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Physically, I’m thriving. I picked up weight and filled out. Besides going to the gym three times a week with Damian, I swim every morning. I have a driver’s license test booked for the end of the summer, and I see my shrink every Wednesday. I work secretly for Reyno, transcribing his recorded notes. We make progress. I can close a door behind me without completely freaking out, and I’m not collecting bread rolls any longer. The walls still get too much sometimes, but a walk in the new natural garden is always the right remedy.
I don’t bring up the issue about money again, because I’m earning mine under the table. While Damian gives me vulnerability and truth, working hard on building trust, I give him lies and my body. Every day, it gets harder. Every day, my reasons muddle more, until the day Zane corners me at the pool after his run.
He wipes his face on a towel, regarding me with open hostility. He still hasn’t forgiven me for driving his grandfather and Anne away. “Looks like you’re settling in to stay.”
I get out at the shallow end and wrap myself up in a towel. Brink isn’t far away. Zane can’t hurt me, but I don’t like the way he looks at me.
Zane drops his voice so Brink can’t hear. “Do you still want the evidence?”
I don’t trust him. My answer is wary. “What do you want in return?”
“Disappear from Dami’s life. Forever.”
The offer works in the favor of my own plans to get Reyno to restore my mental status, and to save up a bit of money so I can escape when I finally have the evidence. I’ll give copies to Harold, and he’ll tell me what I want to know. The only price I have to pay is Damian.
A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated, but now he’s shown me that monsters can be kind. He’s fighting for me, for my trust, and it gets tougher to imagine a life of fleeing from him. Damian is my solid rock. My captor is the only man I believe. He says what he means, and he means what he says. I know exactly where I stand with him. He told me he would punish me for the move I pulled with Anne, and even if he risked our newfound peace, he kept his word. He made me kneel on the jelly beans I’d collected in the jar and suck him off while the candy dug into my knees and the color rubbed off on my skin. He took his time to come, until I was crying around his cock from the pain the little candy pebbles caused.
I can have a lifetime of punished pleasure and truthful captivity, or a lifetime of running alone in fear, constantly looking over my shoulder. Or I can let the past go. I can grieve without a gravestone and carve the eulogy in my heart. I can give up and let Damian take care of me. I can even take the last leap of faith and tell Damian what he wants to know. I can believe he’d give me the anything he promised and ask him to find the grave. The only price will be my freedom.
Two very different lives. Two very different gains. Two very different sacrifices. In one, I remain a pampered captive at the price of my freedom. In the other, I gain freedom at the price of loneliness and unequalled fear.
Either way, the price seems too high.
“Lina?” Zane frowns. “Maybe you should sit down in the shade.”
I hate that everyone thinks I’m as fragile as when I arrived here. “I’ll give you an answer tomorrow.”
“What’s with the hesitation? Getting used to a life of luxury?”
I don’t bother to answer.
When I get back to the house, I change and ask Brink to drive me to the church in Brixton.
While Brink and the other guards wait outside, I walk into the depressing darkness. In front of the painting, I stop. I stare at her face, the doting face of a mother. How did she feel when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane? How much pain did she suffer when they nailed him to a cross? I’m not religious, but I kneel on the hard floor, folding my hands together.
“Please tell me what to do.”
I stay for nearly an hour, and when I leave, I still don’t have an answer.
Hesitant, I pause on the sidewalk. What now? Big, fat raindrops start plopping down on the concrete. They hiss when they hit the warm tar road. The smell of rain mixed with soot fills the air. Brink unfolds an umbrella and holds it over my head, but I push it away. The rain feels good. Clean. It runs in rivulets down my back and arms, washing away the stickiness of my sweaty skin. I look down the street, toward the sad apartment block, and it’s as if my feet carry me there of their own accord.
