AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I jerked back in the seat, and stared at the screen like the words would attack me. After nearly a minute passed, I clicked on the box and let my fingers hover over the keyboard for another moment before responding.
LH: Yes.
X: Briar Rose Chapman?
The full name came within a split second of my reply. Fear coursed through me, making my heart beat faster. Part of me screamed to shut off the computer, but I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t address the name.
LH: No, I’m sorry, you have the wrong person. My name is Briar Holt.
I bit nervously at my bottom lip as I waited for a reply, but didn’t have to wait long.
X: Briar is a pretty unique name. But it’s okay. I know who you are and I’m here to help you.
Get off the computer, get off the computer, get off the computer! I screamed at myself.
LH: I don’t know who you are, and I don’t need help. Goodbye.
X: I can get you home. I can get you back to your life.
That familiar ache flared at the thought of returning to everything that was familiar but was followed by a stronger one. Because as I’d known for some time now . . . it wouldn’t be much of a life without Lucas. Instead of responding, I clicked on random parts of the window to try to figure out who this X was.
X: You don’t have to say anything. I know you’re scared. I’ll get you out of there, but I’m going to need your help.
LH: I don’t need your help. You have the wrong Briar, and you are what’s scaring me. Leave me alone.
X: Do you know what Stockholm syndrome is?
My eyes narrowed, but again, I didn’t respond.
Of course I do.
I’d taken a psychology class in college, and while I didn’t remember everything from that class, I remembered fragments. The lectures on Stockholm syndrome being one of them.
And what little I remembered of it was half of my reasoning on why I’d first let Lucas touch me all those months ago. It was why I’d tried to keep Lucas at a distance afterward, even when it became so clear that my feelings for him had been shaped from who he was as a person, and not because I’d formed some twisted bond with him because he’d kept me locked in a room or had saved me from his mentor.
I had finally found the e-mail address linked with X, which was really just a bunch of random letters that looked like a spam account, when he sent message after message of long definitions for Stockholm syndrome.
My eyes darted quickly over what he had sent me but nothing triggered. Nothing made me question my love for Lucas or my want to be with him. I was acutely aware of what we would look like to someone on the outside of Lucas’s world. I knew what we looked like on paper, but this person didn’t understand my relationship with Lucas at all.
Hostages express sympathy . . . have feelings toward captors . . . defend . . . identify with . . . mistake lack of abuse for kindness . . . strong emotional ties . . . one person harasses, abuses, threatens the other . . .
“William and his women,” I mumbled to the screen once I finished reading.
That’s who those words described. And even though I hadn’t met anyone else, I had no doubt those definitions would fit the bonds between the other men of this world and their stolen women.
LH: Thank you for the lesson, although it wasn’t necessary. Leave me alone.
X: Think about it, I can get you out safely.
I immediately pulled up Lucas’s e-mail and started a new one to him. I flagged it as urgent, put nothing but exclamation marks in the subject, and only five words in the body:
Someone found me through you.
The landline rang a few minutes later, the shrill tone causing me to jump in the chair. I hurried to answer it and tensed when I heard Lucas ordering the driver to go faster. His tone had an edge to it that sent a shiver of fear through me even though his threats weren’t directed at me.
“Luc—”
“Where are you?” he growled closer to the phone.
