Page 35 of Captive Souls

Hurt myself so I wasn’t pleasing to a man so he wouldn’t want me. I’d been so sure that the world had moved on from such brutality, having never considered the possibility that mutilation would be required to keep me safe from men. But times hadn’t changed as much as I’d thought. The tyrants just moved further into the shadows, like Knox, or got better at disguising themselves as men, like Stone.

Knox had been inspecting me the entire time I mulled this over. Like I was an insect under a magnifying glass, and he was considering whether to set me on fire or not.

“You would do it,” he nodded, as if he were reading my mind. “You would scar yourself for life if it meant getting out of this.”

“In a heartbeat.”

“But you’re extraordinarily beautiful.”

My throat went dry.

It wasn’t said as a compliment. He said it as if it was a statement, an indisputable fact. The sky was blue, grass was green, and I was extraordinarily beautiful.

I wasn’t falsely modest; I knew that my features had arranged themselves into a way that wasn’t abhorrent. But I wouldn’t go so far as to call myselfextraordinarily beautiful.

And though he uttered it in his same cruel, lifeless tone, the words shook my insides.

I swallowed, trying to hide whatever effect he had over me, my head still throbbing.

“Looks don’t mean anything to me if they’re going to be a collar a man thinks he can hold around my neck.”

Still, Knox inspected me. “Even scarred, disfigured, you’d still be gorgeous. It wouldn’t save you. It would be a mistake. And messy. Don’t do it.”

He got up and walked in the direction of the kitchen. My eyes didn’t follow him. I just stared at the space he previously occupied, feeling numb to the conversation we’d just had. The dichotomy of his gentle touch, confusing words and ice-cold demeanor.

There was a clang in the kitchen, the whistle of a boiling kettle, yet I still remained motionless.

It was in part due to weakness and the fragility of my stomach. I might’ve had a concussion, and I was exhausted. It felt like there was no passage of time.

Then Knox was back.

With a steaming plate and mug.

“I’m not going to eat that.” I flicked my wrist toward the plate. I couldn’t see the contents, but I assumed it would be meat since it was all that was left.

My gnawing hunger urged me to snatch it, eat it with my bare hands, keep myself alive by abandoning my principles, markers of my identity. I could get those back when I was free.

But I’d never be free if I submitted to Knox.

Despite the power of those thoughts—my finger even twitched—I held fast.

Knox didn’t say anything, he just placed the plate and the mug on the coffee table in front of me.

I blinked down at the bowl.

It was a heaping portion of rice topped with beans of some kind. No sign of meat. My mouth watered. Again, the instinct to jump on the food was overwhelming.

Instead, with all the willpower I possessed, I looked up at Knox.

“You’ve had food for me this entire time,” I deduced slowly. There was no way I’d just missed a bag of rice and a can of beans. When you were as hungry as I was, looking for food became a constant thing you did with desperation. Food was a background thought throughout the day, hunger a part of my being.

“You’ve been watching me slowly starve knowing there was food that I could eat,” I realized out loud.

Not even an ounce of guilt crossed Knox’s expression.

“You enjoyed it,” I hissed. “Watching me hurt. Watching me starve.”

No reaction.

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