before we started the game.

I let myself feel relief, there, alone in the dark with her unknowing body, before I mastered my wild emotions and hefted her over my shoulder.

The game was waiting, and there was a box in the woods with her name on it.

13

SOFIA

Irose slowly from a thick swamp of dizzying lethargy. It felt like when I used to dose myself with tablets to get some sleep in Casa Nera. I hadn’t used them in years. Being the only adult alone at home nowadays, with Leo to look after, I couldn’t afford to take anything, and sleep too deeply.

Now, I dragged myself to consciousness. It was painful. I wanted to close my eyes and sink back into comforting sleep, but something prickled at me, screaming at the edges of my mind for me to wake up.

I opened my eyes. The light was dim, and the air felt close. It didn’t seem like my room, or smell like it either. There was a damp, earthy smell that I associated with the woods, and a harsh, fresh pine scent that rubbed along my senses harshly.

I sat up and smacked my head off a low ceiling. Falling back, I felt the same hard wood beneath my head as I’d just slammed my forehead against. I also realized at the same time that my hands were tied together in front of me.

Panic erupted in my chest, and my lungs cramped down on my breathing, making me hyperventilate. Last night came rushing to me. Waking up bound and gagged. Nikolai looming over me in the dark, as real and terrifying as ever.

No, not really, not even close. He was much, much worse. All the softness, as little as there had been to him, had melted away, and cold, calculating menace, with a side of insanity, had taken its place.

I forced a deep breath. I had to keep calm. I could freak out about being in the crosshairs of a psychopath later. First, I had to get the hell out of wherever he’d put me.

I wriggled my hands, grateful to feel give in the rope. A moment or two of twisting this way and that freed them.

Maybe he wasn’t as unhinged as he’d seemed. He didn’t even bind my wrists that tightly.

I ran my hands up over the ceiling that I had hit my head on, moving to the side to see how far it went. My feet hit the bottom at the same time as my hands met the close sides.

I was encased completely in a wooden box.

A coffin.

Panic descended again, blinding me. It was dark, the air thick, and I was inside a coffin. A coffin! Of course I was. I was crazy for thinking that Nikolai wasn’t cruel and insane. He really was worse than ever. I’d let him think I was dead, and he’d put me in a coffin. He might even have buried me, for all I knew. My panic made my breath short and my pulse pound. I felt dizzy. My fingers scrabbled against the wood, despite knowing that it wouldn’t make a difference. I felt like a trapped animal. I opened my mouth and screamed, the noise deafening in the small space. I kicked the bottom and smacked my forehead off the roof of the casket again.

Get a grip, Sofia, I told myself sternly, letting my body go limp and concentrating on getting my breath back first. Nikolai said it was a game. Even if I was just his unwilling partner in a sadistic game, he wouldn’t just kill me like this. Then the game would be over too quickly. If he’d wanted to do that, he could have done it last night in my room.

No, there had to be a way out. He wanted to scare me, and he’d really fucking succeeded, but the game wouldn’t be fun to him if there wasn’t a way for me to escape.

I had to keep calm. My hands rose back to the walls of the small box around me. I felt around slowly, this time making sure I was covering every inch, which wasn’t easy in the dark. Level to my hip, I felt it. A metal lock. I slid my fingers around it, trying to figure out the shape. It was smooth, except for a small slot, too thin to get my fingers into. I tried to wiggle my nail inside, but it was too short.

Still, it was a start.

Next, I dropped my hands to the floor of the box and felt about. I was sweating. My thin cami and shorts were sticking to my overheated skin. A desperate cry left me when my hands came up empty.

Has he really left me in here to suffocate to death?

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