Page 24 of Never Lost
Rendered helpless, I rattled my restraints against the bedpost, determined to give a struggle. But the palm only pressed harder into my face, shoving the remaining fluid into my nose and mouth, cutting off my breath, and I was already exhausted.
“Oh my God. You’re good, Rocket Boy. You’re really good.”
Over the hand crushing my face, I could barely see the female form silhouetted in the weak moonlight, her hands clasped together near her mouth like a rhapsodic schoolgirl. But the woman came closer, and then all of her came into focus: the blond hair floating in a wispy halo around her face, the body-skimming white crop top and leggings she wore and the stylish matching ivory-handled knife sheathed at her waist; the little bounce she did on the balls of her feet as she giggled with glee. “But you’re gonna have to do alittlebit more to make me believe you hate her as much as all that.”
7
HIM
My love.
That’s what it meant. Why didn’t I fucking tell her?
Instead, I subtly flicked my eyes up from the floor where they’d been forced to look. Over to the bed, where, in the helpful glow of a lamp someone had switched on, Louisa had gone quiet. Understandably, since the former gardener—Obadiah, apparently, now, though the repulsive creep scarcely deserved such a grandiose moniker—had strapped a muzzle on over her mouth and nose after Resi had decided she’d heard enough of her screaming and cursing.
What a girl. Too bad she’d never speak to me again, which I deserved.
Though the former gardener’s grip forced my neck down toward the floor, I could just make out her body, still clad in the white lacy thing they’d put her in, chest rising in and out, quivering ever so faintly. It was those tiny movements, only, that keptmecalm. Kept me able to think. Unfortunately, what I thought was that everything I wanted to say—let her go; it’s meyou hate; it’s okay, Lou, I love you, and I’m sorry—were the last liabilities either of us could afford if I had any chance of figuring out a plan to get us out of this while staying alive long enough to actually enact it.
Love. It’s just another thing they use against you.
Even a dumbass like Corey had known that; it was what had landed me with Langer and subsequently here; and if there was one thingthathad taught me, it was not to give Resi the same advantage.
Because my life was the kind where protecting the people I loved, more often than not, came down to breaking their hearts. It had started when Resi, at the precise moment Arlo and Felix had disappeared into their respective bedrooms, informing me that Louisa—my Louisa—was chained to the bed upstairs.
Good,I’d responded without thinking, hatingmyselffor not hitting her right in her blindingly white, artificially aligned incisors. Of course the two gigantic men on either side of her pointing pistols at me probably had something to do with that.
And Resi had laughed.Good boy,she’d said.I’ve got to see this.
So I’d done it. I’d finally stoppedcallingmyself a good actor and actually performed. Acted like I hated Louisa, terrorizing and violating her and no doubt making her hateme.I knew Resi could be lying, but if I’d refused, she would have slapped the cuffs on me as soon as I’d walked in the house.
And given that we were nowbothin chains, it looked like I’d failed anyway.
Still, part of my plan had worked: I’d been able to get one of Louisa’s cuffs loose in the process of face-fucking her, and as far as I could tell, Obadiah hadn’t noticed. Of course I wasn’t sure Louisa had noticed, either, even though I’d tried to give her a fairly idiotic hint with thatyes, andshit.
Anyway, until I figured out something else, I had to stay compliant as Resi, practically quivering herself, trailed one of her long, vanilla-sugar nails—as sharp as a knife’s edge—along my jaw, then tilted it. Not much else I could do, given I’d been kicked to my knees, still naked though half-covered in a sheet she’d thrown me, my stiff arms and wrecked shoulder silently screaming that they’d had enough. Meanwhile, my scarred and bruised wrists had been cuffed stiffly behind my back, with Obadiah latched onto one arm and an even bigger, balder guy named Noam on the other, preventing me from doing anything about any of it.
Better they held me, though. Because it meant neither of them was nearher.
“Did you say something?” Resi asked lightly, tapping my nose like a naughty puppy. “Please don’t make me muzzleyourpretty mouth, too. I like looking at it too much.”
I lowered my eyes, a show of submissiveness that I hoped would draw her attention away from Louisa and her loose cuff, at least for a second.
Buoyed by this, she removed her hand from my jaw and stood back to inspect me, bowed head to bent knees. “Now,” she said, “doesn’t it feel so much better not to be living a lie anymore? To be back where you belong? And,” she added, “and to haveherfinally see where you belong?”
My heart clenched. The angle was wrong, so I couldn’t see what I wanted to see most: where Louisa’s eyes were fixed, whether she was staring at me in disgust, chained and kicked into submission. Hating me as much as I’d assured Resi I hated her.
Because Resi was right. Louisa hadstillnever seen me like this. She hadn’t seen me at the dealership the day her father had collected me. She hadn’t seen me chained to the fence beingwhipped. And she hadn’t seen me curled up helplessly in the storage closet, straining to reach her hand.
As if it would make any difference. As if she’d care either way. Right?
Resi moved behind me, crouched down, and stroked the underside of my wrist where I still wore the Rolex, next to where the metal cuff dug in. She let out a girlish gasp at what she found.
“Oh! So you finally did it,” she whispered. “But you must have known you were just going to exchange one piece of metal for another.” She smiled as she glanced back toward Louisa, raising her voice. “Sweet, sad boy. Just wanted to pretend to be free for a while. But tell me, didshethink you were free? Did you lie andtellher you were, just before you slipped your cock down her throat?”
From Louisa, more thrashing; more desperate, indecipherable noise.
Resi giggled, a cloud of sweet poison mist that seemed to curl through the air and cling to every surface. She glanced up at the ceiling. “Ah, you managed to convince your girl that that mirror was just a tasteful design element. Nice going. Too bad you didn’t convincemeof anything.” She shrugged innocently. “Oh, cheer up. You both got a lot more action tonight than your buddies did.”
