Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 72854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
The only thing that relieves that thought is the knowledge that Carter enjoys others seeing how I’ve become his. How I obey him while he gives me this freedom. If you can call it that.
My gaze wanders across Carter’s office and lands yet again on a bench that doesn’t belong. It peeks out from under the bookshelf across from me and it simply isn’t supposed to be there.
The wood is old and unfinished, at odds with the dark polished shelves housing beautifully covered books.
The hinges have a hint of rust. I tap the charcoal in my hand against the paper and stare at it. Wondering why Carter would allow it to stay.
“Where did the bench come from?” I ask him on a whim. I haven’t asked him anything. Not for a single thing. Nor have I initiated conversation. But if I have any hope of changing his mind about my father, I have to be able to speak up. And it starts right now, with that bench. Craning my neck to look at him over the desk, from where I’m seated on the floor in front of him, I wait for his reaction.
“Bench?” he questions, although I already know that he knows what I’m referring to.
Pointing straight in front of me, I answer him, “It doesn’t look like it belongs.”
I can hear his chair creak as he leans back, and I know he’s debating on telling me something, although I don’t know what. It’s only an old, beat-up bench.
“Do you want to see what it can do?” he asks me, and the tone of his words catches me off guard. He must sense the hesitation because as he rises and makes his way to the bench, he adds, “It’s a safe box.”
The charcoal in my hand makes a small thud as it hits the paper and I watch Carter open the lid to what I thought was just an old bench.
“It’s bulletproof, and it can only be locked from the inside.”
“Someone could just pick it up…” I state my thought absently and he gives me a small, sad smile.
“If they knew you were in there, they could try, although it’s heavy. So heavy I couldn’t lift it with Daniel the day I got it.”
I let my eyes graze over Carter’s shoulders then back to what I thought was only a bench. I take a quick breath, ready to ask him if it was from his childhood. It’s obviously far too small for him. Although I know I could easily fit. But I don’t question him.
“The lock is here,” he tells me and fiddles with something inside of it that clinks. I have to stand up to see and since I’m standing, I walk closer to him and to the contraption.
“Is it really safe?” I ask him and he’s quiet until I look up at him. His eyes question mine. “As safe as a box can be.”
Now that I’m closer to it, I’m certain I could fit inside. It would be tight. As if reading my mind, Carter tells me, “You’d fit. You’d be safe.”
My eyes drift to the brass locks on the inside. There are only two, but they travel along the entire top edge. A long rod of steel falls down and slips into place when locked. I imagine you could open it with a welding torch, but with all this metal, the person inside would be burned, scarred, maybe killed before the box would actually open.
“Can you breathe in there?” I whisper my question.
Carter nods and runs his finger along small slits in the box, designed so they can’t be seen from the outside, but light filters through them.
I swallow thickly as Carter places a hand on my lower back and asks, “Do you want to get inside?”
I should say no, the fear inside of me is there at the forefront, screaming that the small space is dangerous. It may look like safe, but the cell was much larger, and it was instrumental in my downfall.
But the fear is so minuscule. So quiet. It’s hard to be scared of something so… insignificant when my life is in the hands of a man like Carter. And I think he’d like it if I got inside.
I nod once and as I do, I’m already lifting my right leg. With Carter’s hand to balance me, I slip inside easily.
“The locks are here, but you’ll have to feel for them when the lid is shut, it’ll be dark.”
“Are you going to close it?” I ask him and my heart pounds. I don’t want him to leave me here. He towers over me and answers, “You’d be the one to close and lock it, Aria.”
“Right. Of course,” I say then shake my head and reach for the lid. As if it’s the obvious thing to do. It strikes me then as odd that he would grant me this, a safe place to be away from him. But I could only stay in here so long.