Page 89 of Hounded

My attention roamed again to the closed medical ward doors. I imagined Jonathan inside, suffering, wasting away. Soon there would be nothing left. His end would be mine. I would die with him; I knew it. Maybe, this way, we could both live.

Tears welled up, and I stubbornly blinked them back. “Could I see him still?”

In a flash, the nurse’s kind face turned malicious. Her red lips peeled back in a sneer. “I said wholly mine, did I not?”

The blond man standing by shifted, his polished boots scuffing against the floor.

I glanced at him, then back at the nurse, who remained startlingly severe.

“And Jonathan—?”

“Will live.” She flapped her hand. “Twenty more years. You need only agree, and I will make it so.”

Her focus fixed on me in a way that seemed to bring weight, bearing down. She was waiting. I still wasn’t sure what for.

“How?” I asked.

Her smile returned, thin at first but gradually filling. “My pet, the details never matter as much as the outcome, and this is an arrangement that will satisfy us both.”

The blond man moved again as though suddenly restless. When I looked to him this time, I caught his gaze. His pale green eyes met mine, but he didn’t speak.

“Do I have your word?” The nurse leaned over, interrupting the line of sight between her companion and me before prompting, “You will come with me now and be mine forevermore?”

The phrasing was strange, and I couldn’t fathom how she had the authority to do what she claimed. But I wished she could. I wished it, and I believed it when I nodded and whispered, “Yes.”

Her mouth tipped in a satisfied smirk. “Swear it,” she said.

“I swear.”

She beamed, then, revealing white teeth with sharp tips I hadn’t noticed before. Lunging forward, she threw her arms around me in an embrace. “Such a good boy,” she cooed, holding on tight. “You’ll be good for me, won’t you, Lorenzo? For eternity.”

For all the things I was unsure of, I was certain I never told her my name.

Her hands skimmed over me, up my back to my shoulders, then my neck. When her fingers curled around my throat, I jerked away, but the clink of steel and a cinching pressure stopped me short. She held something that hadn’t been there before. A metal chain I now wore like a collar.

I pitched back again, increasing the stranglingsensation, surprising myself when I couldn’t break her grip.

“Mine,” she said, pulling me so close I could feel her breath rush across my face. “Solely mine for twenty measly years. I should thank that friend of yours for making you believe you weren't worth any more than that.”

Her amusement was scorching, blistering in its heat.

I grabbed the chain, struggling in vain to loosen it while the nurse stood and dragged me off the bench. I hit the floor on all fours, still being pulled and sliding across the tiled ground.

“Show us out, won’t you, Whitney?” she asked the other man.

My eyes watered from breathlessness and tears as I watched the blond man turn away. As he moved, I caught the glint of another, similar collar fastened around his neck.

He went to the wall and waved his hand over it, barely touching the brick as he drew a single arching line. The surface opened into a gaping black hole, and that was where she led me, choking, crying, and clawing at the floor until darkness swallowed everything.

31

Indy

The drugs didn’t work.

Not in the way I’d hoped.

I left the club that night, almost a week ago, clutching a handful of pills and hoping they would still my restless thoughts.

---