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My throat tightens, and chilled fingers wind a long trail up the length of my spine. Suddenly, I’m transported back to the very moment I realized who my father was and what his line of business entailed. A trade in underage flesh and selling the rights to own minors for whatever these twisted fucks desired.
That was the night I started to form my plan of escape—once I had finally woken up to the reality of the hellish world around me.
Adrenaline begins to make its presence known. My body is operating on muscle memory and fight or flight, and there’s only one thing I’m intent on doing right now. That’s getting as far from here as possible. Even if it means having to run barefoot through fields of broken glass wearing a couture evening gown.
Casting my eye around the room, it has an unbelievably high ceiling. The interior is dark and foreboding, all charcoal colorings, with heavy velvety drapes of forest green. Other than the bed on a modern-looking wooden platform and some expensive-looking linen sheets in matching shades of deep emerald, the room hasn’t got anything in it to indicate who the monsters might be who have taken me hostage.
If I’m going to escape this ordeal intact, or most likely bloodied and bruised, I need to gather some information. Determining where I have been taken is my best bet, or at the very least, trying to establish what time of day it might be. My stomach feels hollow enough that I can tell I’ve been knocked out for a relatively long time. Maybe a whole day? Possibly more?
As I cross to the imposing length of curtain, I tug on the center parting and can’t help the gasp that rushes past my lips. I’m left standing in place with my mouth hanging open, and not in a good way. The sight that greets me is heavy forest rolling in every direction, shrouded in a thick bank of mist. Pointed tips of tall pines and firs extend above the swirling gray that billows toward the windows. This entire wall is made of glass, and each massive pane has been encased in black joinery. Somehow, the entire scene is vast and ominous and delicate all at once.
There isn’t a single road or house or evidence of life beyond the forest scene that sprawls before me. From what I can see, the building must be elevated, as I’m looking out over treetops rather than being immersed in the dense woodiness of a forest floor. If it wasn’t terrifyingly isolated, it might even be awe-inspiring.
From the gray pall of the sky, it’s hard to tell what time of day it might be. I can only guess it might be morning from the way dew clings to the branches of the trees closest to the windows.
But I could be wrong.
Fuck. This gives me no clues to go on. And even if I did manage to escape this building, there’s no telling how far I might have to try and make it on foot wearing next to nothing. Unless I can find some clothes to steal, of course, but I don’t know what these hills might be hiding. Would becoming the next meal for a wild creature really be any worse than the psychopaths waiting to consume their pound of my flesh?
I decide I’m willing to risk it. Being savaged by wolves or wild pigs can only be a kinder fate than the thought of one of those sweaty old men drugging me and having their way with me against my will over and over.
Even just the thought of it has me dry-retching again. My hand clutching the heavy curtain drops to hug my stomach.
How could my life have flipped so fast and so brutally since setting foot outside my front door for a date of all fucking things.
Oh, Jesus. Emerald. I can only imagine the hell she’s going through trying to contact me. The girl has probably got half the city out searching for my body since I’ve long missed our compulsory check-in after a date deadline. But then, in a small way, I’m relieved she’s safely far away from this world and the sickness that infects every corner of Noire House.
There’s no reason for anyone to come after my friend.
I hope.
Steeling my spine, I decide there’s no sense in wondering about whatever awaits me outside this pretty little prison any longer. Short of hurling my body against this glass wall to see if it’ll break—which I doubt, considering it seems to be triple-glazed and probably bulletproof—I’m going to have to find another route out of here.
Testing the door is like willingly putting my hand on a flaming hot grill. I know it’s going to burn me; the consequences of turning this handle might be fatal, but I’m willing to take the risk.
It turns in my hand, and my heart pounds in my throat when I inch the wooden door open. Cracking it just far enough to see what lies beyond the threshold. I fully expect to be greeted by the muzzle of a gun or a beefy security guard with missing teeth and a facial scar, but there’s only silence outside the room.
The corridor is light, thanks to more floor-to-ceiling glass. As I slide through the doorway and inch my way into the hall outside, my eyes bounce around my surroundings. Marble tile floors in glittering black, dark walls, and an enclosed courtyard lie beyond the glassed-in corridor. A space that comes complete with tropical potted plants and the shimmering indigo water of a tiled swimming pool.
This place is masculine as all hell. All angular, charcoal lines, and heavy textures. I’m walking through the pages of an architectural magazine, but the only thing missing is the requisite blood this place has obviously been built on.
Noire House is drenched in rivers of crimson. The only currency my father and his associates trade in, and this place is no different from all the others in the ranks of the Anguis.
From what I can make out as I creep along this glass box of a hallway, the building forms a square around the central courtyard. Each side must house a different wing, and I’m yet to find another door that could possibly give me a means of escape.
My footsteps slow when I reach the point where the hallway emerges into the next wing. There are low voices, too deep and distant for me to make out what is being said, but at the realization they’re right in front of me, I frantically look around for a place to hide.
Only, there’s nothing. This entire place is like a glass cage, and it’s too late by the time I see that three sets of eyes have already locked onto my presence. They all watch me from behind several layers of glass walls where they’re located diagonally across the courtyard.
Three dangerous men. The ones who took me.
My rage and defiance and pure determination to go down swinging with every ounce of savagery I can muster kicks in. So I continue around the corner to where they are gathered as if I always intended to do so.
They didn’t lock me up or restrain me, so they must know it would only be a matter of time before I emerged.
Unfortunately, I’m yet to find anything that could be used as a way to slash their fucking throats, but my eyes keep scanning for something that I might be able to defend myself with.
As I draw closer, my mind takes note of as many details as possible. Maybe I’ll get the chance to have my revenge on them one day. These are the type of powerful and well-connected men who don’t go to jail or serve consequences like normal society.
