Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
“We’re going to be stuck together for a month. At least,” I continued my attempt to create some kind of dialogue between us. My plan of being a bitch and giving him the cold shoulder going up in flames. More flies with honey and all that. “I figure even you can’t talk in veiled threats and bad guy speech for that long. And we’re the only company we have. So…” I nodded to the tea. “An olive branch. One that you could reciprocate by, you know, going to the closest town to buy me something that isn’t dead animal. Not that I judge your eating habits. You do you.” I tucked my hair behind my ear with a free hand, not having felt this awkward since I was thirteen, trying to talk to a boy I liked.
Granted, he hadn’t kidnapped me, been over six feet, radiating menace from his pores, but he’d felt just as scary at the time.
And it hadn’t gone well. He’d been one of the cooler kids, and I’d taken a while to grow into my features. I always wore clothes that were slightly too small—even on my skinny frame—and blatantly cheap. It was clear we were poor, and things like socioeconomic status was fair game back then.
It had scared me off talking to boys for a long while. Then I grew boobs, and my features fit my face a little better. The boys did most of the talking, though. Not that they said anything worth listening to.
Knox had barely blinked during my babble session, nor had his features softened at all.
“You know, if the wind changes, your face will stay that way,” I joked lamely. “Or maybe it already has, and that’s why you’re always so…” I tried to school my features into his menacing expression but likely didn’t pull it off.
I’d been aiming to crack him a little by being a bit silly. But there wasn’t so much as a hairline fracture. He likely thought I was a ridiculous person.
That was fine. The goal was to have him thinking of me as a person instead of a job, a victim.
He looked from me to the tea.
Then, with the utmost patience and grace, he wrapped his hand around the tea, lifted it carefully and slowly, then hurled it at the wall. It shattered and splashes of hot water caught my face.
I flinched. Though I wanted to scream, scuttle away in terror, it took all of my self-control to stay in place; my mouth tasted of copper as I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood.
His chair screeched as he stood. He didn’t move toward me as I expected him to do. Part of his routine—getting in my face, using his size to intimidate me and threaten me. Though he stayed where he was, the distance between us didn’t help my blood pressure any.
“We won’t need to be here for a month,” he sneered, eyeing me as if I were little more than a gnat buzzing around his face. “You’ll break long before that.”
Then he walked out.
My shaking hand lifted to sip my tea. I was trying to pretend I wasn’t rattled, while my teeth literally chattered against the rim of the mug.
“No, I won’t,” I called to his back.
But even I didn’t believe me.
Eight
One Week Later
Piper
My lungs were crying out for mercy.
Same with my thighs. My hamstrings were taut, feeling as if they might just snap at any moment. The growling in my stomach had stopped, replaced by a gnawing, seemingly endless emptiness. All I thought about was food. I’d scoured the woods already, looking for edible plants. There were none. Or my brain had forgotten how to distinguish food from poison. Soon, I wouldn’t care. Soon, I’d be stuffing any plant into my mouth, willing to risk death just to stop the pain.
Every night, I sat at the dinner table with Knox as he ate juicy cuts of meat that smelled better and better every time. He always put some on my plate. I didn’t have to sit there, he didn’t force me at gunpoint. He didn’t do anything to me at gunpoint. He wasn’t holding me hostage against my will.
Although he wasn’t cutting me with a blade, his stare, his presence, was just as sharp. My body was constantly in a state of fight-or-flight, unable to rest properly.
The days were long. Not just because I got up at dawn to run in the woods. Knox didn’t follow me like he had that first morning, but his eyes did from the moment I got out of bed.
I did my best to ignore him, even though my entire body hummed with fear and desire and hatred.
Yes, I hated him. For being so calm, for being so unflappable. So resistant to my charm, immune to anger. Even when he’d hurled the mug at the wall, he hadn’t done it out of fury. He’d done it calmly. To make a point. That was so much worse.