“And you still stayed with John…after all this?” I scoff. “Knowing what he planned to do?”
“I stayed because leaving wouldn’t have protected you.” Her tone sharpens. “Staying gave me access. It gave me leverage. It gave me a way to keep you alive.”
Tears slide down my face and I can’t wipe them away.
“You’re sending me there.” My voice breaks. “You’re letting them take me.”
Her jaw clenches. “You don’t understand how close they are to deciding you aren’t worth the trouble. There are men who think killing you would be easier. John barely kept that from happening.”
“And you?” I ask. “What are you?”
She hesitates.
“I’m the reason he argued for you.” Her voice lowers. “I’m the reason you’re not already dead.”
A cold dread creeps up my spine. “What is Elliot’s Manor?”
She pauses again. Just long enough to make me think she might actually change her mind.
“It’s a place the Collective uses…For discipline.”
“Discipline?”
Her gaze drops, then lifts again. “All I can tell you is this. You need to survive.”
My voice cracks. “How the fuck am I supposed to survive?”
“You endure.” She leans closer, eyes locking onto mine. “You don’t provoke them. You don’t challenge them. You don’t test their pride. You make yourself useful….That’s how you live through it.”
The way she says it tells me she knows exactly what that means.
“You survive first.” Her voice softens again. “You hate me later.”
Tears slide down my face. The silence that follows is worse than shouting.
“Grant will be here soon.” She steps back toward the door. “Get some rest.”
She touches my arm once then she steps back and waits by the door until John calls her name from somewhere down the hall. She leaves without looking at me again.
The house goes silent.
My thoughts keep circling back to Seth. I try not to imagine him dead.
I don’t sleep. My arms ache, my legs go numb. Every time the chair creaks, my heart jumps. I count breaths until I lose track.
Morning arrives without warning.
I hear a vehicle pull up outside the house. An engine cuts off. Car doors open and shut. Voices murmur somewhere beyond the walls.
Then the front door opens and footsteps cross the entryway.
They move through the house, down the hallway, getting closer with every step until they stop just outside the bedroom.
The door opens.
Grant steps into the room first, filling the doorway before walking fully inside. His eyes sweep the space once slowly, before settling on me. Still tied to the chair where they left me.
A small, satisfied smile touches his mouth.
