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Trish
“I’ve missedyou so much, sweetheart.”
I fought the acid rising up my throat when Huxley stroked my cheek.
Blue. Green. Yellow. Red elephants.
“I know you missed me too.”
He’d bound me to a chair in a cold concrete basement and gagged me with something that tasted like a sock that had been worn for a year without washing.
“You’re back where I can take care of you like you need.”
A chill raced up my spine. This was the last place I ever wanted to be again. The only thing keeping me calm was that Ella was safe and my dear husband didn’t seem to know about her.
“Can you believe that asshole tried to steal you away from me?”
He was crazy, but better for him to think that than know the truth. That the man had taken me to the hospital. “I don’t blame him. They all wanted you for their own.” His eyes turned the same ominous green that they had right before he’d locked me in the basement the first time. “I’ll make him pay for what he did.”
If I knew who that man was, I’d warn him. He’d made a terrible choice to have sex with an unwilling person, but he’d done the right thing in the end by getting me to the emergency room.
“Your food truck made it so much easier to find you. Some of your favorites who thought we were gone for good got in touch.”
The voices.
That’s why they’d been familiar.Because I’dheardthem before. And that was why that man had taken off so quickly when he’d seen me.
He’d recognized me.
My dream had put me back into my nightmare.
“After what happened, we can’t trust anyone from our old life. No one from the past will ever find us.”
Translation: No one will ever find me at all.
“This time, I’m going to have to watch everyone.” He cupped my cheek. “You’d like that better anyway, wouldn’t you? You want me to be here.”
No. No, I didn’t want him anywhere near me.
I swallowed back a whimper of protest. Giving him even that was too much. He’d gotten all he would ever get from me.
I will get out of this.
The outlook was grim. There was no escape. But I refused to let go of my hope. Without hope, I didn’t have much of anything here.
“Can you believe we’ve already got a customer?” Huxley wrapped a blindfold around my eyes. The world went dark, and I automatically withdrew into the place I always went when they came. “I’m not surprised, either. Your cunt is in high demand.”
In the faint distance, I heard a muffled doorbell and the shuffling of feet above.
“That would be her,” Huxley said euphorically, his footsteps light as he jogged up the stairs.
There were other people here. Someone who answered the door. He’d never been careless enough to involve other people. At least, not that I knew of.
I fought between staying in the moment and checking out. I knew exactly what was coming and didn’t want to be present for that.
I tugged on my binds, which seemed to get tighter with every pull. There was no escape. I could get through this one more time. Maybe the—had Huxley saidher?
I only remembered a woman touching me once, though I couldn’t be sure that it hadn’t happened more often. I’d become an expert at blocking out the real world, finding somewhere else to go beyond reality.
