I had hoped to find the conservatory lacking so that I could use the excuse to leave this room. To make a dash for freedom. But I was misguided by this thought because the conservatory has most of the things I would need to leave the room for.

Javi has thought of everything. 

My own toiletries await me in the bathroom. I don't know how many of my most private moments he has watched from his cameras, but if I thought I could forget that for even a second, I was wrong. This is the cold, hard reminder. 

Upon further exploration, I find a mini bar stocked with bottles of water. Water that I drink so greedily, I end up with a stomachache. But perhaps the greatest discovery is what I find at the far end of the conservatory. An entire library. 

A library in the middle of paradise. And if it weren't also my prison, I might cry at the sheer beauty of this incredible sanctuary that Javi keeps hidden from the world. 

I've never seen so many books in all my life. I've never seen such a grand home in all my life. The Victorian architecture, the plush furniture, the stained-glass windows and antique conversation pieces- they are all things that speak to me. Things I would have dreamed of one day having in my own home.

In the back of my mind, I wonder if this is intentional. If he wants me to love this beautiful room where he holds me captive. If it is a conspiracy or mere chance that when the sky falls at night, it casts a blue light over everything inside and the stars shine through the ceiling to dance on the floor below.

Is it all by design?

It gives me hope, and yet it confuses me. 

There is not even a remote possibility that Javi cares about how I feel. I can’t make sense of his motivations. Why has he been watching me? What does he want me for? The mystery only becomes more muddled as my time goes on here.  But it feels important. If I can understand what drives him, then I can find a way to get past it.

It's my only hope. 

I must get to know the real Javi. The one that hides beneath the shadows and the hood and the wild beard. 

And until then, I must bide my time. 

* * *

Javi comes again at lunch to deliver a sandwich, and like my meals before, he tells me I must earn it. I don’t have to ask him how because he came prepared. With a cup of dry rice.

He makes me kneel on the grains for twenty minutes before he allows me to eat. He watches me the entire time. Silent. Brooding. Cloaked in darkness and secrets.

I grit my teeth through the pain and wonder how he became this way. What happened to make him such a monster? I don’t ask him, and he doesn't speak to me again, except to tell me I can eat before he leaves quickly after. 

And so continues my life over the next week. I read all day, every day, and do little else. 

After checking the bathroom for cameras and finding it empty, I take a few baths as well. When I've grown tired of reading and need something else to keep me busy, I request a notebook and pen from Javi. But what he delivers this evening has the blood draining from my face. 

It's my journal. My already half full journal. He hands it to me and tries to leave. My voice stops him. 

"Did you read this?" 

His back is turned away from me, shoulders tense. He doesn't speak, and I know... I just know that he has. 

"What is wrong with you?" I demand. "Do you even realize how fucked up this is? You watching me on cameras and listening to me in my own home. Kidnapping me... and now this... reading my journal..."

I choke on the words, and strangely enough, that feels like the worst of his offenses. Because these words are private. 

So very private. 

So very shameful. 

My face is hot even thinking about him exploring the darkest and most intimate corners of my mind. 

"You had no right!" I yell at him. "Let me go." 

He turns deliberately on his heel. Slow. Too slow. Deadly and massive. Looming over me like a black cloud. I back away, but there's nowhere for me to go. I'm pinned between him and the bed. 

"I had no right?"

His voice is deceptively soft. And for a moment, I think that I am safe. That it's going to be okay. Until he reaches out and catches me by the chin, arresting my face in his unyielding hand. 

"I have every right," he thunders. "You belong to me!" 

My lungs fight for air when he drags me closer, the pulse in my neck beating a wild staccato against my delicate skin. Javi sees it. He sees everything. And he likes what he sees.

He likes to taste my fear.

But it isn’t just fear anymore. It’s something else too. A force of nature that can’t be contained. It’s a thrill. An adrenaline rush. A rollercoaster of want and need and hate and revulsion.

His breath whispers over my lips as he leans into my face. And I am not the only one at odds with my feelings. Javi is walking a razor’s edge of control, his eyes swinging from destruction to obsession and back again. I never know which side of him will win. So I remain still and quiet, waiting for the storm to pass. 

His fingers drift over my face. Soft and gentle and full of reverence. I don't understand. 

What's more, I don't understand my response to him. He has conditioned me to accept his touch so freely. Not only do I accept it, but I find solace in it. Pleasure, even.

“I told you to be a good girl,” he says. “I warned you.”

“I’m sorry.”

"Just one taste," Javi whispers to himself. "Just one." 

He kisses me. 

It shocks me back to life before I die all over again in his arms. I can’t grasp what's happening. He’s never kissed me before. And it feels so different.  His lips are soft and warm until they aren't. 

When my lips part, his tongue invades and conquers. He drinks me in. He nourishes his obsession. And he devours me. What started as a simple taste now feels like he is taking a part of my soul. His arms hold me prisoner so he can take from me what he wants. 

He doesn’t need to. Not anymore. Not when I am giving myself freely. Not when I am kissing him back. Drinking him in and nourishing my psychosis.

Without warning, he pulls away. Breathless, we stare at each other. Feverish cravings ignite the air between us. I thirst for him, still. And he hungers for me. But Javi can’t and won’t admit it.

The want in his eyes burns out, and malevolent storm clouds roll in. This is always the way with him. He reels me in and tosses me away.

I can’t figure out what he wants from one minute to the next. Everything is a minefield, and I don’t have the strength left to navigate.

I’m shaking my head already. Begging him not to do this. But my pleas fall on deaf ears. He drags me from the room. I dig my heels into the floor. I fight back this time. But it’s futile.

He takes me to another part of the house. Cold and isolated. And in this room, there is nothing more than a wire cage.

I cling to his sweatshirt when he tries to push me away.

“Please, Javi. Please no. I will do anything. Anything you want. Please don’t do this.”

He smiles beneath the shadow of the hood, and his lips are cruel.

“Good, sweet Bella. Because this is what I want.”

He shoves me into the cage- big enough for a dog- and engages the lock on the door before I can resist any further.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask through my tears. “Why? My father loved you! He did everything for you.”

This is the wrong thing to say.And I never could have known the impact of this statement. I never could have known what it would provoke in him.

His fist shoots through the wire slot and wraps around my throat without warning. And this time, it is not a game.

He is choking me. Watching the light dim from my eyes as I scratch at his hands. I think this is really it. This is how I will die. I never saw it coming. My hands fall limp at my sides, and I lose the will to fight. Only then does he release me. Rattling the cage with his fists and growling into my face.

I scamper back into the corner and curl into myself, unexpectedly grateful for the lock that separates us.

“He did everything for me?” he roars. “And this is why you are here, beauty. Because you are blind to the real monsters. The ones you’ve lived with all your life.”

Tears track down my face as I shake my head in refusal. Denial.

“My father is a good man.”

“Is?” Javi mocks. “How hopeful of you to believe his heart still beats.”

“Was it you?” I accuse. “Did you kill him?”

He laughs, and it is callous.

“If I had killed him, Bella, you would know. For I would have delivered him back to you in pieces.”

Now it is me who is unhinged. I grip the wire of the cage and rattle it as I scream into his face.

“I hate you!”

“Good,” he replies. “That hatred will serve you well, my sweet. That hatred will be the only thing you have left when I am finished with you.”