Page 52 of Captive Souls

And that somehow felt like one of the most pivotal accomplishments of my life. That I somehow wasn’t so inhuman that someone like her could see me.

Thought I was worthy.

I’d carry that around with me, the one last shred of proof that I was human. That’s all I’d take from her. I’d save the memories of her in the garden. With the dirt on her face. Her holding her hair off the nape of her neck, tilting her head upward to the sky, eyes closed, reveling in the sunlight.

Her lips would be stretched out into a lazy smile of contentment. How she could bask in the sunlight in her situation confounded me. She still found simple joys in life even as the walls of it closed in around her.

I knew she was intelligent enough to understand the severity of her situation. Fuck, she’d already almost half-starved herself to death and collapsed in the woods. She’d already seen the deviant she was sharing a space with, yet she somehow held on.

I knew that time was ticking on Stone’s patience. On my restraint. That one way or another, I’d have to place her in the jaws of a shark.

Piper

Something felt different today.

The air was colder, and the sun somehow hotter. Or maybe that was Knox’s gaze, that somehow was no longer icy cold. No longer detached. There was a depth to it, a wildness to it that was tangible.

My instincts were itching, warning me that something was going to happen this evening. What, I couldn’t be sure. And maybe it wasn’t my instincts. More than likely it was my overactive imagination that tended to create completelyunrealistic, romantic scenarios that couldn’t possibly come to life.

I kept drawing cards from my deck when Knox wasn’t around, and The Devil returned again and again. Same with The Lovers. It was laughable now, the way the universe was shoving this in my face. Or maybe it was my unconscious wants, my shadow showing me that it would not be ignored.

I couldn’t trust my own mind, that was becoming more and more apparent. Knox made it crystal clear that I couldn’t trust him. The only person I trusted completely was also being held hostage, her under the threat of death.

The bottom was falling out of my life, yet there I was, taking extra time to style my hair and dab on some makeup after showering. As if I were going to have a date with my captor.

My wardrobe did not offer much variety, and I didn’t pack to look sexy. But I’d put on my most favorite pair of jeans, worn and faded, clinging to every inch of me like a glove no matter how many times I washed them.

I put on a simple white tank and a cardigan stitched with tiny wildflowers. With my hair piled at the top of my head, I fiddled with pulling a few strands out here and there, trying to make it look effortless when really I spent five minutes making it seem that way.

I put on a thin amount of concealer, marveling at the freckles across my nose that hadn’t been there before. They made me look younger. My eyes were brighter than they’d ever been as I brushed mascara on my lashes. As I dabbed blush on my cheekbones, I contemplated the woman who looked like a child who had run through the mountains, picking wildflowers with an unscathed heart, a full belly, ignorant to the horrors that awaited her.

Somehow, during my captivity, I’d found that child. And I was welcoming her back.

Was my kidnapping … healing my inner child?

Ridiculous.

But true, nonetheless. And yes, it might’ve been the magic of the mountains, the way the air smelled cleaner here, the sun shone brighter, and the trees stood taller.

But mostly it was the man who was cut out of the environment like an intruder and a native all at once.

It took effort to act normal while walking out of the bathroom. Then again, I never acted ‘normal’ while anywhere in Knox’s line of sight. Every inch of me was coiled, tense, hyperaware in his presence. That was likely why I crashed so hard every night, my body was working overtime in a constant state of survival mode.

I needed to get used to that, I supposed, since it was looking more and more likely that the rest of my life—however long that was going to be—was going to be lived like that.

Knox was leaning against the countertop beside the stove where dinner was simmering.

He wasn’t doing anything, just leaning, one ankle over the over, arms crossed, eyes focused on the doorway I was emerging from. As if he’d been staring at it the entire time I’d been in the bathroom.

I didn’t do what I normally did, which was refuse to look in his direction and pretend to busy myself with sorting dirty clothes, taking them to be washed or hiding behind the cover of a paperback I wasn’t reading.

Instead of doing that, I met his stare. I didn’t know what my expression said. I wasn’t trying to challenge him like I had in the past, wasn’t trying to convey some semblance of strength nor determination. Not even hatred.

Because I didn’t hate him. Not anymore. My feelings for him were like a rose, full of thorns sharp enough to draw blood combined with lovely soft edges.

Maybe that’s what I wore on my expression, all of my discomfort and longing for him. Whatever it was, he picked up on it. I knew that because when he stared at me, he did it like he was trying to study me, learn me so well that he could write a book on how to break me.

He didn’t look away. He didn’t even swallow.

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