The minutes ticked by slowly as I laid in my bed. I was tired, but there was no way I could sleep. I heard Reed leave earlier in the night and come back a couple hours later. I was tempted to meet him as he came in, but I didn’t want him to think I was watching his every move.

I tried to force myself to go to sleep, but it wasn’t going to happen. I kept thinking about how I came to be where I was and even though I wished it could be under different circumstances, I was glad to have met Reed.

When it came to telling him that every man who has ever entered my life has hurt me, I wasn’t exaggerating. He only knew about the first one, but there were far more stories to tell. Stories that I would more than happy to tell him if he wanted to listen.

When I was telling him about Jake, he seemed to be listening intently. It was a side of a man that I’d never seen before. He’d been nothing but patient and gentle. He kept telling me that he wanted to protect me, but I was only just starting to believe what he’d been telling me.

Not able to lay in bed any longer, I decided to get up and check out the books that Reed keeps in his office. The first time I saw his huge bookshelves filled with various titles, I was overly excited. He admitted that he wasn’t much of a reader, and had purchased them all in bulk from a library sale to have something to fill the shelves with.

Being a voracious reader, the huge selection made me salivate. I figured I’d go in his office, pick out a book or two, and then retire back to my room to read for the evening.

Even though he probably didn’t realize it, he had some of my authors. He had Danielle Steel, Nora Roberts, Stephen King, and so many others. I could read for weeks based on all the titles that caught my eye. Maybe even months.

I settled on Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz and Duma Key by Stephen King. I’d read both of them before and wanted to experience them all over again.

As I was walking out of the office to head back to my bedroom, I noticed a file folder sitting on his desk. The only reason it caught my eye was because it had the name Jake Patterson scribbled on the front of it.

I needed to know if it was the same Jake that I had just told him about so I opened it to have a look. The file was filled with mugshots and police reports, all bearing Jake’s name. Apparently I wasn’t the last woman that Jake beat on.

Why Reed had wasted his time looking into Jake was beyond me. I figured that maybe he wanted to show me that there was nothing wrong with me and that I’d been with a bad guy the entire time. It was sweet in a way. At least, I thought it was.

When I went to put the folder back, a printed photograph of Jake fell out. He was looking at the camera with tears n his eyes and his arm looked as though it had been completely pulled out of socket and twisted.

It only took me a few seconds to realize what I was looking at. The photo was from that night and Reed was the one who had broken his arm.

Suddenly, my heart started to race. I can’t believe I had been stupid enough to let it happen again. Everything in the world was pointing to the fact that I should not trust this man, but he somehow got me to let my guard down. What the hell was wrong with me? He was obviously a violent man. After seeing what he did, I knew that Reed was at least as violent as Jake. He was able to pull the wool over my eyes. I was just glad I found out before it was too late.

I needed to get away from him before he did something terrible to me. Maybe it was a mistake to buy his story about why he’d purchased me at the auction. I needed to be able to get in touch with the authorities myself. They needed to know what kind of man he was so he could be brought to justice.

I went back to my room to create a plan since it was the furthest room away from his. Knowing that he was sleeping, I got dressed and put on my shoes. If there was ever an opportunity to get away, this was going to be the time.

Using one of the hardcover books I’d just taken from his office, I busted out the window that was next to my bed. Immediately, the alarm started to blare, the deafening sound filling my eardrums.

I slipped out of the window and ran as fast as I could into the woods. I didn’t know where I was or where the woods would lead to, but anywhere would have to be better than where I was. I was going to get my freedom back.

My dream of Nikki was interrupted by the loud, blaring sounds of the house alarm. It took me a couple of moments to figure what I was hearing, but once I figured it out, I leapt out of bed, worried that the people behind the auction had discovered what I did and showed up to do something about it.

The front door was secure as was the back door. No signs of forced entry as far as I could see. I ran over to the pin pad and punched in the code to silence the alarms.

That’s when the realization hit me. It didn’t appear that anyone had broken in and there had never been a false alarm before.

Oh fuck!

I ran down the hall and tried to open her door, but it was locked.

“Hannah?” I yelled while knocking on the door. “Hannah, is everything okay in there?”

When I got no answer, I took a step back and kicked the door open. The curtains were blowing in the wind and there was glass all over the floor.

Hannah was gone.