Page 92 of A Step You Shouldn't Take

“What the…? I don’t understand.”

Another face, another voice, this one farther along the room. “Welcome to the asylum. I’m Jacqueline, and she’s Katia. We also have Isla, Hailee, Gina, Fern, Emma, Dawn, Carolina, Brianna, and Abigail. Plus your friend there, whose name I’m guessing begins with L?”

Oh hell, oh hell, oh hell.My heart began pounding along with my head as her words sank in. “Jacqueline? Jacqueline Springer?”

“You know who I am?” She sounded surprised.

“I’ve been helping to look for the man who took you.” Then the full implications of her words hit. “Emma? Emma Cullen?”

A voice answered from the gloom. “That’s me.”

Lower pitched than I’d expected. Husky. Emma was alive!

“Reed’s looking for you. And Wyatt too. They’ll find us.”

“You know my brother?”

Not as well as I wanted to. A sob welled up inside my throat, and I swallowed it back down.

“I first met him a few weeks ago when I hired him to find the man who drugged me.”

“And that was Peter?”

“Peter? Who’s Peter?”

“The man who locked us up down here.”

“He told me his name was Tim.”

Another voice came from the furthest part of the room, softer this time. “He lies all the time. He’s delusional. I’m Abigail Bloom, by the way. Peter’s psychiatrist and the first player in this strange little game.”

I almost choked. “His psychiatrist? Are you joking?”

“I only wish I was.”

“He kidnapped his psychiatrist?”

“Go figure. After I told him I was moving to Hawaii with my fiancé, he just kind of…unravelled.” I heard the incredulity in her voice. “Totally missed that one.”

“What were you treating him for?”

“Low self-esteem. He had trouble connecting with women.”

“You mean this is all the result of his inability to get a girlfriend?”

“Well, it goes a little deeper than that, but basically, yes.”

“And he just keeps you in cages?”

“Mostly. He lets us out one at a time to amuse him. Sometimes two at a time.”

“Amuse him?” Oh, freaking hell. The implications of that became clear in my head, and I leaned to the side of the bed and threw up the remnants of yesterday’s wine. “N-n-not… Notthat?”

“Fortunately for us, one of his issues is erectile dysfunction disorder.”

“Erectile what?”

Emma cut in. “He can’t get it up.”

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