“You,” I say simply.

“What?”

“I want you.”

“Why? Is it just because I don’t want you? Surely I’m not the only girl who’s said she’s not interested?”

“You’re mine, Starling, you’re my little bird and you always have been, since the moment I laid eyes on you on your first day at GAA. I waited a year to even find out your name, then as soon as you were a sophomore, I made you mine. You might have run from me and I might have allowed it, but you’ve never been free, little bird. I’ve kept you tethered the last two years, let you think you could fly away, but you couldn’t, the only place I’ll ever let you fly is back to me where you belong.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Ever had that feeling like you’re being watched?”

She visibly tenses despite her trembling, and I smile.

“That was your security detail. Since the moment you left Green Acres and boarded a plane to Maine for Christmas, there’s been a team of men following you. Every thing you’ve done, every place you’ve gone, every person you’ve spoken to, it’s been reported back to me.”

“No,” she gasps.

“All the days you waited for your dad to go out on his boat before you cried yourself to sleep, I knew about. All the times you’ve been asked out on dates or to parties I knew about. When the doctor offered to put you on birth control and tried to get you to take anti-anxiety medication, I knew about it.”

She shakes her head as a single tear rolls down her cheek.

“I knew every school you applied to, so I’d know which admissions officers I needed to bribe into rejecting you. I made sure Kingsacre was your only option, I even awarded you the Lockwood scholarship so you’d feel obliged to come here rather than let your father take out a second mortgage to pay for school for you, just in case you were accepted elsewhere.”

Tears flow freely down her cheeks now, and I have to restrain myself from hauling her to me and licking them off her skin.

“Every step you’ve taken it’s been controlled by me, orchestrated to get you exactly where I wanted you to be. Here in this house, under my roof, under my control, mine.”

12

STARLING

It can’t be true, it can’t be. He’s a kid, a rich kid but still just a kid. He doesn’t have access to a security team and even if he did, why the hell would he have them following me around? What would be the point?

“Why?” I ask.

“Because you’re destined to be mine.”

“But I don’t want you, I don’t want any of it. Pick a new toy to obsess over, one who wants you back.”

“You do want me, Starling.”

I shake my head. “I don’t, Sebastian. I don’t want you. I don’t want to be yours, I don’t want a present or a future with you, all I want is for you to forget I exist.”