Page 87 of Caged
Since Kieren returned, I've barely been allowed one minute alone, although bathroom usage doesn’t count, thank God. When I’m in his room, I’m chained to the bed. When I’m in class, Harrison is with me. My phone has been confiscated. The only device I have is my computer, and when Kieren does leave the bedroom for a few scant minutes, he unplugs the Internet router set up in his adjoining common area. Besides, the time to email Gabi and the other girls has come and gone. Months ago, I was too embarrassed to tell them I had taken Kieren back, and I don’t have the heart to email them now. I don’t want to drag them into this, not while they’re abroad and having the time of their lives. But that leaves me with no one else.
Tonight is perhaps my one and only opportunity. Jace will walk me upstairs after the Ceremony, and maybe I’m wrong, but I refuse to believe Jace is cut from the same cloth as Kieren. He’ll lock me inside the room, but I don’t think he’ll chain me to the bed. I’m not sure how aware Jace is of my situation, but I hope his ignorance is of the honest kind.
While Kieren is busy with his disgusting initiation duties, I’ll make my escape. Darkness will be on my side. I’ll run.
A loud knock raps against the door.
“What?” Kieren barks, striding from the bathroom. I can’t believe there were moments when I found this masked version of him, exuding power and greed, to be desirable. I can’t believe I let myself love him.
“One of the elders wants to speak with you,” a voice outside the door says.
Kieren opens the door halfway, and I crane my neck to see a masked Jace standing in front of the man who wears the gold-horned demonic mask.Is this X?
Kieren looks back inside, and I quickly look away, though I fear not quickly enough. The door abruptly closes.
“What is it?” I overhear Kieren ask.
“Your father tells me you will not share your pet.” The other voice rakes down my arm like steel knives. The same demonic, inhuman voice I remember from the last Full Moon Ceremony, and I can only assume by‘pet’, he means me.
“No.”
A small exhale of relief leaves my lips.
“Offer her tonight then.”
Offer me? Offer me to who? I thought Kieren just said he wasn’t going to share.
“I’m not done with her yet, and we have a more pressing offering to deal with.”
Done with me? None of this makes sense.
A hollow laugh rings in my ears. “Moloch doesn’t want dissenters. You displease him. Remember, boy, I can make your life disappear with the snap of my fingers. Your family will lose everything.”
What do I have to do with Kieren’s family losing everything?
“She will be offered next month – my grandfather’s birthday, no less – but I get to spill her blood. Not you.”
I’ve stopped breathing.I must have misheard. Please tell me I misheard.Thoughts of Rory, the girl who went missing last month, flood my mind.Oh my God. They’re killing us, aren’t they? Picking us off one by one like fish in a barrel.
“You don’t want to play this game with me. You will lose,” the man snarls.
“You forget something. You’re in my house. My rules. Threaten me and I’ll bring us all down. You think I give a fuck about my family? I don’t even give a fuck about myself.”
“Your father was right. He warned me about your… temperament.”
“My temperament?” Kieren laughs. “By all means,push me. I’d love it if you did.”
I cower, shaking, as I sit on Kieren’s bed in my black lace panties and bra.
It all makes sense.This… this is real, isn’t it? But why? Why kill innocent women? For the fucking sport of it?Fire rages under my skin with the heat of a thousand suns, and in this moment, I get why women cut off men’s dicks.
But, Kieren… He’s led me to this, duped me into believing we were in a relationship. Every move he has made, every grand gesture, every word said that made me think he cared. I played right into his carefully calculated plans until I didn’t. And now, I’m his prisoner. I’m the prized cow, the one who fetched the first-place blue ribbon, waiting for slaughter.
“Fine. Next month,” the voice agrees.
The door blasts open. A black ceremonial cape flows out of the adjoining common room. Kieren slams the door shut. His fury fills the room as he prowls to the bed, stopping inches from my feet. I gaze up at my captor, drinking in his unfiltered, true self for the last time. His unblinking dark eyes, the roiling swirls of gold on his mask, the tribal black tattoos down his torso that he has no ancestral right to bear, the bulbus Sigma ring on his pinky finger.
Kieren.
