Page 64 of Silenced

My brow furrows as I tug at my hair, muttering, “I wonder where you got the inspiration for that from.”

That’s when I see him looking at my blonde locks as if they’re literal rays of sunlight. Not just bits of keratin. There’s a starry-eyed look to him and it’s unnerving mostly because I like that.

Damn, ‘like’ is too much of an understatement.

This is deeper than ‘like.’

This is a problem in the making.

When he twines a strand of my hair around his finger, I watch as he strokes his thumb over it. His gaze flickers to my face and he graces me with that same starstruck glance that is beyond delicious.

There’s power in how he looks at me.

It tips the balance in my favor, and that balance has never been in my favor. Ever.

That it is with a guy like this is bewildering—and I don’t just mean a hunk but a freak who thinks nothing of keeping women in his goddamn bedroom.

My temper stirs.

Long dormant, I don’t even recognize what it is as it burns deep in my soul. Flickering from embers into low flames.

With his free hand, he retrieves a strawberry that’s been saturated in sugar syrup from a dish I only just noticed and places it against my bottom lip.

I might have meekly accepted the succulent fruit if he hadn’t trailed it over my mouth, using it like a strange lipstick.

I know what he’s doing—amusing himself.

At my expense.

My nostrils flare as I snag it between my teeth when a drop of syrup falls onto my chest. I chew. He watches me. Then, as my throat starts to bob, he reaches for another piece, but it’s while he’s distracted that I gather the juices in my mouth and I spit at him.

The moment I do it, I regret it.

He tenses, his limbs turning into ice beneath me as my eyes bolt wide with terror. I jump off his lap and race into the bedroom, almost falling on the train from the comforter as I do so.

That’s when my mortification is complete.

There’s a small team of women in the bedroom—two dusting and, now that I’m outside of the safe room, what sounds like two in the bathroom.

Did they hear that?

I didn’t hear them so, maybe?

My throat bobs as I think about whether or not they overheard me yesterday, but my fear dissipates and is replaced with a wider maw of anger.

Not a single goddamn one of them called the cops overnight.

Not a single goddamn one of them looks at me now.

Not a single goddamn one peers up from their task or even thinks to ask if I’m okay.

I mean, it’s obvious that I’m not.

I’m wearing a comforter as a dress, I canfeelhow pale I am because I blanched in fear of Nikolai’s retaliation, and I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

Annoyance rolls into anxiety as my captivity is rammed home with the power of Mjölnir to my amygdala, but then aggravation overtakes it.

I. Will. Not. Take. This. Shit. Any. Fucking.MORE.

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