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But today, I’m having the opposite reaction. I’m growing more irritable by the minute. I want to get back home and play with my new toy. If it weren’t for the fact that I had already captured the pathetic, mewling bastard and put him in one of my sound-proofed basement cells the day before Tamara handed herself over to me as a gift, I wouldn’t have bothered with him at all.
I planned the taking of him for months, as tension coiled tighter and tighter inside me. This should have been ecstasy. Now it’s just a distraction.
I move forward and raise the knife so I can end things quickly. Well, for him it won’t feel quick, but I normally make these deaths last hours, and today I’m only going to spare him a few minutes of my very valuable time.
After it’s done, after I carve up his body into parts too small to recognize, I hurry to my four-wheeler and climb on. My hunting zone is deeply wooded, and the entire perimeter of the property is ringed with sensors that ensure my privacy during these hunts.
As I’m motoring through the woods, my burner phone rings. It’s an unknown number. A whisper of warning prickles under my skin. Only my servant, Elizabeth, has this number. I pull over and stop to check the voicemail, but there’s no message.
It could be a wrong number, but I’m not taking any chances. I remove the battery immediately so it can’t be traced. When I get home, I’ll destroy the phone and use a new one.
I shrug off the faint warning bells ringing in my head. Nothing can harm me; I am Joshua Smith, survivor, destroyer, master of my world.
As I steer along the narrow wooded path, all concern fades away and a smile plays on my lips. I’ve just enjoyed the termination of Baxter Warburton III, an embarrassment to apex predators everywhere, and I have all kinds of fun planned for my new acquisition.
Life is good.
CHAPTERFIVE
TAMARA
Consciousness comes slowly, and the second I remember what happened, I go stiff with horror.
I’ve woken up to a nightmare. I don’t know what the nature of it is yet, but it will be terrible. I’m lying on a hard, lumpy mattress, and the air smells like wet mildew, so I’m not home, and this is really happening to me.
Something icy-cold circles my ankle. I suspect it’s an ankle cuff of some sort, but I don’t dare move to test my theory in case anyone’s watching. Oh God, I’ve been restrained. The implications of that are horrible beyond measure. I want to look, to jerk my leg, but I don’t dare. Every second I can pretend I’m still unconscious is another second I’m not being tortured.
My life has shrunk down to this. Desperately trying to buy myself a few more pain-free seconds. Sick with terror about what’s going to happen to me in the next few minutes.
“I’m going to play with you.”I remember his mocking voice.
The man I’ve been crushing on for months has me chained up in a fuckingdungeon. What the hell is wrong with me? How could I not have sensed what he really is?
Is there any way I’m getting out of this alive?
I can’t possibly think how, and terror and sorrow flood through me. It takes everything I’ve got not to sob out loud.
I lie there in absolute stillness, with the sound of my breathing thundering in my ears. As the seconds tick by, I realize I don’t hear anything at all. I think that, wherever I am, I’m alone. For right now.
I whisper my chant to myself. “One, two, three, four, five, please let me get home alive.” And I tap my index finger on the mattress.
I’m afraid it won’t work. It’s supposed to be done on a mirror or a doorway. This is the rule created by my panicked seven-year-old self. I follow it to this day.
And am I really alone? If anyone is watching me, the magic doesn’t work.
There’s only one way to know. I have to open my eyes and look around.
I’m terrified. I don’t want to die. I’m nineteen years old. I have my whole life ahead of me.
No. My life is over now. No college, no law school, no friends, no lovers, no husband or children… Hot tears spill onto my cheeks, and I bite my lip to keep from sobbing out loud.
The terror of what might be hovering right over me grows stronger and stronger, and I finally can’t stand it anymore. I open my eyes…and I don’t see anything. I remain perfectly still, listening. The only sound I can hear is the thundering of my own heart. It’s so loud it feels as if it’s echoing off the walls.
Finally, I sit up and look around. A chain rattles as I move my ankle, a horrifying noise that wrenches a squeak of fright from me. I curse myself and freeze for a long, long moment, until I’m sure I’m really alone.
I’m in a damp, windowless cell, and when I sit up, I see there’s one light overhead, but it’s dim. I suspect that’s deliberate, and the unnecessary cruelty makes me want to weep. I’m chained up in a dungeon and am being deprived of light as well as my freedom. That tells me a lot about how the rest of my short life is going to play out.
Near the light, I notice a winking red eye in the ceiling. A camera, watching me. Is Joshua looking at me right now? I glance up and slowly, deliberately, flip the camera off. It’s a weak little slap at the man who will kill me, who’s probably sitting in a comfortable chair somewhere laughing at me, but it’s the only way I can fight back while chained up in a dark basement.
