Page 29 of Take Me

Everything looks the same until it doesn’t.

I veer around a new corner, and everything changes in an instant. A gust of chilly air sends shivers down my spine, and my feet ache against the gravelly floor as I stare into thick darkness.

My eyes dart around, trying to gauge my surroundings.

A tendril of fear slithers down my spine when I catch a glimpse of old bars instead of a door, and I gasp in shock when my feet hit something hard and long. With my heart pounding in my throat, I stop running and continue at a more careful speed.

With two more turns, the darkness becomes so thick I can’t see my own hands. I halt and turn around, searching for something—anything to guide my way. But there’s no flicker of light. I’m caught in stifling blackness.

I reach out for the wall, hoping it will guide me back. But I can’t reach it.

Fear bands around my lungs as I keep whirling around without seeing or touching anything.

Shudders take over my body—a violent mix of fear, exhaustion, and waning adrenaline. I sink to the ground and curl my knees up to my chest as tears start dripping from my eyes. I turn my head every other second, thinking I hear something, and flicker my eyes back and forth, thinking I see a shadow.

But the darkness remains dead-still and empty.

I’m alone. All on my own and more scared than I’ve ever been in my whole life. More scared than when Mikhail propped pillows around me and shut me into the darkness of the trunk. At least then I knew where I was—I could feel my surroundings. They were small and comprehensible. Here, I have no clue what lurks in the corners or even where the corners are. I feel like I’m drowning in dead darkness.

All I have are my own bated breaths and my tiny whimpers that become ominous sounds that barely sound like my own as they blend into the nothingness.

I rub my arms, my legs, and my feet to abate the cold. But eventually, it seeps through my skin, into my bones, where it shakes me to the core.

It feels like I sit there forever, but I’m not sure it’seven an hour.

When I finally do hear steps echoing through the empty halls nearby, I’m more relieved than scared. Right now, I don’t care about who finds me or what the consequences will be; I just want to get out of this black, cold hole.

Light flashes, and I squint as I gaze up at the tall figure approaching me. When I make out Mikhail’s straight and low brows, I’m so grateful I crawl toward him.

“I’m sorry.” I feel godawful pathetic as I sniffle and lean into his leg. But I’m unable to stop myself.

Mikhail grabs me by the hair and yanks me up, and I don’t even protest at the pain exploding at the back of my head. I just want to feel him close—know that I’m not alone.

The full weight of my captivity must have caught up to me, snapped around my neck like an iron manacle, and made me into this person who seeks her captor’s touch out of want for better.

I take it without a modicum of self-respect.

I curl my hand around his shirt as I weep, desperately trying to draw closer—to burrow my head in his chest and seek his comfort.

But he doesn’t offer me any, and the rejection hurts more than any other thing he’s done to me.

He tightens his grip on my neck and shoves me forward, through the blackness and back into the long corridors. Somehow, the light restores some of my strength, and I manage to get enough of a hold on myself to stop the tears and let go of Mikhail. But the pain of his cold distance remains.

“It’s time for the chair,” he announces when Dax approaches us from the other end of a hall.

Dax’s mouth curves up in a wide, wicked smile—the type of smile that belongs to a charming surfer guy on the beach in summer.

But it looks cruel down here, and when Mikhail shoves me into a new room, I know why.

In the middle of it all, a large wooden structure that looks terribly much like a death chair rises on a small platform.

I push back against Mikhail’s arm, shaking my head with the full force of my desperation.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, it’s not what it looks like,” Dax says, stepping up to the chair and tapping the back like it’s an old friend. “I’ve built this one for a whole other purpose.”

“Sit.” Mikhail’s voice booms through the room, shocking me into action.

I scurry across the cold floor and scamper onto the chair. It’s so tall I have to use my arms to hoist myself up. It’s not until I’m seated on the wood, feeling like a child in a grown-up’s chair, that I realize there’s a hole in the middle of the seat. But my attention quickly snaps back to Mikhail.

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