Page 61 of Glitter Rose
He doesn’t. Instead, he leans against the doorframe, armscrossed, filling the space with his bulk. “Maybe I’ll keep you company for a while.”
“Maybe you’ll fuck off.” I sink onto the bed.
“You think you’re so special because of your fancy blood. But when your brother gets what he needs, you’ll just be another mouth to feed.”
“Are you threatening me or flirting? Hard to tell with your limited vocabulary.”
He abandons the doorframe, taking a step inside my room. Shit. I need to control myself. My heart kicks against my ribs, but I force myself to remain seated, to show nothing.
His mouth curves into a wicked smile that doesn’t touch his eyes. He takes another step closer, close enough that I can smell the cigarettes on his breath.
“Your heart’s racing, sweetheart.” He taps his ear. “Can hear it from here. Like a little bird trying to escape.”
My fingers dig into the mattress edge. “Medical condition. Nothing to do with you.”
“Sure.” He runs his tongue over his lip. “You know, Gabriel doesn’t care what happens in here. As long as you’re breathing.”
I meet his gaze, refusing to blink. “Then we’re in the same boat. How does it feel being another one of my brother’s disposable tools?”
A twitch at the corner of his mouth, a tightening around his eyes. I’ve hit a nerve.
“I’ll be back with lunch.” He backs toward the door, hand on the knob. “Get some sleep.”
The lock clicks into place, and his heavy footsteps retreat down the hall. I scoot further onto the bed, away from where he stood.
Four months of this psychological torture. Four months of Mike’s thinly veiled threats and wandering hands. Four months of?—
No.
A blue box sits on my nightstand like a ghost from another life. Small, square, unmistakable.
Tiffany blue.
No, no, no.
I reach for it with trembling fingers, afraid it might dissolve into nothing if I touch it. The weight of it in my palm feels impossible, a dream fragment that doesn’t belong in this nightmare.
I’ve searched every inch of this prison a hundred times. The box wasn’t here. Someone placed it while I was at the lab.
Am I imagining things again?
My thumb traces the ridge in the middle, and I’m transported back to the night in the candlelight, when I confessed my silly pre-apocalypse dream to Knox.
A Tiffany blue box.
The symbol of everything I’d lost, everything I’d never have.
I open it up, my lungs refusing to function properly. Inside, nestled between black satin, a princess-cut diamond holds fractured rainbows like glitter.
“Knox,” I breathe his name like a prayer.
It can’t be.
How—
The box slips from my fingers, hitting the floor with a soft thud. The ring remains inside, winking up at me like a cruel joke.
“Mike!” I bolt for the door, slamming my fists against the wood until my knuckles sting. “Get your ass back here! Right fucking now!”
