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It’s what they want, to make me weak. But why?
Is it just a power trip, or are there bigger things at play here?
This time when the bolts keeping the door closed clank, I barely react. I don’t have the energy to fight right now, so if that’s what they’re here for, then they can have at it.
To my surprise though, that isn’t what follows.
A masked man steps inside, but he’s alone and holding a tray.
“Food,” Zay practically sings as he lowers it to the floor and pushes it closer to where we’re huddled in the corner.
He dives for it like a starved bear cub and immediately stuffs a piece of bread into his mouth.
There’s a warning on the tip of my tongue that it could be poisoned, but it’s too late. It’s gone. And for the first time since I woke and found him here with me, there’s a twinkle of his normal self in his eyes.
Holding my hand out, he places some bread on my fingers and I join him.
Silently, we sit side by side, eating our meal of bread and water. It’s not exactly luxury, but compared to the lack of anything else we’ve received other than bottles of water since we’ve been here, it’s practically five-star.
He eats half and then stops, pushing the plate closer to me.
Every inch of me hurts. Even holding my hand up to my lips to take a bite is excruciating.
I need the sustenance, I know I do. But fuck. I just want to curl up and go back to sleep again. I want to drift off into a place full of dreams of my girl, not be forced to endure this bullshit.
“It’s okay,” I say, my head dropping back against the wall. “You have it.”
“Alex, no. You need—”
“You need it more. The second we get the chance to leave this place, you need all your energy to run as fast as you fucking can. You got that?”
He nods, but there isn’t much confidence in it.
“You think they’re going to let us go?” he asks quietly.
Dropping my head, I stare down at my busted knuckles and let out a pained sigh.
“Honestly, Zay, I’ve no idea what they’re going to do. Nothing makes any sense, and I can’t help thinking that they’re just playing with us for their own amusement.”
“Well, that’s… great. What happened when they took you? Aside from the obvious,” he says, his eyes tracking my injuries.
I haven’t looked at myself—we haven’t been granted the privilege of a bathroom with an actual mirror—but I don’t need to to know what kind of mess I’m in. I’ve been in enough fights over the years to know how bad this kind of pain looks.
Dropping my gaze from his innocent eyes, I try to come up with something that isn’t an outright lie, but that also isn’t the whole truth either.
“They forced me into a chair and made me watch a video of Evie at work to rile me up.”
“At work?” he asks, his voice laced with confusion. “You mean camming?”
My chin drops as my eyes dart to his.
“You know?” I study him, looking deeper than I have before.
“I might only be eleven, Alex, but I’m not blind or stupid.”
My lips open and close like a fish, the splits in them cracking every time I do.
“I hate it. But I also understand what Evie and Blake do to keep our house, to protect me.”
