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Please let me die.
And then I see Drew’s face in my mind’s eye, his expression hard and determined. He’s got a will of steel and he’s giving me his will to get through this.
Lending it to me.
Inhaling carefully, managing my breathing, I get my throat spasm under control. I do not throw up.
“Good girl. See? You can take orders. Last time, you were just a boring old limp noodle with holes. This time is going to be so much better,” Stellan says, running his index finger along my jaw. He must have a ragged fingernail, because the deep, abiding feeling of my skin being scratched, that searing hot feeling that comes from broken skin, pierces his movement.
I don’t move. Then I let myself blink. Drawing on every lesson in my stupid meditation classes at the Island, I make myself remove my tongue from the roof of my mouth, imagine my organs gone to liquid, drop my shoulders, remove tension. None of this changes my circumstances, but it gives me something to do.
Stellan pours water in an arc over my head, blinding me, some of it in my mouth before I can regroup. Hacking as the water trickles down my windpipe, I blink and sputter, catching his disgusted look.
“Here. Drink. We can’t have you dehydrated.” His hand passes over my cleavage, the tops of my breasts overflowing without a bra in this tight, scalloped-neck top. “You spilled some,” he says with a sneer.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Shit. I broke my first rule. Stay small. Boring. Gray rock. Don’t draw attention.
“Aren’t you the little prima donna! You think this is about you? It’s all about your dad, Lindsay. You’re just caught in the middle.”
I go numb and ice cold. “My dad?”
“You’re just a useful device.” His eyes widen as he eats up my breasts with his gaze.
“Device for what?”
“To ruin the great Senator Harwell Bosworth.”
“Shut up, Stellan,” John mutters, giving him a glare and a head shake. “Don’t tell her anything.”
I force myself not to turn and follow the sound of his voice. He’s behind me, John looking over my shoulder.
“It’s not like she’ll spill her guts to anyone.” His eyes turn darker and his nostrils flare. “Except for us.”
Before I have a chance to wonder whether he means that literally, there’s a knock at the door.
John and Stellan freeze.
“You call someone?” John hisses at Stellan.
Stellan comes over to me and puts the sole of his shoe on my neck. “Say a word, and you’ll become tile grout.”
I don’t point out that we’re on carpet.
Stellan’s body twists as he whispers to John, “No. No idea who that is.”
“Helllloooooooooo?” says a sickly sweet, high-pitched beach bunny’s voice from the other side of some door. “Hello? I can hear you in there, Drew! It’s Tiffany! I need to tell you something, sweetie.”
My heart sinks.
Drew? Sweetie?
I breathe in deeply again, the scent of the room making me reel. I get a hint of Drew’s aftershave. His scent.
Are we in Drew’s apartment?
Why would Drew let them bring me here?
What would Drew – oh, my God.
