Lake

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

I had no idea how long I’d slept, but I when I woke, nature’s call had been impossible to ignore. And fortunately—or unfortunately—the man had been there, meaning I hadn’t had to wait.

I probably shouldn’t have said anything. Became even more convinced of that as I stood in silence staring at the man, wondering if my gambit would pay off.

They had been the ones to insist that I not ask questions, so I hadn’t. I’d made my needs known.

Now it was on him.

As the seconds ticked by and the man stared at me, unmoving, unblinking, I wondered if I had made a mistake.

I refused to look away, though.

He was trying to intimidate me.

He did intimidate me, but that didn’t mean he had to know it. And besides, I was still convinced that the stronger I seemed, the better this would go for me.

There were practical considerations as well. I was still freezing cold, felt the residual pain of the headache, but all of those discomforts paled in comparison to the pain in my bladder.

I had no idea how long I had been here, but it had to have been a while, and things were going to get messy if I didn’t take care of this problem and soon.

The man didn’t seem to agree.

He just stood, staring at me, waiting.

My discomfort was increasing by the second, but I fought to keep my cool and hold my ground.

And then, finally, a second before I thought I would crack, he stepped to his left, opening a path between himself and the door.

I froze, momentarily surprised. I hadn’t expected him to relent, certain he’d do something like bring a bucket, or tell me to go on the floor. So I was taken aback by the gesture but didn’t allow myself to be stunned for too long.

I left the shoes where I had discarded them and began to walk, the concrete freezing against my bare feet.

I barely felt it.

What I did feel was the burning of the man’s gaze on my back.

That feeling of being watched, the one that I now realized I had been experiencing for weeks, maybe months, was as strong now as it had ever been.

Which made sense.

Even though I couldn’t see the man, and wouldn’t look back, I knew he was watching.

Wondered if he had been the one who watched all those times before.

And somehow, I knew he had been.

My stomach fluttered, a reaction I refused to examine too closely.

Instead I continued to walk, doing my best to seem calm, though I was anything but.

“You need to unlock the door,” I said without turning to look at the man.

“It’s open,” he responded.

Interesting; a piece of information I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with, but interesting nonetheless.

He might have anticipated what I would need, or maybe there was something else to the unlocked door.

I decided not to try to puzzle out his reasoning, and instead reached for the doorknob and pushed the door open.

It was heavy, felt reinforced by some kind of metal.

Heavy enough to do some serious damage.

I acted without thinking, slipping through the door as soon as the crack was wide enough for me to fit.

If it were possible, the floor outside the room was even colder than that inside, but I paid it no mind. Instead I pushed the heavy door back as hard as I could, then let it go and started to run.

Made it exactly one step before a thousand stinging pinpricks stopped me in my tracks.

I had only made it as far as my shoulder-length hair would allow, but then the man tightened his hold and pulled me back.

I didn’t bother to try to writhe away. Who knew how much hair I would lose if I pulled against the man’s iron grip?

Of course, my hair was the least of my concerns.

I had already done one thing to anger him. It was best not to exacerbate the situation.

So instead I stood still, my breath coming out heavy, the adrenaline distracting me from my overfull bladder.

The man held my hair tighter and then twisted me until I was facing him.

“That didn’t work out well the first time you tried it. Why did you attempt it again?” he asked.

I was closer to him than I had ever been before, noticed again that he didn’t look at all how I imagined a crazy kidnapper would.

But I’d learned that the surface almost never reflected what was inside.

Still, I was taken aback by looking at him up close.

He wasn’t handsome, not exactly. Which didn’t mean he was unpleasing to the eye.

He would cause anyone to take a second glance, if not for his face or his dark, hypnotic eyes, then because of his height and powerful physique, as well as the confidence that practically oozed off him.

“That was a question,” I said, pulling myself out of ruminations about his looks and instead focusing on the very dangerous situation I found myself in now.

He didn’t smile, but he didn’t seem angry either.

I would count that as a win.

“Why?” he said.

If anything he seemed curious, which made me curious.

I should have been thinking about this predicament, one that had likely just gotten much worse, but thinking of that was too overwhelming.

Better focus on this small point and not allow my mind to even consider the danger I was in.

“I had to try,” I answered honestly.

It was as simple as that.

Deep down, had I really believed I could get away from this man, use the door as a weapon, and make a run for freedom?

No.

But I’d still had to try.

It was a character flaw that I hated, one that had caused me an immeasurable amount of pain.

Sometimes the best thing to do was give up, give in, but I hadn’t learned that yet, and more importantly, was too damn stubborn to learn it.

That was probably why I still made the decision to draw breath every day when death was the only thing that would have freed me from Vlad.

“Walk,” the man said.

I turned as much as I could with his hand still entangled in my hair and did as he had said.

He hadn’t said anything else, which again left me wondering how he was reacting.

I turned that puzzle over in the back of my mind as I walked down the hall and tried to take in my surroundings.

Concrete floor, what looked to be stone walls. Probably a basement, based on the steep stairs that lay ahead.

I’d seen faces and was now being escorted through a property with no blindfold.

All horrible signs, but then, I didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that I was in trouble.

“Up the stairs,” the man said.

I complied without saying anything, and he followed right behind me, no more than a step between us, his hand still tight in my hair.

Vlad often touched me this way, loved to twist and pull my hair. I hated that, but as fucked up as it was, my reaction was vastly different now.

Maybe it was the stress, the shock of all that had happened, but the feeling of the man’s strong, thick fingers braiding through my hair, his palm against the back of my head, guiding me, yet still forcing me to lead the way was…not unpleasant.

In truth, his hand made me feel grounded…protected.

Which made no sense at all.

He was responsible for bringing me here, had some terrible fate in store for me.

Any care he was taking—if hair pulling could be called care—was only because he mistakenly believed I held some value.

I knew that, at least intellectually, but my emotions were something else altogether.

It had to be the stress, the fear, all the things that had happened over however long it had been since the man had come into the townhouse, leaving me worn out, incapable of thinking clearly.

I knew that and in that moment made a decision.

I wouldn’t try to understand why his hand in my hair was so not-unpleasant. Wouldn’t try to understand why I felt safer now than I had in years.

The reasons didn’t matter.

All that mattered was getting out of this.

So I would do as he said, keep my eyes open, and when a chance came—a real chance—I would take it.