Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 55445 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55445 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
In the nightmares, Damien decides that I’m too risky of an investment, and he decides to get rid of me. In the first dreams, he calls someone else to do it. When I finally fall into a fitful slumber, that’s when the true horror begins. In those dreams, Damien ends me himself. With his bare hands. I wake up sweating and wanting to scream out in horror, but I don’t want to draw any attention to myself. I want to remain calm.
The next day, four days into my captivity, I determine that if Damien leaves, I will snoop more. I test the doors when he’s on the way to the kitchen—they are all locked. Damn. I plan to check every day, regardless. Certainly they won’t all be locked forever.
But several days in, and I lose track of the exact count of days and go back to my half-imaginings on what Damien’s plans for me might be.
I realize that in every strange reality that I concoct, the real horror isn’t that Damien is going to do whatever I fear. It is that in order to enact the particular intents in each of my dreams, he's getting rid of me. I can’t help but fear leaving Damien’s custody. While I suppose it is better the devil I know, I deeply wish I didn’t so that I could stop myself from feeling a single iota of safety at the idea of Damien. He owns me. My parents handed me over to him. In what way is the man I should trust the man who takes me from my parents, humiliates me, and then practically ignores me in some macabre extended sleepover of nightmares? I know that the truth is that despite the fact that Damien frightens me, and confuses me, ultimately, he intrigues me.
Despite reading every ounce of danger in his being. Feeling the intensity in his lust-filled stolen glances. Knowing that he knows I’m a virgin and clearly wanted to act on that, yet he doesn’t. Despite every logical piece of data in front of me, none of that computes so clearly as the fact that I'm attracted to Damien. On a primal, hungry level of my own I desire his attention. It’s strange. The amount of particular care put into my day-to-day existence is more attention than anyone has ever paid me in my life. Yet, he’s not speaking to me. Not touching me. Not looking at me unless he thinks I’m not looking. Why is Damien tending to my needs but keeping me at a distance?
When Damien arrives at dinner that night, I decide that despite my better judgment, I will break the silence. When I look up at him, my lips part to speak, and Damien finally says the fist thing I’ve heard spoken in ages. “Don’t speak unless I tell you to.”
I feel the air in the room shift. I didn’t speak, and I don’t speak now. How could I after the warning in his voice? I savor the sound of it, but a chill washes over me that I don’t shake for days.
7
Sarah
Another morning, another breakfast, and I’m timid and cautious. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel any more than I understand what I do feel. I push around my breakfast and finally eat it. When I dare look up at Damien, he’s almost done and he seems to be distracted. When I finish, he waves me up and I follow him toward the foyer.
“I won’t be back this evening,” Damien says, his hand brushing my back as he heads out the door, past me on the way to my room after breakfast. It's oddly domestic that we have this schedule, and him actually telling me about his planned absence, plus the touch, is nearly intimate. A thrill shoots through my blood, long after the door is closed, and he’s certainly long gone. I need to think about snooping. I tell myself I will, but first I hold myself and think about how I feel right now. Where has my good sense gone?
How can I allow myself to be excited by Damien? I know he is a danger. I tasted what that danger is like.... and I can't do this. My body has responded to him when I met him, but I'm not sure I can ever feel something so intense again and survive it. A fantasy, alone, is enticing. But I need to be able to get a real breather, get a game plan together, and get back to school. I think about school because I haven’t been thinking about it. I’m guilty for resigning myself to being some kind of captive, kept girl, instead of a college student with a life of my own. My parents, they gave me to this man. He thinks that he owns me now. He has no idea what I am. That I needed to get away from my home as well and so let myself be taken.