Page 2 of Eye Candy

Whoever it was, he leaned his head down beside mine while he choked me and whispered, “Shhh.”

My thoughts grew hazy. I couldn’t try to fight anymore. My body suddenly felt so weak and pathetic. Death came for me, welcoming me in its cold, unflinching embrace, introducing me to a world of blackened oblivion.

But I was wrong. It wasn’t death that got me. It was the Devil.

I didn’t know how much time passed before I came to, but when I woke up again, I found myself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. My eyelids felt like stone, my neck sore and achy. I groaned, trying to sit up and reach for my neck to rub it. It took me a few tries to actually do it.

I lay on a small twin bed with a simple frame and even simpler sheets of pink. It was bolted to a concrete floor, pushed up against the corner of a wall made of cinderblocks painted a light bubblegum color. Something heavy and cold lay on my ankle, and I reached for the sheets on top of me—it was like I’d been tucked in. Once I threw the sheets off me, I saw what it was.

A chain. A thick, metal chain wrapped around my ankle, tying me to the bed. The manacle was tight on my ankle, so tight there was no way I’d be able to wiggle free. As I stared at it, my mouth fell open.

What the hell was going on?

My gaze shifted to my right, where a small card table sat, along with two chairs. Beyond the table was a toilet, a sink, and on the far side of the same wall my bed was against, a tub.

It was as I moved to stare at the tub with sinking abject horror that I realized the chain fixing me to the bed was longer than I’d thought. It hung down on the floor, hooking to the bedframe’s metal leg, just before it was bolted to the floor. It was long enough that I’d be able to go to the table and the toilet… and probably even the tub.

My mouth was damn near on the floor now. I was kidnapped, brought to this place, wherever it was. I’d probably get raped, fed only enough to keep me alive, and be tortured until the day I died, however long it would be.

That was when I looked away from my half of the room and drew my eyes to the door, to the only way out of the room. It sat a good twenty feet away—the chain around my foot wouldn’t let me reach it, I bet—but something shadowy blocked my view.

Or someone, I should say.

A man dressed in all black, from his shoes to his pants to his shirt, even to the gloves on his hands. A black Halloween mask sat on his face, and ironically enough, the face the mask he wore was that of a devil, small horns on the forehead area and a deep sneer in the mouth area.

He made not a sound, staring at me from behind that mask, and it occurred to me he’d been there the whole time, watching me while passed out, waiting while I woke up and took in my surroundings. Had he already done something to me, or did he like them awake and alert enough to scream?

If that’s what he wanted, he’d be disappointed. He’d get no screams from me.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice shaking. He didn’t answer. “Where am I? Why am I here?” No question receiveda reply. The man continued to stand there, staring, giving me nothing in return. “What are you going to do to me?”

I’d wanted to get out of that house and live a little… but not like this. No, not at all like this.

The man, the Devil, cocked his head at me. The motion was slow and deliberate, and it sent a chill down my spine. He lifted a single hand before the mask, curling all his fingers down except one. He held that hand before the mouth of his mask, telling me to be quiet, just like he’d told me back home, when he’d leaped from the closet and choked me out.

He said not a word to me as he turned and opened the door. I watched him leave me, heard him lock the door behind him, in confusion. And then I was alone… which wasn’t too different from a normal night lately.

Except, you know, I was kidnapped, in an undisclosed location, chained to a freaking bed. A prisoner to some guy who wouldn’t show his face to me.

Was my dad alerted to his break-in? Did he know I was kidnapped? Maybe there was some hope for me yet. The whole city would be out looking for me. My dad wanted to be the next mayor. They had to take it seriously, didn’t they?

But it wasn’t law enforcement who ran the city. It was the mob. Or the mafia. Or whatever the hell you wanted to call them. The people with the money and the manpower to do whatever the hell they wanted, whenever they wanted. And those people… they wouldn’t care about finding me.

I slumped back, depressed. I knew I should be trying the chain, trying to find a possible weak spot on the bed or something, but I didn’t want to. Maybe, just maybe this was what was meant to happen. I wanted to live, duh, but I’dbecome an outsider in my own life, trying to be a good daughter to make my dad happy and proud.

Look at where it got me.

An explosive sigh left me, and I sat there for a while, losing myself to the sorrowful, depressed emotions inside.

I didn’t know why it suddenly occurred to me then, but it did. The walls of this room were painted a light pink. The bed I sat in had pink sheets, almost like whoever had taken me knew pink was my favorite color.

A new thought came to me then. Maybe I wasn’t taken because someone wanted to hurt my dad and his campaign, threaten him into backing off. Maybe I was taken because someone had been watching me, because someone wanted me. Maybe I had a stalker.

Maybe I’d die in this room, locked away, never to be found. If that was true, I guess I had to make the most of what time I had left.

Chapter One – Laina

The light of the sun was so much stronger than I remembered. I walked along the sidewalk, barefoot, squinting all the while. My shoulders were slumped—my right one in particular ached like a bitch. My face hurt too, but all that was nothing compared to the pain throbbing up my left arm from my hand.

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