Page 32 of Release Me

Even though his finger isn’t holding my head in place any longer, I can’t seem to pull my eyes from his, no matter how badly I want to.

“Let me help you find yourself. Find the girl youwantto be, rather than the girl you were raised tothinkyou are.”

There isn’t any world in which this situation is going to end well. I give it a few weeks, tops, before he’s ready to send me right back to Dr. S.

At least I’ll get a bit of a reprieve from this depressing place.

* * *

Sitting on Dick’s private jet, I stare across the table at Gabriella. I think she’s in shock, and why wouldn’t she be? She’s gone from complete and utter hell, to the institute, to a fucking fully-loaded private jet. I want to know what she’s thinking. She probably doesn’t knowwhatto think. Maybe she thinks this is normal, that everyone flies around on private jets and live in gigantic houses in the mountains of Colorado.

Dick purchased a deck of flash cards last minute from a store in town by Meadowlake. He thought they would help Gabriella learn to speak, as though she were a toddler. I suppose in many ways she is.

“Gabriella, can you say cat? K—AT. Cat.”

I hold the card up to her so she can see the tan and white animal clearly. Flipping it around, I show her the letters and sound them out one more time, pointing to each sound as I go.

“K—k… this is a hard C, so it sounds like a K.” Moving my finger to the “at,” I continue, “AT… AT… K—AT.”

Slowly, she reaches for the card and gently takes it from my grip. Placing it on the table in front of her, she looks down at the picture of the fluffy kitten playing with a ball of blue yarn. She carefully points to the picture and quietly begins to try and sound out the word.

“K—…” she stops and looks at me for approval.

“That’s right,” I affirm.

Her eyes leave mine again and return to the card.

“K—k—at.”

I smile, proud of her for even attempting to give this a try.

“Yes, cat.”

She looks up at me again and says, “cat,” loud and clear.

“Very good.”

I feel Dick’s eyes on me as I work with Gabriella. I need to get my head sorted out where he’s concerned. I still don’t know what his endgame is. I really hope he’s not some psycho who is going to kill both of us the moment he gets us to his estate. From the way he described it, there is no one around—no civilization at all—miles.

No, I don’t actually believe he’s a psycho.

But I do know there is more to him than he’s leading on. Only someone with dark secrets recognizes dark secrets in others.

Once Gabriella sounds out “dog” correctly, I finally give up and glance at Dick. The same glimmer he had in his eye the night in my isolation cell, the same one he had on the roof is there. But with it is also a lookI haven’t seen from someone since Jacob.

Admiration.

Fuck.

This man.

He’s going to absolutely decimate me.

ChapterFifteen

BRYNN

Holy fucking shit.

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