EMMA

I wish I could say I woke again without pain radiating to every place my body came to life. Starting in my throat, it expanded and pulsed, down my arms into the tips of my fingers, along my body until resting at the tips of my toes. There wasn't a part of me that didn't react to the assault. My skin, my muscles, my tendons and bones. My organs and veins, my nerve endings that screamed as fire tore across them, as claws shredded and clamps gripped down to dull the sharp pain.

Everywhere.

But I could breathe again. I guessed that was something.

Blinking my eyes until the beige blankness of a bedroom came into view, I shifted over the mattress of the bed, the blanket sliding over my shoulder, a rush of sensation that was unwelcome. Attempting to push up into a sitting position, I struggled against the sheets, finally surrendering to a tangle of cloth that wasn't willing to give up its prisoner.

I groaned and heard the soft hush of responsive laughter.

My eyes searched out the sound to find Ethan sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room, his clothes wrinkled, his hair a tousled mess that framed his face. I didn't attempt sitting up again, I was too weak and the blankets and sheets were too heavy. Mumbling despite the fire in my throat, I said, "You look like shit."

His voice was deep canyons and jagged rocks. "I could say the same."

Shifting again, I tugged the sheet up over my shoulder. "I guess I'm not dead."

"You're not."

"That's too bad," I answered. "It was nice there."

His clothes brushed across the upholstery of the chair as he stood, his knees popping softly, his footsteps slow and heavy. I tracked his movement from the chair to a side table. Picking up a glass of water, he crossed the room to kneel down in front of me. "You should drink this."

"My throat -"

"This will help. It's cold, and I've added a bit of a pain reliever to numb any tissue that's torn or swollen."

Staring at the water, I watched a bead of sweat slide down the glass. My mouth was suddenly a desert, my lips sticking to my teeth. "I can't move. Everything hurts."

Reaching out with his free hand, Ethan untangled the sheets from my body. Cold air slipped in to replace the warmth, my skin tightening against it. Even that small reaction hurt. Forcing myself to move past the pain, I fought to seat myself against the pillows, finally becoming upright as much as possible. In my peripheral vision, I could see the bindings used on me still hanging from where they'd been attached to the iron headboard.

Ethan handed me the glass and I had to cup both hands around it to keep from spilling. Bringing it to my lips, I took small swallows to test the functioning of my throat. The fire subsided almost instantly and I was able to gulp down more. A bead of water was dribbling from the side of my mouth to my chin by the time Ethan pulled the glass from my hands and set it on a side table.

"Better?" he asked.

I nodded.

Silence fell between us that I eventually filled with sarcasm. "Your friends were nice."

The fact he didn't make a sound in response should have been a warning. Turning my head, I only saw cold violence behind his grey eyes.

"My friends," he finally answered, "are growing tiresome. But they've had their fun. One of them, at least."

Stepping away, he slowly paced the floor at the foot of the bed. I looked up every so often to see his hands clasped behind his back, his face angled down at his feet. Fury rolled off him in undulating waves, rolling across me to hurry the pace of my heart.

"You didn't let him kill me," I finally commented, wondering if James had stopped before that point, or if Ethan had come in to stop the sadistic game.

Without pausing in his movement, Ethan was absentminded when he answered, "I didn't have a choice either way. Fortunately, he took my threat to heart. Left you in here for me to handle. Mark was pissed off beyond reason after waking up, but that wasn't my problem. I let James deal with his anger."

Leaning my head against the pillow, I confessed, "I thought James was the safer of the two."

"You thought wrong." His pacing stopped. "James is just far more polished than Mark, more clever."

Reality came crashing down to remind me of where I'd been kept since being snatched from the streets. "It's too bad he didn't finish the job."

Ethan turned to glare at me. "Don't say that." His voice was the low rumble of a thunderous command.

Quieting in response, I watched as he slowly started pacing again, his mind locked in some battle against itself. I wanted to believe he actually gave a damn about what James had almost done to me, but I knew better. At least I thought I did. I was just a character who made expensive films. A pawn on his chessboard he'd positioned directly in front of the King. It was too bad he could make a move to knock me from the board, but I couldn't. As the silence pressed on, a moment came back to me - a whisper.

"Were you in the room last night?" My eyes flicked up at him, noticed that he'd stilled but hadn't looked at me. "After James left?"

"No."

Yes, he was. I knew him well enough now to hear the subtle shift in his voice when he was lying. My eyes narrowed. "Are you sure? I could have sworn -"

Finally pivoting, his eyes stared me down, his professional blank mask in place. "You also could have sworn James was the lesser threat. Look how that turned out for you. Stop making assumptions, Emma. You're terrible at them."

Conversation ended, he walked to the door and gripped his hand over the knob. "Breakfast will be brought to you soon. Then they'll take you to clean up."

Before he could walk through the door, I asked, "Am I going back to the cages?"

"No," he answered, pausing mid-step. "You have a film to make tomorrow and I need to ensure you're strong enough to keep from getting killed. You'll be brought to my suite when you're done."

My heart sank into my stomach. "I'm not watching the film, Ethan."

His shoulders rolled back, a ripple of muscle chasing down his body beneath his clothes. "You'll do anything I tell you to do."

With that he was gone, a guard shuffling in several minutes later to deliver a tray of food I didn't want. The scent eventually reached out to me, my stomach rumbling in response. I ate and felt more awake, more able to move my body and ignore the thrum of pain still pulsing inside me. The guard returned, his eyes locked in fierce resolve to direct me to the showers.

Throwing the blankets off my legs, I stood and managed walking to the door without falling. Unbalanced, I left the suite and practically slid down the hallway walls in route to the showers. The steam was heavenly, as was the warm water that poured over my head. By the time I finished drying off I felt like a real person again.

I was delivered to Ethan's room quickly thereafter, the guard happily retreating once Ethan gave me a clipped nod of welcome.

"You can take a seat on the couch," he instructed after the guard had closed the door.

An argument was on the tip of my tongue, but unable to find the point of voicing it, I swallowed the thought and sat down. The soft tap of fingers over a keyboard filtered through the air.

Minutes ticked by in tense silence, the tension dissipating into a comfortable, companionable silence. On and on, Ethan typed and clicked the mouse, scratched something on a piece of paper with his pen, typed again. I considered going back to sleep, but I wasn't tired.

My punishment today wasn't sucking cock or having the life choked out of me, it was boredom.

Against my better judgment, I asked, "What are you working on?"

"A film." Reaching up, he scratched at his beard, his eyes darting between the screen of his computer and the pages stacked neatly on his desk. When I thought he wouldn't divulge more, he said, "It's becoming boring. These films. Even though they're not scripted or practiced, it's still the same thing repeated over again until I just feel like tossing my computer screen out the window."

My head turned to the window. "I'm not sure the screen would make it far, considering it's not real."

"Nothing is real in this place, Emma. You'd be wise to remember that." He wasn't referring to a window with that remark.

I toyed with my fingers over my lap, the ticking seconds reminding me of what it felt like to be in the principal's office after doing something naughty at school. It was a mix of worry and ennui. You didn't want to face the man who would assign his punishment, but at the same time you wanted to get it over with just so you could get on with your life. Rebelling against my instinct, I asked, "Why am I in here?"

Ethan peeked up from beneath the fan of his thick, dark lashes. "So I can keep an eye on you."

Waiting for his gaze to slide down to his work, I asked, "Is this what you do all day while I'm in the cages?"

His pen dropped to the desk, his attention sliding back to me. Blinking a few times, he finally asked, "Are you asking me these ridiculous questions purposely to annoy me, or are they some segueway into another question you want to ask?"

That hadn't been my intent, but now that he mentioned it...

"Why are you so mad at me?"

A sigh burst from his lips as his body relaxed against his seat. Steepling his fingers, he brought them to his chin. For the first time in what felt like weeks, I studied him. His beard was thicker with small bits of silver to match the color at his temples. It only added to his appeal and I remembered what that beard felt like against my cheek, the way water looked sliding down his body to pool at our feet.

"I'm not mad at you," he said, breaking me from the memory.

Liar...

"So that stunt with Brent the other week, last night with James?"

"Were simply the types of things that happen to the women in this place. You're no different."

My eyebrow cocked with suspicion. "Is that why there's a no damage order on me with the guards?"

His lip curled ever so slightly. "It's my job to protect investments. If you're damaged, how can you continue doing films?"

"I hate you," I breathed out.

"We've already covered that," he countered dryly.

Yes, we had covered that particular topic to exhaustion, but despite everything, we always ended up back at it.

"Are you done asking your questions? I'd like to get back to my work. Uninterrupted, if possible."

Giving him a clipped nod, I went back to studying my fingers. The sound of his fingers over a keyboard returned. The air conditioning kicked on a couple of minutes later and goosebumps erupted across my skin. "Can I have a shirt, at least? It's cold."

Another harsh sigh. "There are some t-shirts in a bureau in my room. Help yourself."

Slowly standing from the couch, I balanced myself with a hand on the backrest. "I can just go in there by myself? You trust me not to rifle through your things?"

"If I were concerned about anything in that room, I wouldn't have left you sleeping in there that last time you were here." He didn't bother to lift his head to look at me. I was an afterthought at that moment, an annoyance.

Still pushing my luck, I suggested, "I could find something heavy and come out here to bludgeon you with it."

A smile tilted his lips. "You don't scare me, Emma. I'd easily overpower you. Especially now while you're still weak from last night."

"I'm not weak."

His gaze lifted. "Then why are you holding yourself up on that backrest?" His brow arched at my responsive silence. "Go get a shirt before I change my mind."

I did, my feet stumbling over the cold stone floor until they met with the warm plush rugs in Ethan's bedroom. Pausing in the center, I breathed deeply to inhale his scent. It was everywhere, so earthy and masculine that I was weak kneed by the impact of it. Hating the way it made me feel, I hurried over to the bureau, yanked open the doors and grabbed a black t-shirt to pull over my body.

I'd started the walk back out of his room, but lost my strength. Sitting on the bed, I lowered my head to rest it in my hands.

"Did you get lost?"

His smooth, deep voice pulled my face from my hands. Craning my neck to see him leaning against the doorway, his broad shoulders filling the frame, I sat quietly studying him before answering, "How long have I been in here?"

"Several minutes. I came to ensure you weren't making good on your threat to find something to bludgeon me." The easy smile on his lips betrayed that he was joking. I wanted to smile in return, but fought against it. Allowing myself to smile around him was the same as taking off my armor and tossing it aside while he held the tip of a sword to my chest.

"I think I'm giving up," I confessed on a soft voice. "I'm not sure I'm strong enough to endure this place for much longer. It's breaking me."

Ethan pushed away from the door and approached me on a predator's foot. Settling down beside me on the bed, he was careful to prevent any part of his body from touching mine. Even though we weren't against each other, I could still feel the magnetic draw, like a tether between two similar souls desperate to bring them together.

"Eventually you will be broken by your life here. It happens to every person and like them, you'll lose the grasp on yourself that you had in the beginning. I'm sure if you think hard enough, you'll recognize changes in you that have already occurred."

His voice was gentle and matter of fact as he spoke. There was no warmth, but no chilling cold either. It was simply truth that fell morosely from his lips, an explanation of what he'd seen happen with other women, and what he knew would eventually happen to me.

Daring to peek out from behind my mask and reveal a sore spot inside me, I admitted, "I realized one change last night while with James. When I'd first arrived here, I was desperate to die, to escape, to find the easiest and fastest route out of this nightmare."

"And now?" he prodded.

"Now I want to live."

The confession was a heavy weight lifted from my shoulders to be carried by his. I'm sure he thought it was some sneaky trick on my part to make him feel guilty. But it wasn't. It was simply an admission I needed to make to myself, regardless of whether anybody else heard it.

Silent for a moment, he breathed in deeply, breathed out.

I realized when he spoke again that I would always love the sound of his deep voice, no matter what words were falling from his tongue, and especially when that voice was soft.

"Every woman here vacillates between wanting to die and wanting to live. One desire comes from the intelligent mind understanding that escape will never occur. The other desire comes from the natural instinct in us all to survive. But time is cruel in the cages, Emma. The days break you down until all that is left is a woman who goes through the motions, functions only because it is her biological imperative to do so. Eventually, they all reach a point where not even the horrors they face on stage are enough to rouse them. They lie there like unfeeling logs, inanimate dolls that spread their legs without any concern for what's being done to them. I won't lie to you and tell you there's hope."

Falling back, I lay on the bed staring up at his ceiling. He didn't stand up or move away, didn't twist around to look at me. I stared at the ceiling and he stared at the open door. Silently.

"What happens to them?"

"To whom?"

"To the women who give up."

His voice was dark with bitter truth. "I schedule them for their final performance."

The crushing weight of it settled across my chest. "There really is no hope, is there?"

"Not in the studio, Emma. We're all prisoners to this place."