Page 14 of Santa Daddy
Ice threaded down my spine.
“I see everything, Daniela.” He let my full name roll off his tongue like something he might enjoy later. “Remember that.”
He closed the door behind him.
Locks engaged. A soft mechanical snick that landed like a verdict.
I stood in the middle of the prettiest room I’d ever seen. Wrapped in a killer’s coat. My bell collar still jingling faintly when I breathed.
Outside, snow drifted past the floor-to-ceiling windows. White and pure and silent, frosting the city in temporary innocence.
Inside, I sank down on the edge of the massive bed. The mattress cradled me like it had been designed for my exact weight. It was like lying on a cloud.
A very expensive cloud in a cage I hadn’t chosen.
Very slowly, so the cameras would see nothing but compliance, I reached up. Fingertips brushed the metal bell at my throat.
It chimed.
Soft. Bright. Wrong.
The city glittered. Christmas lights blinked. Somewhere people sang carols and wrapped presents and debated eggnog.
I watched it all through bulletproof glass.
And realized with sick, crawling certainty that the world I’d known had ended in a tree lot.
This was my new one.
Marble. Glass. Cameras. A white Christmas tree that looked like it had been murdered and resurrected by an interior designer.
And a man upstairs who owned the building. The cops. The men who’d wanted to put a bullet in my skull.
And now, apparently, me.
I lay back on the cloud and stared up at the ceiling, wide awake.
Already counting the ways to break out of a gilded cage.
Already wondering if I wanted to escape it or sink deeper into it.
3
DRIPPING WATER, BURNING SKIN
DANI
Iwoke to Egyptian cotton and the taste of fear fermenting on my tongue.
Afternoon light bled through curtains I hadn't closed. My mouth tasted like I'd been sucking on pennies; that copper tang of anxiety mixed with morning breath. The guest bed held me like a secret, sheets twisted from dreams where large hands and ice-pale eyes featured too prominently.
The apartment was silent. I attempted to open the locked door and, to my surprise, it was no longer locked.
Too silent.
I padded out barefoot, the marble floor arctic against my skin. Each step echoed in the emptiness.
"Hello?"
