Page 28 of The Freedom in Captivity

I don’t fight him. Not sure I’d be able to anymore. I’m exhausted, not sleeping more than an hour at a time, and starved. The lack of light has fucked up my internal cycle.

“What the fuck did you just say?”

“Ma lune.I dreamed of when I gave you that nickname, and you started calling memon soleil.”

With a snarl, he releases me roughly and gets to his feet again. “You are everything opposite of my sun now.”

“Telling me or yourself? It can’t be morning already, which means you’re visiting sooner than normal.” A complete guess, but it feels like I haven’t slept through the night. If my math is right, it’s the middle of the night. “No?” I add with a challenge.

His eyes narrow and his jaw clamps somehow even tighter when he paces around the pole. He crouches again and I feel his soft fingers sweep my pulse as he undoes my chains.

This conversation certainly didn’t earn my freedom, which means, he’s about to find some other way to hurt me.

He hauls me to my feet, roughly jerking me around like I’m a doll. Suddenly, the rope around my hands is also gone, and he’s lowering the blade that seemingly appeared from nowhere into his boot.

Good to know where that is.

“You seem a little wound up.” Through a weakened state, my lips spread in a slow smirk.

“Would there be another reason I’m fuckin’ awake at three in the morning and down here?” His grumble is lined with an annoyance that I can’t help but be pleased at, even when he tugs me to the opposite end of the basement.

We pass the sleeping bag and pillow he dropped down here the first night, and I nearly beg him for it, except I won’t give him that satisfaction.

“I had a nightmare,” he adds.

“About me?” It’s only right he’s dreaming about me as well. It means the past is fucking with us both.

Flynn doesn’t respond, which tells me I’m right. Keeping one grip on my upper arm, he reaches up for the attached chains looped around a metal pipe running across the ceiling. He pulls them down and moves me into position.

No.Hard limit. I’ll play this torture game because this is what I signed up for, but I’m not hanging from my wrists for an unknown length of time.

I jerk away from his hold, only for his fingers to tighten, for his movements to be quick and methodical as he clamps a cuff around one wrist, locking it in place. With me stuck, he releases me entirely, knowing I can’t run. It doesn’t stop me from lifting my entire weight onto the chain, testing its restraint.

“Is this necessary?”

“Very much so.” He reaches for my wrist, but I shy away from him, narrowing my eyes in a glare.

“I’d rather return to the pole.”

He reaches for me again, but I bend out of the way, aware that at the end of this, he’ll win, considering I have nowhere to go.

He moves like a snake, quickly, and suddenly, his body is pressing against mine, the chain around one wrist, meaning I have nowhere else to escape; I’ve reached my limit. He’s a few inches taller than me, so he looks down, but I’m not focusing on his face. Rather, the sheer size of his body, his muscles, the arms that flex, the tattoos running up and down his arms. The lighting is dim down here, so I can’t make out much of the black.

Without a word, his hand grasps my wrist and wraps his fingers around it, holding tightly. A finger presses against a specific nerve in my hand, I know all too well—thanks, Dad.I fight; he pinches; it hurts like hell.

Slowly, making his point, he brings my arm up and clamps the second cuff around it. With a final challenging glare that says,I won, he smirks and moves away.

“Asshole.”

Stuck in the chains, my arms held above my head, I realize that chaining me to a pole and a chair were the better options. How long is he planning on keeping me like this? I give it an hour at most before my arms are numb. And that’s not counting the stab wound in my leg that’s been healing well, according to the friendly doctor who comes down here with Flynn each day. Standing on it isn’t painful, but it’s certainlynotnot painful.

Flynn takes two paces back to position himself directly in front of me, and any sign of annoyance or amusement from the struggle to get me chained is long gone. For the first time since being captured, fear weaves its way through my body, freezing my nerves and numbing my insides.

It’s what’s in his eyes that has me feeling like this. Not hate like before. Not annoyance.

Death.

Is that what this is? Am I out of time and Corsettis are finished with me? Mentally, I try to count the passing days. It hasn’t been enough; if I say anything now, they’ll attack, and I can’t risk them potentially losing.

---