At first, I did my best to count how long I’ve been down here. I found a sharp nail poking out of the cot, worried it loose, and use it to scrape tiny marks into the wall near the edge of the mattress. The cinderblock is too hard for neat lines, so my tally marks always come out jagged and shallow, barely visible unless I crouch close and trace them with my fingertips after tucking the nail under the mattress. Still, every mark matters. Every mark means I’ve survived another day in hell. Every mark means I’m one day closer to being found because, even now, I want to believe that Iwillbe found.
Thirty-four.
That’s how many I have notched into the wall. It’s an estimate since I only count a day after I finally fall asleep for more than a few minutes at a time, passing out on the cot that leaves me cramped and achy the next morning, but that tells me that I’ve been missing for at least a month. A whole month, and I’m still desperate for my freedom.
Thirty-four marks.
Thirty-four days.
The first week, I stupidly expected rescue. The King of the Order wouldn’t stand for a Smith to go missing, and if my captors had a reason to go after me, it was due to my family’s standing in Harmony Heights. It has to be. Cam loves to crow how my millions won’t save me, but that they’ll be happy to take that, too, when they’re done with me.
Done with me… when will they be done with me?
The second, I started wondering what was taking them so long. Someone had to care, right? Someone had to notice I was gone and wondered what happened to me.
By the third, I started making excuses about why no one has come after me yet.
Maybe they moved me too quickly, shoving me inside the back of their van or the trunk of their car. Maybe the Order has to be careful. Maybe Adrian—out of some sense of duty—is looking, but he isn’t allowed to act yet. Maybe Jack Collins, as the leader of the Order, is negotiating with my captors. Maybe Connor?—
No.
I can’t let myself think about Connor. Thinking about Connor is worse than thinking about Adrian, and it hurts way more.
Adrian isobligation. Adrian is the man everyone decided I would marry before either of us understood what that meant. Adrian is my intended Owed, the future I was raised to accept, even if he never wanted me and I never wanted him.
Connor… Connor is something else.
Connor is the boy I crushed on before I knew what it really meant to be an Offering. He’s the jokester whose grin in middle school stole a smile out of me, and the popular boy—one of the Heirs—who ruled all of high school while teasing me every chance he got. He’s the cocky prick who promised me he was going to Claim me, then didn’t, and the man who has playfully chased me over the years, making me want him while hating him at the same time.
Connor is a kiss and a bite and the life I could’ve had if it didn’t belong to the Order of the Owed first.
Most of all, Connor is way too dangerous to remember in hell. Because if I do, I start hoping for impossible things. I imagine him coming for me, proving himself at last, rescuing me like my very own Prince Charming… only this isn’t a fairytale,Haven. This is a nightmare, and more than a month into this tortuous existence, I’m beginning to think that my only way out is death.
I never thought they’d break me so badly, I’d welcome that sort of escape. Haven Smith was proud. She was stubborn. She put up with no one’s shit… but that Haven Smith was left behind in Harmony Heights. This Haven? She was shattered the first time one of her captors decided that it wasn’t enough to warn her not to scream.
To shut me up, they used my mouth for something else entirely, and since then… I’m basically dead already. I just haven’t figured out how to finish it all the way, not when the cameras catch my every move before I can do anything to get out of here.
I tried to kick a guard in the nuts so I could break past him. Got a punch to the gut and his hands in my shirt for that one. I tried to strangle myself with a shoelace; lost my sneakers and had Cam threaten to break my toes if I tried again. I went on a hunger strike, and on day three, Mickey shoved his dick in my mouth and asked if I was hungry enough to suck his cock.
That was the first time I’ve ever had a penis so close to my face. I bit him once he wrenched my jaw open, shoving himself in there. Of course I did. That was my go-to as a girl, but while Connor Heyward seemed stunned when I bit him after our kiss, Mickey wasfurious.
I lost a chunk of hair when he yanked it, then nearly lost a tooth when he punched me twice with a closed fist. No mirrors means I don’t know how badly he fucked up my face, but I was squinting for ten days after that so it had to be bad.
Eventually, I had to admit that I was too weak to keep fighting back as often as I wish I could. I needed to be smarter. Physically, mentally, emotionally… they beat me down so badly,I really did become these monsters’ pet—and as bad as they are, it’sWinterwho is the absolute fucking worst…
A buzz sounds overhead, coming from one of the speakers. My shoulders tense a heartbeat before a familiar voice comes through. Cultured and low, without any hint of an accent, it’s a pleasant male voice, and I loathe it with a passion.
It’s the man all of my captors—my guards—call Winter. He isn’t one of the three rotating men who bring me food and take what they want from me. Not squat Mickey, or Noah with the ponytail, or Cam with the scar through his eyebrow. He’s the man who employs these bastards to torture me for reasons I still don’t understand.
Winter is the boss.
TWO
FREE
HAVEN
The first few times I heard the men mention Winter, I thought they meant the season, despite it being spring. It made sense in a miserable, half-delirious way. The room is always cold. The floor leaches heat from my bones. Sometimes, when I curl on the cot with my knees tucked to my chest, I swear the cell itself is trying to freeze me from the inside out.
