“I’ve deactivated your card for the external gates and I’ve turned the motion sensor on the main gates off too,” Sebastian says calmly.

My shoulders slump as I slowly turn around to find him standing at the door, his hands casually placed in his pockets.

“So I’m not going to be allowed to go to class?”

“You can go to class, you’ll just be escorted there and back with either me or one of the guys.”

“Why do you want me so much? Is it the rejection that turns you on?” I ask as I give the gate and my escape one last glance before turning and stomping toward the house.

“I like to own things, now I own you. It doesn’t matter what you think you feel right now, eventually you’ll admit you want me just as much as I want you, until then your cage will just get smaller and smaller until you do as you’re told.”

The smile on his face is bright and warm and in complete contrast with the cold and menacing nature of his words, he’s crazy, completely insane and the next time I run from him, it needs to be much farther away than just Maine.

He doesn’t try to stop me when I barge past him and climb the stairs, not slowing down until I’m in my bedroom. The beautiful room suddenly feels much smaller than it did when I left it less than an hour ago. How in such a short space of time can my world have gone from tentatively hopeful to desolate? Sebastian threatened to lock me in here, but he must be bullshitting me. He’s crazy, but surely he’s not that crazy? Rushing back down the stairs, I pull on the door, but nothing happens, it’s locked. He actually locked me in here.

Panic threatens to overwhelm me again, when my cell beeps with a text, distracting me. Dad hates texts, he says his fingers are too big and that it takes him too long to type out a message he could say in seconds during a phone call, so it’s unlikely that it’s him. It could be Mom, but we really only have a birthday and Christmas kind of relationship these days, I don’t remember the last time she texted me.

Walking slowly back up to my room, I consider calling my dad and telling him about Sebastian, but if I do, he’ll get on a plane and come here and I have no idea what Sebastian will do to him if he does. He’s clearly unhinged and until I can figure out a way to run from him, there’s no point allowing my dad to get within his firing range.

There’s an unread text on my cell and I click into it.

Bastian: Dinner is in twenty minutes

A hysterical laugh falls from my lips. Of course his number is now saved in my cell. He’s stalked me for the last two years, manipulated my life, orchestrated things so I’m living with him, locked me in my bedroom and now he’s texting me when dinner’s going to be ready, like it’s a normal meal and nothing out of the ordinary has happened.