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Iwhimper again, and for good measure, I tremble.
He smiles at me, savoring my reaction. Almost like he’s enjoying my fear.
Like it turns him on—and maybe it does. His pointer finger is lazily stroking alongside the noticeable bulge, an obvious reminder of his earlier threat.
“You don’t know what that sound does to me… you will, just not yet. Let’s get this over with first. See, I actuallydowant you to scream. Especially when I’m fucking you… oh, angel, I can’twaitto hear you shout my name. I’ll own your screams, just like I own you—but if you think it’s going to save you from me…”
Burns goes for the gun on his hip, unsnapping the holster in a practiced move. Before I have any idea what he’s doing, he yanks it from its holster, aims, and fires.
It’s a crack of lightning, an explosion that’s way too fucking close to me. The bullet whizzes a few feet before slamming into the cinder block wall. It explodes in a cloud of dust.
Deafened from the sound of the shot, I scream though I can’t hear it. My fight or flight reflex kicks in, and all I want to do is get away from him. I jump up from the cot, nearly falling flat on my face when I remember too late that my leg is still attached to a chain. Luckily, it’s long enough that I can take a few steps away from the cot to satisfy my urge to bolt without doing anything more than stumble.
Burns looks pleased with himself as he lowers the gun.
“I have neighbors. If they didn’t hear that, they won’t hear you.” His eyes brighten. “So those screams are mine alone. But, please. Feel free to shout if you’d like. The sooner you learn I don’t make threats, the better.” With his other hand, he reaches for his pants. His pointer finger flicks open the top button. “Give me a reason to prove I don’t make threats. I only make promises.”
I gasp. “You… you can’t do this!”
“I’m a cop, angel. I can do any fucking thing I want. And, now that you’re here with me, that includes you.”
Sex again.
“Why do you keep calling me that? ‘Angel’? My name is Angela.”
It’s a ridiculous deflection. Who cares what he calls me? That’s nothing compared to what he has in mind for me, but since I can’t even think about Burns nabbing me because he wants to get laid, I focus on the name thing.
And I try not to whimper again when he actually answers me.
“Because, at first, you saved me from the dark thoughts.” From the way his gaze roves over me, I can guess what those thoughts are about. “But then they just got darker. I had to take you. I had to make you mine, and the only way to do that was to make you mine. Lover… captive… prisoner. It doesn’t matter to me what you are so long as I can claim you. You belong to me, and that means you belongwithme—locked up or not.”
My legs go weak. Hearing him confess that he took me for his own pleasure, that he’s never going to let me go… I think that broke me. No. Being kidnapped—thatbroke me. The rest of me is just catching up to the shocks and revelations that have been thrown my way since I had the misfortune to wake up.
I manage to make it back to the cot before my legs can’t hold my weight anymore. Landing on the edge of the mattress, Burns takes it as a sign that I’m accepting everything he’s done to me.
“Good. I want you to be comfortable. That book”—he points at the table—“is yours. If you get hungry, the fridge is yours, too. This is your room.” Burns pauses, then adds, “At least, until you beg me to join mine, it is.”
My emotions are all over the place. I’m scared, worried, and confused—and those are just the emotions I can recognize. It’s hard for me to turn off the attraction to the friendly cop I’ve nursed these last few weeks, and I almost want to search corners for hidden cameras because this has got to be a big joke, right? This can’t really be happening to me…
Only… it is. The truth of it is in his smirk, and the easy way he fired that gun at the wall. The room stinks of gunfire, the cinder block dust settling near the fridge. My ears are still ringing, too. So, yeah. No denying that this is all real.
You know what isn’t? His delusion that all he has to do is lock me in his basement and I’ll fall back on the cot, legs spread, and give him everything his sick mind thinks he deserves—including me willingly going along with this.
I’m not brave. After what happened in Fairview, I hid for a long time. I never went back to FU, and it took plenty of therapy to even get me to walk alone at night. My fears all came rushing back when I got jumped for the nighttime drop. I was able to push past it easier this time because I’ve become a freaking master of denial.
I could lie to myself, and believe every single word spilling from my lips.
There’s something about Burns, though. I should be terrified. I should be pissing myself in fright, begging for my freedom, offering him anything so that he’ll bring me back to Springfield and we can forget this. Chalking it up to a break from sanity, he could go back on patrol, I could go back to Louise’s, and we could forget this ever happened.
I know that’s not going to happen. Everything, from the possessive way he handled me to the dare in his stance as he stands there, gun hanging lightly from his grip… he’s not backing down.
I’m not, either.
I have no clue where the nerve comes from, but before I lose it, I jut out my chin and snap, “I’ll never want to stay with you!”
For a moment, my words echo almost as loudly as the gunshot, though he doesn’t react. Just the opposite, actually. He’s perfectly still, his expression unreadable as he continues to stare at me.
That makes it so much worse.
