Page 101 of Plaything

My eyes welled with tears as I jogged against the fleeting light. I was shivering from the cold, drenched from head to toe, and beyond scared. I called out their names again, hoping one of them happened to be outside and the house was close enough to tear my screams. It was almost dark; they must have been home.

I felt like my heart was going to fall out of my chest from how hard it was beating as I ran.

Something behind me snapped; it sounded like a stick splintering in half. I paused, too frozen with fear to turn around. A bear? A cougar? Coyote? What was I supposed to do? I faintly recalled running for one and making myself appear bigger for the other? Shit.

A gentle meow and a familiar rubbing against my leg brought air back into my lungs. I looked down at Cat, still wearing the pastel sweater I’d gotten him. I scooped him up, tears cascading down my face mixed with rain. “Good kitty,” I cried, taking deep breaths as I pet him.

I gently put him down on the ground before giving him a stern look. “Cat, go home!” I snapped my fingers, hoping that ‘home’ was a command or word he knew.

He seemed offended by my sudden harshness but began trotting away from me. I was quick to follow him, trusting him as my last resort. He knew his way around here better than I ever could.

He would stop to smell something momentarily, but eventually, I saw a big mansion with its lights on through the trees.

It had been at least an hour since I’d woken up, and it was pitch black outside now. Moonlight was the only way I could follow Cat home. I scooped him up in my arms, probably squishing him harder than I should have. He didn’t mind as he purred. “You can have treats whenever you want,” I said through shivers.

I quickly walked across the large yard, approaching the house. Dominic was pacing the kitchen; I saw him through the sliding glass door. He turned, seeing me. “She’s over here!” He yelled before he ran across the grass to me.

Cat jumped out of my arms just before Dominic wrapped his big arms around me, engulfing me in his warmth. “You’re okay,” he murmured, his worry heavy in his tone. I didn’t know if he was calming me or convincing himself.

He scooped me up and carried me into the house, where I was bombarded with questions.

Niko looked beyond stressed as he held the phone to his ear, telling someone—police, I assume—to cancel a missing persons report. Aiden’s eyes were unusually wide as he stood with his arms crossed, fidgeting with a lighter.

Wyatt’s hair and shirt were messy. His shoes and the bottom of his pants were muddied. For Wyatt to look so distraught and unkempt told me all I needed to know. “Jesus Christ, Odette. What the hell happened?” He asked.

He didn’t sound mad; none of them even looked angry, which surprised me. Dominic sat me down on a stool, only for me to stand, not wanting to get the leather wet.

I tried to think of a lie, too embarrassed that I was an adult who had night terrors like this. Looking at their worried expressions, I couldn’t bring myself to lie. “I-I haven’t sleepwalked in years, I don’t know what happened,” I said through clattering teeth. “I woke up in the woods and couldn’t find my way home.” I wanted to apologize more than anything, but I didn’t.

“You were asleep?” Wyatt repeated, as if the thought of me wandering around for—I looked at the clock, seeing that it was past nine in the evening, making my blood run cold. They would have been worried if they got home at five and assumed the worst for four hours.

I nodded, a horrible swirl of guilt and shame flooding through me. I was well aware of how strange that was and ashamed that it was happening again after so long without an incident.

“Do you remember what you dreamed about?” Aiden asked, the gears shifting and turning in his eyes.

“No.” My answer was fast, possibly too fast. I was already an adult who sleepwalked; I didn’t need to be the girl who made up horrible scenarios. Charles was a despicable man, but not even he would stoop so low to subject his daughter to something so vulgar for a business deal. I was disgusted with my own imagination for even coming up with something so nasty.

Niko glared at Aiden, “Who the fuck cares about a dream, Aiden?” He snapped. “She’s been missing for four hours, out in the freezing fucking cold, and you ask about a dr—” he took a deep breath before his eyes softened on me. “That doesn’t matter...” he wrapped his arm around me and began walking us out of the kitchen.

“Come on, Cariño, let’s get you warmed up before you get hypothermia,” he comforted, rubbing his hand up and down my arm.

Aiden didn’t have bad intentions when he asked; I knew that. He was just curious; that was how his mind worked, after all. He just wanted to know; he wanted to understand.

So did I. There was something I couldn’t grasp. I knew I had never once stepped foot in, seen, or looked at a picture of any room in my father’s wing of my childhood house. I had only ever seen the door—the locked door.

Why was it always locked? When did that start? Why wasn’t I allowed in there? Not that I wanted to be, but there was a lot that didn’t make sense. There were many things I’d never even questioned until now.

There was something in the back of my mind, something that I somehow knew I’d forgotten about. It was the only explanation for how now I knew exactly what his wing of the house looked like. I knew the color of the walls and where every piece of furniture was.

I didn’t know how I knew that or why I was just remembering it now, but there was no doubt in my mind that at some point in my life, for some reason, I had been in the wing beyond the locked doors.

“Are you okay?” Niko broke me from my thoughts as he started a shower.

Quickly nodding, I tried to smile up at him. “Just cold.”

Chapter Fourteen

Aiden

---