Page 32 of Captive Souls

Although he wasn’t cutting me with a blade, his stare, his presence, was just as sharp. My body was constantly in a state of fight-or-flight, unable to rest properly.

The days were long. Not just because I got up at dawn to run in the woods. Knox didn’t follow me like he had that first morning, but his eyes did from the moment I got out of bed.

I did my best to ignore him, even though my entire body hummed with fear and desire and hatred.

Yes, I hated him. For being so calm, for being so unflappable. So resistant to my charm, immune to anger. Even when he’d hurled the mug at the wall, he hadn’t done it out of fury. He’d done it calmly. To make a point. That was so much worse.

The shards of it still remained where they fell. No way was I cleaning up his mess, and he didn’t strike me as someone who would either. Well, that was a lie. He did the dishes from every meal. Everything in the cabin was kept spotless.

But the shards remained. A reminder.

My body was weakening. There was no fresh fruit left, even though I’d tried to ration. The bread that remained was stale and hard. And with the calories I was burning from pure fear, from running, pulling weeds in the area that could roughly be called a garden, from chopping wood, it was nowhere near enough fuel for my body.

Running was stupid. Expending energy I didn’t have. But I had to. There had to be some way to release the adrenaline, to feel like myself. Running had always been my therapy. My one solace. Escape.

I wouldn’t let him take it from me. Even as my body failed me.

Black spots danced in my vision, and I rapidly tried to blink them away. I was only a couple hundred yards from the cabin.

I’d make it. Couldn’t a person last for like months without food? I had water. And it’s not like I was technically starving. People in L.A. ate less than I did and managed to star in movies and walked catwalks.

Dramatic. I was being dramatic by thinking the trees were turning sideways. There was no way I was going to pass out.

Then the trees moved jerkily, the ground rushed toward my face and with a loud thump. With a flash of pain came blessed darkness and thankfully, no more hunger.

“Fuck.”

The single, four-letter word filtered through my groggy brain, mixing with the gnawing, urgent hunger that had become a part of me like a barnacle against a reef.

It was hard to think around it, even in my half-conscious state.

That was likely why I heard emotion in that single, four-letter word. Emotion that sounded incredibly like worry laced with an edge of panic.

I must’ve conjured that, though, in my desperation to have someone care for me.

Before I could register his closeness, Knox’s arms were wrapped around me and I was up off the ground. The movement made my almost empty stomach lurch as I fought to hold on to the meager nutrients I’d ingested that morning.

Plus, vomiting on Knox would be kind of embarrassing.

I somehow managed to steady my nausea, even as we started moving. He held me close to his chest, his arms like a band, absorbing the impact of his steps so he barely jostled me.

He smelled of pine and the ocean. Again, something I must’ve made up. And warmth I felt against his chest. That couldn’t have been possible; he was a human block of ice.

He didn’t speak, so all I heard was the low thump of his heartbeat. It was nice. Calming. It beckoned me back to the darkness.

“Piper, don’t you—”

Again with the urgent, worried and commanding tone. But even he couldn’t call me back from this blackness.

Fortunately.

Knox

Her runs lasted forty-five minutes to an hour.

The past few days they’d been closer to forty-five.

Because she was hungry. Weak. Expending too much energy by running through rough terrain followed by spending the day in the garden, pulling weeds, chopping wood. Doing anything but being still, reserving her energy.

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