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For a moment, I consider that I shouldn’t be telling him how much I enjoy riding because that will just give him something else to leverage against me. Perhaps I should have played it smart and told him it was stupid so he’d make me do it every day. But what’s done is done, and I can only hope that the warmth in his eyes means he approves of my willingness to ride with him. At least it will give me something to do. Something else to focus on.
“Shall we pick up the pace?” he asks.
I smile and give Temperance a gentle squeeze, and she breaks into a trot before I can even call out over my shoulder. “I thought you’d never ask.”
When Judge comes for me in the morning, I’m already prepared. He smirks at his small victory when he sees me dressed and ready, and it grates at me, but I know resistance is futile at this point. If I don’t go freely, he’ll make me go naked again. And I can imagine few things worse than falling in a pile of horse shit with nothing to buffer it. So I go along with this charade, deciding that I have a new plan of action.
I realized last night when I was lying in bed, trying to forget the events of the past few days, that I’ve been going about this whole situation the wrong way. I’ve learned quickly that putting up a fight with Judge isn’t going to get me anywhere, no matter how satisfying it might be to test his patience. What I need to do is earn my freedom and a small sliver of his trust. If I can access the grounds, I can find a way out of here and put this whole situation behind me.
Those are my best-laid plans. But patience isn’t one of my virtues, and when Miriam comes to my room in the afternoon looking like she sucked on a lemon, it sours my mood.
“Sorry, princess. No buffet for you today.” She sets the tray of what I can only describe as prison food onto the table. It looks like some sort of gelatinous loaf of cat food, and there’s no way in hell I’m eating that.
When I glance up at her, she’s wearing a cruel smirk, waiting for a reaction.
“Hey, Miriam.” I smile at her sweetly. “Do you ever worry your face will get stuck like that?”
My victory is small but glorious, when she narrows her eyes at me and spits out her reply. “You think you’re pretty special, don’t you, Ms. De La Rosa? But I think you know there’s nothing special about you. That’s why you’re still on the shelf at twenty-five. Nobody can stand to be around you. You can’t even find some poor sap to marry you even with all your money and the trappings of your last name. Lord, what a poor soul the unfortunate bastard would be.”
When I don’t reply, her lips curve even higher, sensing that she’s struck a nerve. But she doesn’t stop there.
“I heard all about how Jackson Van der Smit kicked you to the curb and married his pretty wife instead. What’s her name? Collette? I bet that didn’t feel so good, being passed over like that. But I’m sure you’re used to it. I guess that sort of thing must happen all the time when you have a pretty face and a rotten personality. I suppose that’s the same reason your brother and his new wife wanted you out of the house. It didn’t take long—”
“Get. Out!” I scream at her. “Get out of my room, now!”
When she doesn’t move, my anger bubbles over, and I can feel it flooding my veins, taking over my senses. I know it’s stupid, but I reach for the loaf of food and stare her down, my voice shaking from the force of my rage.
“I’m not going to ask you again,” I threaten.
“You wouldn’t dare—”
She can’t even finish the sentence before I’m hurtling the goop across the room. It splatters across her face and chest, sliding down her cheeks and onto the floor with a satisfactory plop.
For a full second, Miriam is too stunned to move, and then she decides to show me her teeth. She stomps toward me, and I dart around her, narrowly missing her claws as she tries to grab me by the shirt. I’m faster than her, and she made the mistake of leaving my bedroom door open, so I bolt out of it and start running down the hall.
I’m thinking about how easy that was and wondering if I might actually make it to the front door. There won’t be a thing she can say to stop me if I do. That’s what I’m telling myself when I hear a war cry from behind me right before something heavy sails into the back of my head.
It happens so fast that I barely have the awareness of toppling forward. My knees bang against the floor first, followed by the side of my face bouncing off the hardwood. Pain streaks through me, and then everything goes black.
I don’t know how long I’m out for. A few seconds. Maybe more. But even as I stir, consciousness doesn’t seem to be fully within my grasp. My body feels heavy, impossibly so. And my arms ache as Miriam drags me along the floor by my wrists, my shoulders straining like they’re going to dislocate. I can hear her muttering to herself as she pulls me along, pausing to grunt and catch her breath.
My instinct is to call out to Lois for help, but I can’t seem to get my mouth to cooperate. My head is throbbing violently, and I feel like I might puke. God, what the hell did she hit me with?
It doesn’t take long to answer that question. I see the weapon lying on the floor of my room when she finally gets me inside. It’s a solid wood paperweight from the desk. And for the first time since I arrived here, I wonder if maybe Judge isn’t the real enemy. Because Miriam didn’t hesitate to hurl that thing at the back of my head. I may have started it, but she could have easily finished it with that. As it stands, I’m fairly certain I have a concussion.
She slams the door shut and turns her venomous gaze on me, hurtling a wad of spit from her mouth onto my face.
“How does it feel to be the scum for once?” she hisses. “What have you got to say now, you little bitch?”
I moan as I try to wipe her saliva away in disgust, but it hurts too much. Everything hurts. And it only gets worse when Miriam continues her assault by kicking me in the ribs.
“You want to fuck with me? See what happens. I can make your life a living hell.”
I can’t move, and clearly, she can see that, but it doesn’t stop her from kicking me again. My only defense is to try to curl into a ball, but it doesn’t protect me when she grabs me by the hair and drags me farther into the room. For such a small woman, she’s freakishly strong, almost demonic.
I don’t want to cry, but her reign of terror won’t end as she leans down and grabs a glob of the food off the floor and smears it all over my face before forcing it into my mouth.
“Stop,” I protest weakly. But even speaking that much makes the throbbing in my head increase to the point of no return.
