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I shake my arms, splaying my fingers at my sides to release some tension. I swallow hard, fear beating a hard heavy rhythm against my ribs.

I look back at the door.

The next time Lucien Thornfield walks through it, he might not just want to talk to me. He might want something else.

Everything else.

As I think about his huge, muscular frame, my treacherous stomach tightens with a quiver of intrigue.

Sex with Steven was… perfunctory at best and awful at worst.

Dark room. Him on top. Eyes closed. Lying still.

Is there a part of me that wants to know what might happen if I choose to stay and let Lucien destroy me?

I’d be lying if I said no.

But the biting? The drinking my blood and draining me dry?

Not so much into that.

I turn back to the window and inhale deeply. Looks like I only have one option.

This time, after flexing my fingers, I try the latch on the window. Of course, it doesn’t move. But the glass doesn’t look thick. There is air coming in from tiny gaps in the frame.

I raise my arm, thinking about smashing the glass with my elbow. Then think again; that’s going to hurt.

Instead, I go for the candlestick on the sideboard.

See, if he’d gone minimalist, this wouldn’t be happening. It would be all reinforced glass and no huge, heavy objects to pierce it with.

The candlestick really is heavy. I weigh it up and down in my hand. I stare at the glass. I’ve done this before. Not with a candlestick. With my foot.

I slam my eyes closed and memories that usually only haunt me at night barrel into my mind. Being upside down, being trapped. The sound of the radio still blaring. The scent of the blood. The spiderweb crack on the windscreen. Pushing it with my foot. My shoe gone. Why was it gone?

Kicking, and kicking, and screaming until it shattered.

A cold sweat has broken out on my forehead, and in the small of my back. Nausea swells in my throat. I grip the candlestick tighter. My knuckles whiten with the pressure. I know what sound it’s going to make when it makes contact with the glass. I just don’t know what will happen inside my head when I hear it.

I don’t know if it will bounce off, repelled by adrenaline and the need to get the fuck out of here. Or if it will bury deep inside my skull and find the places where it can hurt me the most, and leave me sobbing on the floor.

Whatever is about to happen, I have no choice.

I have to confront it or I will be stuck here forever.

With him.

Forever… or until he ends me.

I lift the candlestick with one shaking arm. It is so heavy my muscles burn. I pull my arm back, take a deep breath, then hurl it at the window.

The glass is stronger than I thought.

It splinters. A shard falls free, then another, but some remain attached. Clinging to the edges of the frame like jagged teeth. Jaws waiting to swallow me.

No.

Spit me out.