Page 14 of Eye Candy

“Why am I here?” I shouted the question at him, fed up with this. As much as I hated playing the perfect daughter for my dad, I’d much rather be there than here. I missed daylight. I missed my own bed, my own things, my friends. I missed my life. Hell, I even missed school. I’d give anything to be gossiping about boys right now with Kelly.

He drew a finger along the mouth of his mask, as if zipping it up. He then acted as if he threw the made-up key over his shoulder, his way of saying he’d never tell. The asshole.

“Are you going to keep me here forever?” I didn’t give him the time to answer, instead asking a different, much more important question: “Are you going to kill me?” As brave as I wanted to seem, I couldn’t stop my voice from cracking.

The Devil did something odd then. His head tilted, the movement slow, and behind his mask, he studied me intently. He took a step closer to me, lifted a gloved hand, and before I knew it, he was running that hand down my face, along my cheek. The gesture was almost intimate.

He shook his head at me, wordlessly telling me,no.

I should push him away, should recoil at his touch, but I didn’t. I sat there, gazing into his mask, at the shadows that covered his eyes, unable to do much of anything. Of course, I knew I shouldn’t trust anything he told me—he’d kidnapped me, for fuck’s sake—but I found myself wanting to believe him.

I couldn’t say how long the moment lasted, but eventually he pulled away from me, dropping his hand away from my cheek. He said not a word as he went to pick up the tray I’d tried to hit him with, then the plate and the water bottle. He turned around, walking away from me, leaving me alone yet again.

When he reached the door, I called out, “Wait.”

He stopped, though he didn’t turn around.

“Can I at least get a TV or something in here? It’s so boring. I’m going out of my mind.” A slight exaggeration, but it wouldn’t be an exaggeration for long. A person could only spend so much time with nothing but their own thoughts as company before they went mad, and going crazy wasn’t something I wanted to do.

The last thing I saw before he left the room was a single nod of his head. The next time he came to visit me, when he brought me breakfast, he also lugged in an old-fashioned TV on wheels.

I caught myself thinking of my Devil the next day, as I waited for Kelly to come over. My dad was at his office, and Tessa wasout somewhere. If it wasn’t for him bringing me that TV, I definitely would’ve gone insane. As it was, when he’d hooked up the TV to an antenna, and I was able to see the local news every night, things had started to change inside me.

I got angry. I got pissed at my dad for using my kidnapping to his advantage in the race. All the press releases, all the shoddy, pathetic attempts at combing through the city to find me… it was all a show. My dad didn’t really care. He got everything he wanted when he won that race, and then a year and a half later, he married Tessa.

What was I to him then, besides a tool he could use? Had he ever loved me like a father should love his daughter? I didn’t know, but I doubted it. How sad was that?

Throughout the day, Kieran kept making comments about Mike. He’d moved in down the hall from my bedroom, to stay close by at all hours of the day. He mostly kept to himself, but he made his presence known, and that irked Kieran to the extreme.

And, in a way, it irked me, as did Kieran’s constant supervision. I was nineteen. I didn’t need a babysitter.Or two.

So, when Kelly arrived, I couldn’t have been more thrilled. When Kieran opened the door to let her in, she pushed past him and practically tackled me in the hall once she saw me. “Oh, my God! I can’t believe you’re here,” she squealed, squeezing me tight. “I really can’t believe it.” She let me go, green eyes widening when she noticed my hair. “Your hair is amazing! I love it.”

Kieran scowled as he closed the front door. Mike was in the kitchen, fixing himself an afternoon snack. He’d been a busy little bee all day, cooking meals left and right, much to Kieran’s annoyance.

What was even more annoying to him, however, was the fact that his meals were good.

Together, we went upstairs, and I let out an audible sigh once my bedroom door was closed and we were inside without Kieran or Mike looming over us.

“Does Kieran live here now?” Kelly asked, plopping herself down on my bed.

“Uh, yeah. It’s a long story.” When Kelly continued to stare at me, waiting for me to tell said story, I went on, “My dad wants him to watch me twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.” Hmm. Guess it wasn’t as long as I thought.

“Oof. That sucks. At least he’s not bad on the eyes,” Kelly spoke, nodding along sagely. If ever there was a boy crazy girl, it’d be her. That much, I saw, hadn’t changed in the last two years. Her light brown hair had gotten longer, but that’s about it.

“He’s not the only one,” I muttered, going to sit next to her. I crawled onto the bed and pulled my feet underneath my ass. “I have another guy in the house who’s supposed to watch me, too.”

“Ooh, is he cute too?”

I let out a chuckle at that. “He’s… not bad, I guess.” If you liked the big, burly, muscly types that could squash you with their pinky, then yeah, Mike wasn’t so bad.

Kelly’s eyes dropped to my left hand, taking in the bandage. “How are you doing? It’s gotta be strange being back. You making it through? I’m sure things are just crazy for you, especially since your kidnapper was never caught.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m doing okay.” A lie. I was one angry ball of flesh and bone, but I was alive, which was more than I could say for a lot of other kidnapped girls in this country.

“Why didn’t you double-tap him when you were escaping? Then at least you’d know he was dead and he’d never come after you again.” Sometimes Kelly could be, uh, let’s just call it abrasive. She was never delicate with her choice of words.

I shrugged. “I was a little busy trying to get away.” I picked at my comforter with my bandage-free hand. Only a few more days with the bandage, though I’d still have to be careful of the healing skin. I was kind of nervous for the day when I had to take it off, not going to lie.

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