Page 61 of His Captive

“Can we help you, sir?” one of the women looks up drying her eyes.

“This is Ethan Shaw, a friend of Millie’s,” Buddy’s voice explains from behind me. I hate the way both women look at me.

“Oh, sir. I’m so terribly sorry,” one of them says before they burst back into tears.

My heart plummets into the pit of my stomach. Dread, fear, and anxiety all fighting over which one will consume me first. I back out of the room, Buddy following closely behind me.

“Where is she?” I hear my own voice, see how my hands gripped at his collar and rattle his body, and yet, I don’t feel a fucking thing.

“I think we should wait for the master,” he stutters nervously, and I slam his back hard against the wall.

“Where the fuck is she?” I roar.

“In her room…second left at the top of the stairs.” Buddy is wise enough to answer me before I cut off his airway, and I release him, his tall frame dropping in a heap to the floor.

My feet bound up the stairs, my pulse thumping in my ears and raw fear tearing through my chest. I barge through the door, and the sight that welcomes me anchors me to the spot.

Millie.

My Millie.

Laid on her bed, wearing a pretty yellow sundress, blonde hair hanging perfectly over her shoulders, but her skin far to pale.

I watch for the rise and fall of her chest, for a flicker of her eyes. Anything to show me that she hasn’t left me.

I’m that nine-year-old boy again, standing in Sorrento’s room, hoping and praying for the slightest sign of life to come from the precious creature I desperately want to save. And just like back then, I’m too late.

My feet stumble as I make my way toward her, and they give out on me just as I reach her. My hope destroyed completely when my hesitant hand finally touches hers, and I feel the chill of her blood through her skin.

I crumple the bright cotton dress in my fist, watching its sunny yellow, fade into ashes of grey, and once again I’m plagued with darkness.

Fifteen

LYSETTA

It’s official, I have that mental disorder. The one I’d read in the paper about the girl who got kidnapped as a kid, and how when the authorities eventually found her years later, she didn’t want to leave her kidnapper. She’d grown to care for him, and sympathize with him, and even tried to defend him.

Eight years, is how long it had taken her, eight years of being imprisoned for her brain to train itself to accept her situation. My weakness is pitiful in comparison, because in less than ten days I’m like a needy kitten for the man who’s keeping me.

Noises come from the hall, ones that sound a lot like an argument. Naturally, I’m curious, so I pull on the pair of jeans that hang on the chair beside my bed, then throw on a shirt before creeping out to the landing.

The sounds are coming from Ethan’s room, and my feet automatically move towards his door.

“Where is she…Where the fuck is she?”

There doesn’t seem to be anyone answering him, and he keeps repeating the same question over and over, at first he sounds mad, but as I get closer, his voice becomes more strained.

“No.... No!”

It sounds like he’s crying now, and I can’t stand to listen a moment longer.

Screw the rules.

I break them, opening the door and stepping into the pitch-black room. I can’t even see shadows it’s so dark, and I have to follow the sound of his heavy breaths to get to him.

“Ethan,” I whisper, fumbling in the dark until I locate a lamp. When I manage to find the switch, dull light slowly illuminates the room, and then I see him. His eyes are screwed shut, and his face pinched tight. He’s trapped in a nightmare. Sweat glistening in beads on his forehead, and the white t-shirt he wears sticking to his body. With the cotton sheets tangled up in his fists, his whole body is rigid.

“Ethan, wake up.” I stroke my palm along his jaw, hoping to ease him out of his terror gently, but he doesn’t wake.

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