No one spoke directly to him, but he heard voices here and there.
It was near dark and the night was getting colder. The scent of damp pine overwhelming. He was forced to walk and snow slipped into his shoes, making him shiver.
About two hundred steps later, they stopped walking. He was pushed to his knees. He didn’t have the strength to try to rise.
“What have you done?” a female voice said.
“We did exactly what you said, Calliope. They had Riley too well guarded. So we grabbed one of theirs.”
“You brought himhere? No!”
They’d taken him to Havenwood?
“They can’t track him. He’s blindfolded. We’ll keep him in the prison until they make the exchange.”
“Whose idea was it to bring him here? To our home?”
Silence.
“No one wants to admit to their failure? I trusted you, all of you, and you bring a federal agent to Havenwood?”
“We’ll take him back,” a new voice said quietly, a man who had been with them but hadn’t spoken much.
“Too late for that,” Calliope said. “Put him in the prison. I’ll figure it out. But not one of you is welcome in my house tonight.”
Silence fell around them, then someone said, “Well, shit. Don’t look at me like that, Evan. You agreed.”
“No, I didn’t,” Evan, the soft-spoken man, said. “I just didn’t object because you wouldn’t have listened.”
“Riley has messed me up,” the other man said. “She’s alive. I just can’t believe it.” Mumbling, then the same man said, “It was a good plan. But we should have lit the place on fire for real, then she couldn’t have stayed inside. Marcus, help me take him to the pit.”
Matt was hauled up and half dragged a hundred feet. A door was opened and he smelled blood and vomit and death.
They took him downstairs into a room as cold as the outdoors.
“Anton, we need to restart this fire. If he freezes to death that’s not going to get Riley back.”
“Calliope isn’t going to let him leave,” Anton said. “But yeah, start the fire while I secure him.”
Matt’s hands were unchained, then reattached to a metal rod along the wall. He heard Marcus about ten feet away putting wood into a stove and crumbling paper. A minute later a faint warmth started to fill the small space.
Then without another word, they left.
Matt lost track of time, and may have fallen asleep or, more likely, passed out, but the room was almost warm when he heard the lock above him click. A minute later, two people walked down the stairs.
“Take off his blindfold,” Calliope said.
The blindfold was removed and Matt blinked rapidly. His vision was blurry, and there was only a dim light in the room and the glow from the fireplace. There were pictures tacked to the walls, but they were blurry and he couldn’t make them out.
He turned to Calliope. Even though his vision was unclear, he recognized her. She was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Thick and bright red hair cascaded in curls down her back. Her face was smooth and fresh, unlined, with high cheekbones and large round blue eyes. She wore no makeup and had no blemishes. She was tall—nearly as tall as Matt—and curvy in a flowing dress with a white wool cape over her shoulders. She smiled. “I apologize for the treatment. My decision to put you in our prison was rash because your visit was unexpected.”
“You had a federal agent kidnapped,” he said.
As if he didn’t speak, she continued, “I have had time to think things through, and if you behave yourself, you may join the community for dinner. Anton will find you clean clothes and you can wash up. You have thirty minutes.”
“You’re not going to let me live,” he said.
She didn’t respond. “You can obey, have a meal, and sleep in a bed—or you can be difficult and rot in this prison all night. It makes no difference to me.”