Page 22 of Deception

Wide eyes greet me as the dog lowers to press his nose to mine, wet, cold. When he growls, the sound makes my heart halt for a second before it kick-starts again.

“We are not friends,” I grunt breathlessly, holding his stare as he shakes out his long coat with a brusque exhale and long whine.

Adrenaline courses through my veins, heating me from the inside out as I push to my feet, and with a couple of stumbles, I find my stride. Slow at first, but as the dog howls, my feet move faster until the only thing running through my head is the buzz of the darkness and the rhythm of my feet, faster and faster as I dodge roots and debris.

It’s the most freedom I’ve felt in my life, oddly. I expect the dog to chase me, but as I run, he keeps in step with me. The sound of his paws hitting the dirt thunders around us. Heavy and powerful…exactly like its master’s.

As if the creature knows my thought, it circles me a couple of times, breaking my stride, slowing me down until I come to a stop just short of the treeline. Lights glitter ahead of us, and as I catch my breath, I notice the guards patrolling the wall separating me from the world beyond this place.

Fuck.

I was so deep in my headfuck that I didn’t think of the security. Of course, he would have a small army defending his lair at all times. All these men at his beck and call, and somehow, he’s made it his personal mission to torture me himself. Taunting me with the notion of freedom. Making me feel things that aren’t real…

The whistle sounds again, not as far as I thought it was before. But then I ran aimlessly. For my life, just like he commanded me.

“Shut up!” I snap at the howling creature. “Why can’t you bark like any other fucking dog?”

As though he’s offended by my outburst, he grumbles in that whining way of his. Like when I was shaking him off me, he paws at my legs, drawing attention to the shredded and muddied nightgown.

“I need to get out of here before I completely lose my mind, so if you know a way out, now’s a good time to help a girl out.”

Good fucking luck. That’s what he tells me with a roll of his eyes.

“Well, screw you too, mate.”

The whistle sounds again. Closer. The dog spins like he’s chasing his tail before he runs circles around me again. It’s then that the exercise dawns on me. This is the game. The chess was nothing but a false sense of security. A guise for his cruel amusement.

If I didn’t hate him before, I abhor him now.

“What a fucking cunt!” I kick at the dirt, regretting it the instant a twig stabs beneath my toenail. “Motherfucking cockwombling prick!”

He released me from my cage so that he could send his dogs to hunt me down and round me up like a bitch. His pet.

If he thinks I’m going to heel and accept him as my master, he has another thing coming. Putting one foot in front of the other, I ignore the shooting pain in my toe as I run for the treeline as fast as I can, limping and dragging my foot when the pain becomes close to unbearable. As the dog stalks me, I weave in and out of the trees.

I’m not making it easy for him.

“He wants a fight?” I yell at the dog as we come to the end of the treeline and start curving back into the dense thicket. “He’s got one. I’m not his fucking pet.”

I’m not an animal he can tame. No matter how far he pushes me or fucks with my head, I’ll never be his meek little pet.

I’m a fucking Mortimer, and we fight to the end, doing what it takes to survive.

As long as I can, I keep running. Feigning between trees. Breathing in the cold air and relishing its burn as it cloys in my lungs. The ache cuts through me as my limbs stick, my muscles screaming at me.

The other dogs find us as we reach the lake, and as the muted lights from the small chapel across the way shimmer on the blackened surface of the water, I dive in. It’s deeper than I thought it would be this close to the edge, and it takes a lot more of my energy than I thought it would to reach the surface again. When I do, the dog is paddling right there beside me. Tongue lolling to the side as he pants, he ignores the yowls from the rest of the pack pacing the water’s edge.

“Just because you’re stuck here too, it doesn’t make us friends,” I pant at him, lying back to stare at the dark sky as I kick my legs free of my tangled nightdress and starfish.

I know when he finds us. Tomasz’s presence is that heavy that even nature seems to cower and pander to him. Standing at the edge of the water, he watches me, and I watch him, waiting and waiting until he blows the whistle and his pup paddles back to land, leaving me behind.

As cold as I’m getting, I refuse to swim back to him. I refuse to pander and to kneel. Even when my senses become sluggish and the clouds of breath become dense enough that I can barely see through them.

If Tomasz wants me that much, he can come get me himself.

9

TOMASZ

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