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He spears a piece of meat savagely and shoves it in his mouth. He chews it and stares off into the distance.
“You’re not even tasting that, are you?” I ask him.
He looks back at me, startled. “What?”
I push my plate away. “You should go on a hunt. You said you would. We’re safe here, Joshua. We’d be fine if you went away for a few days.”
“I told you, I can’t do it until Micah is gone.” His brow knits in frustration. “I won’t leave you.”
“You already have.”
“What do you mean?” He sets down his fork and stares at me in blank confusion.
Hurt wells up inside me, and I blink back tears. “I mean you’re here in body only. Your mind is off somewhere else, and you won’t tell me why.”
“When my brother is caught, it’ll be different.” But the tiny pinch of a frown between his brows tells me that he doesn’t believe that any more than I do.
I try again. “If you’re tired of me, I wish you’d tell me. Do you want me to leave?” Tears spill from my eyes and trickle down my cheeks, and I grab my napkin and dab at my cheeks.
He slams his palms down on the table, making me jump. “Tamara, I’m sick of this shit.” Ice drips from his words. “I told you how it’s going to be. I own you from head to toe. I didn’t claim you for a couple of weeks. I claimed you for the rest of my life and yours. If you even try to leave me, I’ll fucking chain you up in your room, I’ll put a GPS tracker in you, I’ll move us to the middle of nowhere so you’d have to walk a thousand miles through a burning desert to get to the nearest road.” His eyes blaze with anger. “Why are you so eager to leave? Someone out there you’d rather be with?”
I glare at him. “I’ve already answered that several times, so I’m not going to dignify it with a response.”
“You should.” His eyes bore into me, and they don’t look blue at all now. They’re dark pits of hell. “You really, really should. Or I’ll need to take time away from looking for my brother and start investigating who thefuckyou want to leave me for. Cassius Fuller, the dentist? Someone else?” Jesus. He found out the guy’s last name and what he does for a living. His steak knife is in his hand and he’s gripping it hard, his knuckles whitening. He holds it up, staring at the blade, and the lights glint off it. “Can you imagine what a man looks like after he’s been skinned alive? Do you want to know how long it takes to finish the job, from scalp to feet?”
My stomach lurches. “No, Joshua, there is nobody else I want to be with.” I force the words out, strangling with frustration. “I want to be with you. And I want you to be with me, not shutting me out like I mean nothing and I’m just some distracting annoyance. Someone for you to bang once a day and then send away when I try to talk to you.”
His face goes blank, and he stands up abruptly, setting his steak knife down with a clatter. “I’m going to go check in with my security team, see if they’ve made any progress.”
“You know what? You go do that, because I’m sick of the sight of you right now. Fuck right off.”
I storm off and go find Astrid and her kids. They’re watching a movie in the media room. I flop down into a chair facing the giant media screen and try to reassure them that Joshua’s just preoccupied with the hunt for Micah and everything will be fine, but it’s hard when I don’t believe it myself.
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
TAMARA
Days and days go by, and now he’s barely speaking to me at all. He skips breakfast. He comes to my room to fetch me after I’ve eaten, then takes me into his room to bathe me and fuck me. Our couplings are frantic and wordless.
It’s mid-November, and the weather is a little cooler, but not much. I throw myself into sparring, spending hours and hours on the mats, pounding into the punching bag. I’m getting stronger, to the point where I can pull myself up on the ropes outside now. That happened much faster than I thought. When I’m not sparring with Garrett or one of the other guards, I’m on the internet studying survivalist techniques, learning how to lay traps and escape from car trunks and break out of handcuffs and improvise weapons from rope.
Astrid and her children are getting better with their techniques too. Like most crime victims, they relish the chance to learn how to protect themselves, and they’re really throwing themselves into their training. “I wish Joshua could see me now,” Fletcher says to me one afternoon. “Do you think we should invite him to watch us?” He’s so polite, so formal, so hopeful, that I want to find Joshua and pound his face in for hurting this vulnerable little boy’s feelings.
More days drag by. I email Sarah, lying and telling her everything is fine, and I get angrier and angrier.
One morning when Joshua heads to my room after breakfast, I stand against the wall by the side of my doorway and scream for help. I’m howling as if I’m being murdered when he races through the door and trips and falls over the tripwire I’ve strung up. He sprawls on the tiled floor with a heavy thud and rolls over, shouting and swearing. While he’s down, I swing a vase at his skull as hard as I can, and he doesn’t bother to get up, he just kicks it out of my hand. It hits the wall and shatters.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he yells at me, leaping to his feet with catlike grace.
In response, I lash out with my foot and kick him in the shin, hard. I’m wearing my steel-toed boots, and his grunt of pain tells me I hit my target.
“What am I doing? I’m getting sick of you being a moody, temper-tantrum-throwing asshole!” I snarl.
He grabs me by the throat and shoves me against the wall, his fingers tightening. I blade my hands and slam them on the inside of his elbows, and he releases me. His hands slide down, grabbing my arms and pinning them to my sides.
“You’re the one throwing a tantrum. What did you think you were doing, you moron? I could have snapped your damn neck! Do not fuck with me, Tamara.”
I’ve been growing my nails out and I’ve filed them so they’re sharp. I sink them into his hands, piercing his flesh. He doesn’t seem to notice, just holds me pinned against the wall, his eyes blazing with anger.
