Page 30 of Jayson
She nods once, eyes flicking up just long enough to make my chest tighten in a way I don’t like. It looks like she’s cataloguing me the way I’ve been cataloguing her since I dragged her down here.
I shift, jaw grinding. “And…” I shove another folded blanket toward her. “It’s cold down here. You’ll need this.”
She blinks, slow. Then reaches out. Her fingers brush mine. It’s only the barest flicker of skin on skin, but it jolts through me like a live wire. Static. Sharp.Fuck.
I jerk my hand back like I’ve touched fire. I didn’t come down here for this. I didn’t come down tofeelsomething.
I should leave. Shut the door. Lock it and walk away before the silence between us becomes something addictive. Instead, I drag the old wooden chair across the floor, the legs screeching against the stone. I flip it backward and straddle the chair, elbows resting on the back, the way I like to sit.
I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never kept a prisoner. Never sat across from a girl I should’ve put in the ground and asked myselfwhy haven’t you?
I hate it.
Hate the confusion clawing through my gut every time she looks at me like she’s already figured out the ending, and I’m the one still stuck on page one.
She picks up the sandwich. Takes a bite. Chews slow.
Not a word. Which is good, because I don’t know what the fuck I’d say if she asked me what the plan was.
Thereisn’ta plan. Just the slow, brutal realization that I don’t want to hurt her. But I also can’t let her go, either. So I sit here, in the silence, pretending like the decision I made to keep her alive isn’t unraveling one thread at a time.
Then, out of nowhere, she asks, “When can I shower?”
The question confuses me more than I expect it to. And I don’t know how to answer. My jaw locks. I lean back in the chair. Scrub a hand down my face.
“You saw how that turned out last time.”
I don’t think she needs the reminder, but I put it out there anyway.
“I can’t very well escape again with this bad leg.”
“I’ll ask my grandmother to help you,” I tell her, my eyes drifting to her leg. I could give her a stool to sit on, but really, I don’t think I trust that she won’t make the same stupid mistake again. She’s foolish like that. “I have to warn you though, she may be old, but if you try anything, she’ll probably shoot you herself.”
Her lips twitch. Just a flicker. Not quite a smile—but the closest thing I’ve seen to one since I made her a prisoner of mine. It’s small. Brief. Gone before it can settle. But it knocks something loose in my chest. For the first time, there’s emotion on her face that isn’t fear or that dead-eye resignation I’ve grown used to.
She leans back slightly, cradling the warm soup in her hands like it’s the first real comfort she’s been given in days. Maybe it is.
I don’t know why I speak next—maybe just to keep her in this moment a little longer.
“You look a little young for college,” I mutter, watching her out of the corner of my eye.
She hesitates, then sets the bowl down. “I’m nineteen.”
Fuck.
The reminder hits me like a stray torpedo. She’s so young, and I’ve got her locked in a goddamn cellar. A breath rattles out of me before I can stop it.
“What are you studying?”
She gives me a flat look. “Psych. Minor in criminology.”
The irony isn’t lost on me. She’s studying how the mind of a criminal works—while sitting in a room built by one, locked away by another. And her father? He wasn’t just a criminal. He was theworstkind.
I watch her closely, and I can’t help but wonder—did she know? Did she ever catch glimpses of the decay beneath the polished veneer? Did she ever question where the money came from? What her father did to keep his kingdom intact? Or was she just another casualty in his quest for power? Another girl too close to the fire to see it burning until it was too late.
She finishes her soup. I hand her a napkin. She takes it without a word. And then I ask the question I’ve been circling around since the moment I found her in that hallway, eyes wide, blood on the bedspread behind me. The question she doesn’t seem to want to answer.
“It’s mid-term. Why did you come home?”
