Chapter 14
Paige ran through the thick of the forest. It was night, the moon a shard casting pale white light on the thin trail before her. Branches rattled like bags of bones, and limbs clung to her like cobwebs. She smelled dead fish. Water was nearby. Twigs and stones jabbed into the bottoms of her feet as she limped onward, her chest pounding.
The boughs came alive, snatched her off the ground, constricted around her arms and held her in place. Her body trembled. The trail she’d followed disappeared, swallowed by the trees and brush. The ground beneath her opened a giant maw, reached up, chewed at her legs. She screamed, fought to free herself, but couldn’t break the grip of earth and trees. The tips of the branches picked and probed at her, and everywhere they touched her, pus-filled sores sprouted up on her body. She screamed.
Then light.
Glaring light bathing her.
And the warm aroma of baking bread. Paige’s stomach grumbled with hunger.
She blinked. Blinked again. A bright ceiling lamp rained heat down on her face. Her head rested against something hard, and it took her a moment to realize where she was. The rough bark of the tree no longer tormented her skin. She wasn’t on the tree anymore. She lifted her head, pain shot up the back of her neck, and she stiffened, momentarily closing an eye. The other had swelled shut. Everything in her vision tilted at odd angles.
She sat in a room, her wrists and ankles strapped to a metal chair bolted to the floor. A long mahogany dining room table stretched before her. Her eyes followed its length over several plates and platters covered with white cloth napkins to the opposite end where they found Edward.
Pushing back his chair, he stood. “Good. You’re awake.” Open palmed, he gestured toward the center of the table. “You must be hungry.”
Paige didn’t answer. An empty plate sat in front of her. The table wobbled in her vision and then settled down as if she’d just climbed off a tilt-a-whirl.
Her head pounded harder than the worst case of red wine brain throb. But at least the leather collar was gone. She could no longer feel its thick grip around her throat.
The house was stiflingly warm, even though she was still nude. A large bandage stained red with blood was taped to her chest. The inflamed skin beneath it pulsed with each beat of her heart.
What else had Edward done to her? Molested her while she was unconscious? He’d already assaulted her and exposed the most intimate secret in her life: Her scars. What else could he have done? Had he raped her? It didn’t feel as if he had, but there were many ways to be violated. She thought of his fat fingers between her legs, his huffing breath in her ear, the way he’d pushed her hair over her ear. She shivered at the thought of him touching her again.
Edward uncovered a platter stacked with breaded catfish, a basket of wheat rolls, and bowls of rice and green beans.
“I made plenty,” he said. He spoke in a conversational tone, as if they were on a dinner date and she wasn’t kidnapped, wasn’t naked, wasn’t strapped to the chair.
The gleam in his eyes told her he wanted her reacting instead of thinkingshe’d figured that much out--and she wasn’t going to do it. She didn’t answer him.
“You can have as much of it as you like,” he said. “I would be happy to feed you.”
Disgusting. He obviously wanted her to eat, probably got off on the idea of taking care of her. The smell of the food made her stomach ache for it. She couldn’t remember anything ever smelling so good. The only thing she’d eaten since dinner the night before was a Snicker’s bar out of a snack machine that morning.
Wouldn’t you love feeding me.
She continued to ignore him. She focused on studying her surroundings, holding back her fear.
The living area, dining area, and kitchen were all in one massive room. A yellow couch with a plaid blanket thrown over the top stood in front of an enormous bay window at one end of the room. The window was huge, like something you’d see in an aquarium. She half expected to see sharks or stingrays swimming on the other side of it, but the glass was dark with the coming night. A coffee table stood within easy reach of an old wooden rocker facing a closed armoire not far from the couch.
Edward’s home, if this was his home, wasn’t anything like she would have pictured. She’d had him pegged with his black leather and boots as a post-modern or contemporary meets biker-bar kind of guy.
On the wall across from her stood a large stone fireplace, the mantelpiece barren of knickknacks or photos, as were the walls. This house had nothing personal in it. The impersonal feel of the place was like show homes that builders filled with furnishings so house hunters could get a feel for what it might be like if someone actually lived there. Of course, it was obvious to everyone who walked in the doors that no one really did live there, which made it kind of creepy. And that was the vibe she got from Edward’s house. Everything in it was show. Nothing looked real.
She pulled on the leather straps holding her wrists, testing them. Leather could be manipulated, stretched, even torn in the right conditions. The straps pinched at her skin. There was quite a bit of slack in the restraints, but not enough for her to slip a hand out. A simple belt-like buckle at the bottom held the restraints around her wrists. If she could only get one hand out. That’s all it would take. Then she would be free in seconds.
“I see you’re still playing rebellious,” Edward said.
Copper cooking pots hung from a rack above a granite top island in the kitchen. Just let me get a hold of one of those pots, and I’ll show you playing rebellious.
The cabinets and cupboards beyond the copper pots were a weathered yellow. A white curtain hung in front of a window above the sink. It had to be the window she’d looked in while chained to the tree.
He stared at her, his eyes pulling hers to his. Something in his eyes had always made him look dangerous. She had to admit she’d once found that part of him attractive, but now it made him seem more like a creature than a man. His eyes had a grayish cast like those of a dog or a wolf. She remembered his eyes being a deep hazel when they met, not gray. There was a flatness behind them that unnerved her.
He didn’t say anything, didn’t move. He was waiting for her to answer. Let him wait.
Edward picked up a roll, knifed a small amount of butter on it, took a bite. “The rolls are still warm. Quite delicious.”
As fragrant as the food smelled, especially the bread, and as much as she thought she might need the strength it could provide, she couldn’t imagine eating anything he had touched. Besides, what she really wanted was something to drink. Between her yelling and whatever drug he had given her to knock her out, her throat feel abraded, as if it had been roughed up with sandpaper and stuffed with tissue. It was so dry it nearly gagged her.
“You know, you’re going to have to learn to answer me when I speak to you or I’m going to become very displeased,” he said. “I’ve been quite tolerant.”
She tried to swallow away the thirst from her throat. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, her voice cracking. “Why me?”
She wondered at the calmness and fearlessness that seemed to be welling up from somewhere deep inside her. Was it because she had known him as a client? She didn’t know. He had drugged her. She knew that. She still felt somewhat disoriented from whatever he had given her, and she thought maybe her calmness could be some kind of side effect. Wherever her composure came from, she was thankful for it.
“First, you should eat,” he said.
She kept her eyes scanning the room. “I’m not hungry.”
Two stainless steel doors stood at the far end of the kitchen. She’d never seen anything like them in a house. They reminded her of meat locker doors. One of those doors had to lead out, but she wasn’t sure which.
Edward stepped around the table and strode to her with the knife in one hand and the roll in the other. As he approached, the words “for
ce feeding” went through her mind. Her chest constricted, and it felt as if an army of red ants were biting the cuts he’d made on her chest. Her hands trembled, and she gripped the armrests of the chair so Edward wouldn’t be able to tell. So much for her feelings of calmness and fearlessness.
He squatted down until he was face to face with her, brushed her hair out of her eyes.
“You look hungry,” he said.
“Well, I’m not.”
“Did I ever tell you how my grandmother loves to fish?” he asked. “She taught me how, used to take me fishing every month. Now I take her. She loves a good struggle with a nice big cat.”
Well, good for you. You psycho. It didn’t shock her that he had a grandmother who cared for him. That was how things in her world had always worked. People who didn’t deserve a grandma had one who would take them fishing. The people who really needed one ended up strapped to a chair in a lunatic’s house.
“I caught the fish yesterday,” he said. “Out of one of my stocked ponds. They’re corn fed, deep-fried. Very tasty. It’s Grandma’s recipe.”
He ran the edge of the roll he’d bitten into across her lips basting them in a thin film of butter. Her stomach grumbled in yearning.
“See? You are hungry,” he said.
Paige turned her head away and spat the butter off her lips. “What are you going to do to me?”
“You should eat. I know you like fish.”
He was so close she could smell cinnamon toothpaste on his breath. It cured her hunger, nearly made her vomit. She bit back the bile. “I said I’m not hungry. I won’t eat.”
Her body tensed for the blow. None came.
Edward stood back up, placed the roll on her empty plate, and strolled back to his chair.
“I am thirsty,” she said. “May I have something to drink?”
She hated asking, but each breath burned her throat. In her ears the pleading quality of her voice sounded revolting. She was appalled by the thought of drinking anything that was his, but she couldn’t help herself. She had to have something to drink.
He turned back toward her, pursed his lips together, and then nodded.
A hand touched Paige on the shoulder. She jumped and the straps pulled at her wrists. She would have leapt out of the chair had her restraints not held her firmly in place. They weren’t alone.