It was supposed to happen the next day.

Ellis had told me Pia would be paying me a visit, and I couldn’t sleep all night, wondering what the next day might entail. The mute maid arrived first, and she left a trolley as usual. I got out of bed, stretching lazily and glancing at myself in the mirror.

I was wearing a silk teddy with white lace adorning the edges, and my hair looked all messed up but still pretty, thanks to those highlights.

Sitting down on the chair, I pulled the trolley closer and was disappointed to only find bland oatmeal and water on the plate. I’d realized by then that before things happened, I was usually served a small meal, meant to prepare me for the events of the day. I assumed Pia wanted me to look my best for my big performance.

After I ate, I spent a couple of hours reading a romance novel from the bookshelf in my room, and I did my stretches like I had started doing. I knew I had to keep my hopes high and my body ready. The second I got out of the mansion, I would return to my dancing life, and I would need to be prepared. I was already going to suffer because I hadn’t been training properly for months. But I would do my best to keep my body in shape.

While I stretched, I glanced at the camera above me. It was always blinking red, and for the umpteenth time, I wondered who was looking at the feed. It must have been Ellis or one of the other guards who had played with me. Maybe even a woman… Pia could have been watching. She seemed obsessed with anything I did and had scolded me on numerous occasions for eating too much or drinking too little. She seemed almost more paranoid about my weight than I was, and I often wondered why she was fixating on me so much with so many other girls in the house.

I decided to stroll around the house for a while. I hadn’t exactly made any friends there because I didn’t want to feel guilty when I finally got my chance to escape. I needed to look after myself. My goal was to escape, not to make friends. The only girl I saw every day without fail was the skinny dark-haired one who always sat in the bay window. She was there no matter what time of the day I came. Sometimes I decided to see if she was sitting there very early, and she always was. Part of me wondered whether she ever moved. I hadn’t seen her in motion yet.

I saw her again that morning. She looked beautiful as ever, but also painfully thin. Her skin was stretched over her bones, and I wondered whether she ate at all.

Just like I always did, I sat down next to her in the bay window. She never acknowledged me, but for some reason, I found her presence soothing. We stared out at the sea together, and I asked myself whether I’d ever be able to go out there, to feel the ocean and the sand between my toes. I didn’t know how to swim, but I was excited to learn someday. I’d have to get out of my prison first, though…

Still busy staring outside, I barely noticed the girl next to me. It took me a couple of seconds to realize she’d turned toward me and was staring at me intently.

I returned her gaze, the intensity of her eyes making me wonder what she was going to say. Yet she didn’t speak a word, just kept looking at me in that way, which was almost a little disturbing.

“What?” I whispered, surprised by her sudden interaction. She’d ignored me for months – what had changed now?

She held out a hand and I reached out to her. She took my hand in hers and placed a small object in my palm. I realized we were alone in the room, nervously looking around us only to find no one around. It was very early, and while I heard the chatter of the girls in the hall, there was nobody in the living area.

“For what?” I asked her, and she motioned towards the hall.

The main door.

She’d just given me the card that unlocked the main door.

She stood up and walked over to the hallway leading into the hall. I followed her, too entranced to say a word about what she was doing. Maybe she was like the maid, maybe her tongue had been cut out and that’s why she was unable to speak.

We walked into the main hall together. I noticed there was only one guard this early in the morning, and he looked at us with desire in his eyes as we walked in. The girl next to me seemed to be aware of his attention, and she stroked her body with slow, tantalizing motions as he watched her. He cleared his throat and looked around to make sure we were alone, then approached her slowly, already forgetting about me.

The raven-haired girl winked at me, and I walked away, stunned. Was she really going to help me escape? And get herself into big trouble in the process… If she was distracting the guard, there was no way she’d be able to escape with me. So, she was sacrificing herself for someone she barely knew.

I didn’t have time to wonder about it.

I just walked towards the main door, glancing over my shoulder to find the guard kissing her neck while the girl watched me. As I was walking, I stumbled, and the card fell from my grasp. My heart was beating a million miles a minute when I bent down to get it, but there was someone else faster than me.

An elegant hand reached down, long lacquered fingers wrapping around the card and picking it up.

“Lost something?” she asked, and my cheeks burned with fire as I looked up at her.

Pia.

She’d just ruined my one chance of escaping this place, the best one I’d gotten so far. And she was wearing a serene smile as she did it, twirling the card between her fingers.

“Someone must have dropped it,” I replied calmly. “I was just about to return it. It looks like your guard is preoccupied.”

I motioned towards my new friend and the guard that was now openly kissing the girl’s breasts. But Pia didn’t look away from me, her gaze harsh as she stared me down. She wasn’t going to go down easy. She knew I was trying to escape, but she didn’t have any proof so she couldn’t do a thing. Still, I worried about a possible punishment until a fake as fuck smile lit up her stunning face.

“Not a bother,” she said. “We’ll deal with him. And we’ll make sure she doesn’t get out of her cage again.”

Cage?

Who was the dark-haired girl? And had I just doomed her to spend the rest of her time here in a cage?

She took my arm in hers, her long talon-like nails digging into my skin as she led me away, up the stairs. I looked over my shoulder and saw the dark-haired girl looking at me intensely. Her eyes were apologetic, even though she’d done nothing wrong, and I hated myself for letting her down like that. She was the closest thing I had to a friend in there, despite the fact we’d never said a word to one another.

Pia led me to my room, her smile bordering on a snarl as we entered my own space. She walked inside briskly and began checking everything. Under the duvet, under the bed, in the closet. She rummaged through everything like a woman possessed and I just stared at her in shock, unsure of what was happening.

“What do you think you’re going to find?” I asked her bitterly, but she didn’t give me the time of day, just kept searching.

I sat down in front of the vanity and watched her with crossed arms. My heart was beating nervously, wondering if she’d find the sleeping pills I was supposed to take all that time ago. But she didn’t, and she came to stand in front of me with her hands on her hips as I tried to hide my relief.

“I know you’re up to something,” she said. “I know you’re trying to get away.”

I didn’t say a word as she leaned down, her beautiful face close to mine, twisted into a vicious snarl.

“I really don’t know what he sees in you,” she spat out, grabbing my cheeks and turning my head from side to side.

“You’re hurting me,” I hissed, but she paid me no mind, inspecting me closely.

This close, she looked even more infuriatingly perfect than she did from afar. Her skin was gorgeous, without a single blemish or freckle. her deep-set eyes were dark and sexy, and her lips were plump and rosy. I envied her. The beauty, the grace she moved with almost made her look like a dancer, though I doubted she knew anything about ballet. She hadn’t mentioned it once to me.

Still, the infuriated expression on her face made her seem more savage, rougher. I stared back at her without fear. I wondered if she was jealous of me, of the attraction Ellis obviously had for me. I’d never really thought of them together, but perhaps there was something there, and that made her angry because she thought he’d chosen me. She had nothing to worry about. I was going to get out of there and never look back, and I didn’t give a shit about Ellis anyway. All I had for him in my heart was resentment and the need for revenge for what he’d done to me.

“I see right through you,” she told me plainly, and then she finally let go, turning around.

I rubbed my cheek which still hurt from her claws, but I didn’t say a thing, instead waiting for her to look back at me. Her mask was firmly in place now and she was the beautiful, graceful Pia I had come to know so well. She was all business now, whatever had happened in the hall long forgotten in favor of what we had to do to prepare me for the worst day of my life.

“Time to get you ready,” she said with a wide grin. “We need you to look perfect tonight, after all. Don’t we?”

I nodded meekly, too scared to give her a proper reply. She was a loose cannon – one wrong look or word and she’d be all over me. She picked up a makeup brush from the counter and started working on my face, and I watched her without glancing at my own reflection. She was going through something, that was for sure. Her hand was shaking, and when she finished applying my blusher, I looked like a clown. I let out a little giggle when I looked at myself in the mirror, but when I shifted my attention to Pia, I noticed she was on the verge of tears.

“Hey,” I said gently, reaching for her hand adorned with ring after ring. “Are you all right?”

She snatched her hand away from me, and the fake smile was back in place, as bright as ever. Just like that, my chance of a confidante was gone.

“I’m fine,” she snapped. “Now, let’s focus on making you as beautiful as we possibly can. Big day today, isn’t it?”

I nodded miserably and let her get back to work.

By the time she was finished, I could barely recognize myself. Maybe it was a good thing. After what they’d done to me, I would never be the same girl again.