The police arrested the wrong guy, and I let them.

In hindsight, I had no one to blame but myself for my current predicament—naked and freezing, ass chafed from the concrete, utterly humiliated. I almost pissed myself every time something scampered in the darkness. How silly to be scared of rodents when a man I once knew so well held me prisoner.

A door opened unexpectedly, and the overhead light came on. I squinted, the dim bulb too bright on eyes accustomed to nothing but suppressing blackness. Rafe stomped down the stairs and halted outside the cage.

I couldn’t say how much time had passed since I’d awakened in this hellhole, but if I had to guess by the coarse hair on my legs, the smell of unbathed skin, and the tangled, greasy mess on my head, I’d say about three days. I’d lost count of his visits. The first was the most notable, as he’d tossed a bucket to the ground for me to do my business in, left a tray of food and a bottle of water next to it, and exited without a single response to my pleas. The visits that followed wielded the same results, and I stopped begging, accepting I might be down here for a while.

Crouched in the corner, I draped my arms around shaking legs. “I-I’m cold,” I said through chattering teeth. “Can I have a blanket? Please?”

He unlocked the door and sauntered inside. “I spent weeks in the hole, naked just like you. Do you think I got a blanket?” He knelt and lifted my chin. “I usually got a beat down before they threw me in, and some days, they didn’t even feed me.” His mouth flattened into a grim line. “Lucky for you, I’m not as nasty as the guards who had it out for me.”

I stared, overcome by the guilt that chiseled off another piece of my heart. I wished I could comfort him, erase the last eight years. What an impossible idea.

“What do you want with me?” I asked. “Do you want to hurt me? Fuck me?” Whatever he was going to do, I hoped he’d just do it. The waiting made me a nervous wreck.

“You took eight years of my life. I think it’s only fair I take eight of yours.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. His words turned in the pit of my stomach like acid. “You’re going to keep me here for eight years?”

He tightened his hold on my chin. “Are you hungry?”

His refusal to answer didn’t escape me. Something felt different about this visit. He was deviating from his routine, and I wasn’t sure what it meant. The thought of eating made me nauseous, but I wasn’t about to argue with him. Maybe he’d finally let me out.

“Yes. I need to use the restroom too.” I prayed he wouldn’t make me use the disgusting bucket again. Even from the other side of the cell, the stench of port-a-potty contaminated the air.