Page 87 of Locked in Wonderland

“People talk about you like you are.” It came out accusatory. Mainly because he wasn’t saying what I needed him to say, which was that I could go home whenever I wanted to. Away from this place and all the weird people who lived in it, and where the only rules were the ones stacked against me. I was doing my best not to think about the fact that from the tattoo Dodo had shown me, he too had started off as a flamingo, and he was still here. It was presumably where all the unfortunates had come from.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” Nico said, sounding almost weary.

“And what am I supposed to do until then?”

“Sleep.”

“Where?”

He shrugged. “Anywhere you want.”

I jerked my head toward the door. “And what if I want to leave? Are you going to stop me?”

“I wouldn’t recommend leaving.”

“Not an answer.”

Nico considered the question. Then sighed. “I don’t know.”

“What does that mean?”

“I guess it means we’ll both find out if you try it.”

The temptation to call his bluff and walk straight out the door was overwhelming. But I was exhausted. And what if Nico didn’t stop me? I’d proved time and time again that only bad things happened to me out there. At least in here, I only had Nico to contend with. I headed for the bedroom without another word, Nico saying nothing.

Chapter Twenty-eight

It turned out that being exhausted wasn’t enough. Every time I closed my eyes, Warren was there.

Not Warren.

Victor.

The distinction mattered now.

Unfortunately, my subconscious seemed determined to torment me by replaying our interactions in search of something I’d missed: a micro-expression that should have revealed he was stringing me along; an obvious lie; some detail in his apartment that suggested he hadn’t lived there long.

But there was nothing.

No cracks. No mistakes. No evidence that I’d been fooled by anything less than a professional. Which didn’t make me feel any better about having fallen for it.

Nico hadn’t followed me into the bedroom. Not long after I’d left, the muted hum of the television drifted in from the living room, suggesting he was watching TV. Or at least pretending to. Maybe he’d fallen asleep out there. Was he planning on coming to bed? He didn’t strike me as chivalrous enough—or at all—to give up his bed for me.

Minutes crawled by.

Then an hour.

I changed position so many times that the sheets looked like I’d wrestled them into submission. Whatever I did, sleep remained stubbornly out of reach. I needed something to stop me from thinking.

Something loud enough to drown out Victor’s face.

Victor’s voice.

Victor laughing at me.

I got out of bed without conscious thought. One moment I was lying there staring into the darkness, the next I was standing beside the bed, my pulse racing.

There was an inevitability to my actions as I helped myself to a pair of Nico’s briefs rather than strolling into the living room naked.