Page 21 of Missing Piece
But the opportunity to leave the room was too tempting.
Adam leaned back on his hands, moving his leg closer to Vincent even as the blond’s fingers pressed painfully into his skin. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Seven - Adam
Having spent so many days alone contemplating what his captors were, he expected to walk into some gothic, cobwebbed nightmare complete with peeling wallpaper and missing floorboards. He wasn’t expecting a somewhat dusty farmhouse-chic decorated den complete with a wood stove and fireplace. Hell, there was even decent art on the walls.
Adam grimaced as Vincent braced him, practically carrying him across the room as he attempted to hop forward. Vincent lifted all his weight effortlessly, occasionally allowing him to set his foot back on the ground to reorient himself. Which seemed oddly considerate, aside from the fact they were going outside at Adam’s request so Vincent could feed on him. From anywhere on his body, he had said. Why did he say that? That seemed like a poor choice of words in retrospect.
It was worth it. Now he knew what lay beyond his door. He tried to memorize every aspect of the den, noting that the windows had all been boarded up, but the curtains were left in place. Those looked older, like something he would have seen at his grandmother’s house. There was a staircase and a foyer to his right, and directly in front of them was what looked like a kitchen and a rear exit with the windowportion painted black.
“Do you need to sit for a minute?” Vincent asked, nodding towards the couches in the den.
“I’m fine,” Adam said quickly, focused on the exit. It seemed so far away. He was right not to try and slip the cuff the first night he had figured out how to open it. The furniture throughout the area was sparse. Even if he crawled, he may not have been able to make it to the door before he was caught.
As they reached the kitchen, he was surprised by how sorely the stainless-steel stove and matching fridge stood out against the aged wood of the cabinets and yellowed tile. Those two appliances looked terribly out of place, as though they had been plucked from a chef’s magazine and dropped into what appeared to be an old farmhouse. Neither made much sense to him. Vincent was a vampire, right? Why did he need those?
Oh, right. Matteo was bringing him food. It did still seem odd to have a state-of-the-art stove just to cook a hostage a few meals a day, but hey, whatever worked for them. Adam focused on their destination as they got closer, some of his discomfort with Vincent essentially carrying him dissipating.
Which was good, because he really wanted to go outside and breathe what he assumed was the night air.
Vincent put his hand on the doorknob. “Are you going to behave yourself?”
He bristled at the question. He wasn’t a fucking dog, no matter how badly Vincent seemed to want to call him “pet”. He rubbed his hand over his sore ribs, reminding himself that talking shit was not going to help. “I will.”
As the door creaked open, Adam held his breath. For somereason, he felt like even breathing wrong would make Vincent slam the door shut before he got a chance to see outside. But the door didn’t slam shut.
The first blast of chilly night air hit his skin, feeling amazing and terrible at once. He couldn’t stop the full body shiver that wracked him, making every inch of his exposed skin break out in goosebumps. He probably should have considered asking for his clothes back, but the thought hadn’t even occurred to him. He was getting too used to just hanging around in his boxer briefs.
But a crisp October night in Illinois was quickly reminding him that his forced attire was nothing to get used to.
It took a few seconds to realize there wasn’t a single light illuminating the house as Vincent let his barefoot touch the cold wood of the porch. Darkness stretched endlessly in all directions. Darker than he’d ever experienced.
They weren’t in the city.
Adam shivered as Vincent set him down on the porch bench and peeked out from the awning. The stars were bright. The full moon seemed brighter too, and as his eyes adjusted, he realized they were surrounded by a cornfield. The corn had already been harvested, but the stumps of the stalks stretched on forever and disappeared into the darkness no matter which direction he looked.
Okay, you might need to reevaluate the plan if we’re out here.It was one thing to escape and go running and screaming into the street in town. It was another to find another human being out in this.
He’d have to find a way to steal a car.
Something heavy plopped into his lap and he glanced down, seeing an ugly floral comforter, before looking up at Vincent.When the Hell did he grab that? Had he gone back inside to get it and Adam didn’t notice? Was he that oblivious?
Man, you suck at this escaping thing if you didn’t even notice he was gone.
“Matteo and Luka have been reminding me that you humans get cold in this weather and I need to be more conscious of that,” Vincent said as he sat down, his leg bumping up against Adam’s.
Adam wanted tell him not to sit so close, but even Vincent’s unnaturally cool body was warmer than the air, so he welcomed the extra heat as he spread the blanket over his lap and tucked the top of the comforter beneath his arms to cover his chest. “Are they like you?” Adam asked as he stared up at the stars. He used to be able to identify a few constellations, but he couldn’t remember a single one. He just knew that they looked nicer out here, not drowned out by the light pollution he was used to.
“They are,” Vincent said.
“Will they feed from me as well?” Adam motioned to his neck, somewhat disgusted by the idea of one of the other ones biting him. It seemed…wrong. His body had such a strange reaction to being bitten by Vincent, but he really didn’t want that with the big Russian mafia looking guy or Luka or Matteo.
“No.” Adam felt fingers stroking his hair, brushing his messy bangs away from his forehead. It made his stomach flutter, and as much as he told himself he needed to move away, he just continued to stare up at the sky, looking for an answer in the stars that would probably never come. “If any of them try to feed on you, you tell me immediately.”
“How will you know if you abandon me in that room fordays again?” Adam mused. It took a second for his brain to process the fact he said that aloud. He tore his gaze from the sky and met Vincent’s, biting down on his lower lip as hard as he could while he screamed at himself internally to stop being an antagonistic dick.
Vincent’s eyes, still black and blue, locked with his own, a quiet fury behind them as though Adam had just poked an exposed nerve. “That’s not going to happen again.”
