“A creature so unfeeling shouldn’t be allowed to imitate sentiment,” I say, a light whisper across her lips. “You’re like the viceroy mimicking the monarch, beautiful and dangerous.”

Her arms go lax against my hold, her gaze flicks over my features searchingly. “You’re insane.”

Quite possibly, and it would be all her doing. “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity,” I recite. “One of my favorite Poe quotes, yet I don’t think I fully understood the meaning until now.”

I’m hard and needy where I bear down between her thighs, and I know she can feel my arousal. She can see it in my eyes—how badly I want to taste her, to know what those dangerous lips feel like against mine.

I lower the syringe and let it fall to the earth. Then I reach down between us and unfasten my belt buckle. Blakely’s eyes widen in alarm as I pull the leather belt from the loops.

One final second where I saver the feel of her this close, then I push up and bring her hands with me. I lasso the belt around her wrists and cinch it tight. “You’re going to get hyperthermia.” I scoop Blakely into my arms, and she allows me to carry her back onto the trail.

I realize, out here with her, sheltered by darkness and towering monuments of time, I haven’t counted the seconds, the minutes. The constant, maddening need to check my watch hasn’t once demanded my attention.

She is more consuming than any madness.

17. Committed

17

Committed

Blakely

Lukewarm water beads down my back, washing away the frigid river. I turn the tap all the way to hot, hoping it will scald, but the degree barely changes. I feel like I’ll never be warm again, my body and extremities hardened into ice.

A completely inappropriate laugh slips out at the thought. I am ice, that’s why I’m here. Hard, cold, dead ice. Alex chose me out of a club full of narcissistic, shallow and superficial people. There had to be another option that night, but he selected me.

This bathroom is a new addition, added on to the basement but set apart from the area where he holds me. I pick up the shampoo bottle and notice it’s some generic brand. I suppose scientists who spend their days and nights torturing their victims don’t have time to formulate a preference for haircare.

I lather the shampoo into my hair, letting the suds slide down my body until the water starts to run cold, my thoughts turning inward.

Over the course of my life, no matter what situation I found myself in, I’ve considered myself the most intelligent person in the room. It was like a superpower, to know what everyone else was thinking, what they’d say, how they’d act and respond.