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“Okay. But you are the one who has to water and take care of them.” His eyes narrowed. “So you obviously left the house. I see you came back.”
“I want to be here with you.” It sounded so childish when I said it out loud. So nakedly hopeful. For a moment, I worried he’d laugh at me, but it was a wasted worry.
“Good. If you’d run, I would have come after you. I just wanted to know if I could trust you to leave and return on your own. It’s simpler if I don’t have to keep you on lock down. Did you say anything stupid to anybody in town?”
I was sure my face went a little white at that because I could feel the blood draining out of it.
In contrast, Shannon’s expression darkened. “What did you do?” The muscle in his jaw clenched.
“N-nothing.”
“What did you say?”
“J-just that I was staying with you. Somebody from town asked me.”
He stared at me for a good, long several minutes as if trying to determine if he believed me. “And that’s all you said? Nothing incriminating?”
“N-no.”
“No, what?”
“N-no, Sir.”
In his absence, I’d been cavalier about his anger. I’d forgotten how completely terrifying he could be if he was displeased about something. And I wondered again at my sanity in staying or even wanting to. One would think, with my memories back, that I’d want to stay the hell away from men, especially men like Shannon. But I didn’t think Shannon was anything like Professor Stevens or Trevor. In his way, he was more terrifying than the two of them put together, but he was scary in the way live volcanoes and tsunamis were scary. It didn’t feel personal. He was a force of nature to be respected, but despite everything I knew about him, I just didn’t believe he wasevil.
I know that’s stupid. But I couldn’t help how I felt. There wasn’t a deep core of malevolence in him. He just didn’t have as strong of emotions or empathy as everybody else. Certainly it could be turned toward evil, but the military had used it as a tool, presumably for good. And when Shannon said the people he killed were bad people, I believed him.
“How much of my money did you spend?”
“M-most of what was in the drawer. You can take it out of my account. I wasn’t trying to steal from you.”
“That doesn’t matter. Besides all the plants, what did you buy?”
“Umm... snacks, wine, candles, magazines, stationery...”
“Candles? You burned candles in my house?” His voice rose the most subtle degree higher.
“Y-yes, Sir.”
“Candles drip.”
“I-I know. I didn’t make a mess.” I didn’t mention the fact that I’d spilled a bunch of dirt all over the house, getting the plants in and set up. I didn’t want him to have a heart attack. And I’d cleaned it all up.
His eyes narrowed. “We’ll deal with the candles later. What was the stationery for?”
“It’s stupid.”
“Tell me.”
So I told him the whole inane thing about the letter to my professor, just wanting to scare him, and ripping it up and throwing it away because I didn’t want to risk Shannon’s location. He smiled at that, obviously pleased. At least I’d done something right. I didn’t tell him the nightmares were getting worse. I told myself it was because I didn’t want him to godo somethingabout it. But really, I was afraid if I told him, he would barely react again and not care and refuse to do anything at all except tell me to stop whining about it.
“Is that all you bought?” he asked, oblivious to my internal struggle.
I felt heat flood into my face. “I bought some lingerie,” I mumbled.
An eyebrow raised. “Oh, really? Put it on. Now. Then come back downstairs. And bring the candles with you.”
My heart was nearly throbbing out of my body. I felt like I was vibrating from the inside out as I changed out of regular clothes, and into the lingerie. I added a swipe of cherry red gloss to my lips. I put the candles in the paper shopping bag the lingerie had been in and descended the stairs back to Shannon.
