Chapter Twelve
I spend the evening working at the plain desk, a stack of empty paper beside me where I can try out various ciphers. The Caeser cipher is a basic substitution of alphabet letters, really only child’s play. One displacement makes B mean A and C mean B. Two displacements, three. There are twenty-five distinct ciphers, assuming both sets of alphabets go in the proper order.
If the letters are jumbled, there are over 400 trillion permutations to try. And that doesn’t even get into homophonic substitutions. Or the infinite number of other forms of codes.
The only thing I know for sure is that we’re in big trouble.
It’s like trying to crack a modern-day bank safe with a hammer and a pick. It’s technically possible but only if you have eternity. That’s how Dr. Stanhope has taught me to think—in abstract absolutes.
Meanwhile there are two lines of text that have a very real application.
I’m used to late nights with my head bent over my paper, but my neck aches by the time I turn off the light and climb into the cot. It’s surprisingly comfortable for what amounts to a pad of cotton—or maybe I’m too exhausted to care. It seems like a hundred years ago that I stepped into a cab at the Emerald’s staff driveway to head to the airport.
My view isn’t so different from the one there. A small rectangular ceiling on top of a small rectangular room. That’s how I justify my decision to stay. I couldn’t go back to Daddy’s apartment, not with the lock busted. And I don’t have money to blow on even a cheap motel.
That reasoning worked for me when I sat down to work, more focused on the code than my sleeping arrangements. It feels a little more sinister as I look at the door that leads to Damon’s bedroom—the only way out of here.
He was a gentleman when I used the bathroom to change into a loose T-shirt and sweatpants. When I brushed my teeth. How long will that last? What if I have to get up in the middle of the night?
There’s plenty of room in the bed with him. Would I have felt safer if he expected me to sleep beside him? No, I wouldn’t. But I would have felt more like his equal.
With this move he’s making it clear that I’m not.
The small silver dome of the bell barely glints in the darkness. What if he rings the bell? Am I supposed to answer it? I definitely couldn’t sleep through it if he tried. And what would he ask me to do? To get him a cup of water? What did rich people need at night that they can’t do themselves?
My cheeks heat as I think of a darker purpose for that bell.
He might want a different kind of service.
I won’t do that. I won’t. But I can’t deny the way my body responds to the idea. It always seems to get warm when he’s around, my skin flushed, my clothes suddenly chafing.
That’s how I fall asleep, imagining the bell ringing, thinking of Damon’s heavy-lidded look, pretending that he wants me for something more than solving a puzzle.
I push out onto a rough-water dreamland, every wave a dark reminder of what’s underneath the surface. Memories mix with a dangerous future, until I’m not sure what really happened.
I’m back in our old apartment, the one I share with Mama and whoever she’s seeing at the time. My small clock with the kitty whiskers says it’s morning, but my head is pounding. It’s hard for me to sleep over the music she plays. I push the sheets off my legs and cross the carpet.
Her bedroom door is open, her sheets rumpled and empty. I want to check for her in the kitchen. Sometimes she makes French toast, if she’s feeling good. I hope there’s French toast.
I start to walk that way, but the bathroom light is on, the door cracked open.
And there’s a weird smell in the air. Not the sweet stuff she smokes or the heavy scent of alcohol. This is something metal, like the way my hands smell after going across the monkey bars.
My heart pounds as I take a step closer.
Close enough to push the door open…
I sit up in bed, gasping. Only a dream. Another dream just like all the others. And it always ends before I see Mama in the bathtub, floating in a pool of pink water, eyes open and still. It’s a blessing that it stops before then, but also a curse. I can’t move past what I can’t even see.
My bladder is heavy, which means I’ll have to find a bathroom, sooner rather than later.
There are only a few seconds of deliberation—what if he’s out there? What if he’s not? The body doesn’t have much patience. It could be two hours since I turned off the lamp—or twenty. There are no windows, not even a small one like in my room at the Emerald. My room there overlooks the delivery alley, the steady stream of bakers and farmers and laundry trucks a comfort I don’t have now.
I push open the door to a room that’s quiet… except for a faint snore.
It’s almost sweet, that snore. It makes him seem more human.
The room is too dark to see him clearly, but I can tell he’s in the bed. Light frames the curtains, saying we’ve reached tomorrow already. I use the bathroom and brush my teeth, things that might seem mundane if I didn’t see Damon Scott’s razor right beside the sink. Completely ordinary if I weren’t in a bathroom made of marble—white stone with large cool pieces and deep gold striations.
When I step back into the dark bedroom, I know that I should go back to my little closet-room. I should sit down at the desk and keep working on the code. Or maybe I should walk out the door, escape while I can. Am I a prisoner? He’s asleep right now, his large body still on the much larger bed. Now would be the time to leave. I have the code memorized. That happened approximately two seconds after seeing the paper. I could continue to work on it from a motel I can’t really afford.
Instead I find myself taking a step closer to the bed. Watching the shadows until I catch the rhythm of his breathing—and realize I’m looking at muscled abs on a naked torso. God.
As my eyes adjust, I confirm he’s not wearing his shirt, his broad chest and strong arms bare. Dark lashes rest against his cheeks, which seems to conceal him more than a three-piece suit ever could. My gaze drifts lower, to where the sheet doesn’t quite reach his hips.
He’s not wearing anything at all.
My cheeks turn hot with the realization. He’s naked right now.
“Like what you see?” he says, his voice startling in the dark.
I shiver, darting my gaze to meet his. “No.”
It’s an instinctive denial—more to being caught than what he looks like. No, I wasn’t— His low laugh rushes along the darkness, raising goose bumps on my arms. He doesn’t look offended. He looks challenged, which is so much worse. “Come here.”
“No,” I repeat, but this time there’s a tremor in my voice.
“Be a good little servant girl,” he says, his voice low.
The word shivers through me, a tactile vibration. Servant girl. It’s like he found my deepest fear, an ancient emotional bruise, and pressed on it—and perversely, so perversely, it feels good.
“That’s who the room is for,” he says. “But I’m sure you figured that out. You’ve always been too clever. Too fucking clever, and look where it gets you. Nowhere.”
I shudder. “I’m not touching you.”
He throws his head back in a laugh so reckless, so pure I’m almost jealous. What must it feel like, to be that carefree, that confident? “I haven’t gotten to that part yet. You’re reading ahead.”
“I’m not having sex with you, either.”
“Come here.”
I take a step closer, hating myself, fearing myself. Who is this creature who obeys Damon Scott? I’m afraid of him—not what he’ll make me do, but that he’ll make me like it.
“A little closer,” he says, coaxing. “I’m not going to hurt you. Or would you like that?”
Somehow I’m at the end of the bed, the fronts of my thighs pressed against the thick mattress. I’ve given up all the space between us, all the distance. But I won’t give in without a fight. “Maybe you’d like that. Maybe it runs in the family.”
He doesn’t flinch, but I feel his recoil in the air. “Is that what you think?”
He’d rip my heart to shreds with that half smile on his handsome face. He would destroy any chance I ever had for a normal life with a regal incline of his head. He was right to put me in that little servant room. That’s all the power I have here. Anything else is only a dream.
“You know what? There were a hundred beautiful women here last night. Summon one of them to your bed if you need entertainment. Because it won’t be me.”