Three Years(15)

“You think you’re winning?” he asks, standing so that he is towering over me as I lay tied to the bed. I shrug. He must have no idea about Jase, I think. That reassures me. I want to keep it that way. And if he says he can’t find Elliot, then hopefully that means Elliot is smart enough stay hidden until things blow over.

Which, knowing Dornan, means forever.

“Mark my words, baby girl. Everyone who ever helped you is going to die.”

He winks at me, grinning as he leaves the room. As the door slams behind him, I feel the bed frame shake, and silently pray to anyone who’s listening that he’s just bluffing.

But I know Dornan Ross.

He doesn’t bluff.





Another couple of days pass, and I’m in real trouble. I’m sick - really, really sick, and Dornan hasn’t come back. Once a day, The Prospect unlocks the door and slides a tray of food to me, before slamming it shut again. I wish he’d talk to me. But he doesn’t, nobody does - and I huddle in the corner, wheezing and coughing until I throw up.

And nobody fucking cares.

I’m burning up before long, and this time I know it’s not just the lack of temperature control in my windowless dungeon. Sweat pours from my forehead and makes my back itch, and my lungs feel thick and full. It’s impossible to take a full breath.

I can’t breathe in here.

One day, they’ll slide a food tray in here and find me dead.

I decide that might not be so bad, but my stubborn primitive brain demands that I try and survive. It’s so annoying - I try to squash the thoughts like ants, but they keep multiplying like toxic amoeba, urging me to fight.

And I just want to give up.

In the end, I get creative. Or maybe, just desperate. Instead of trying to call for help—because they’d never answer, anyway—I switch positions, laying my body on the floor across the doorway. The door to this room opens inwardly, so somebody is going to have to hit me with the door to get in here. Maybe it’ll work, maybe not, but I need something to change before I go completely insane.

In the times when I’m asleep, I have vivid nightmares. A knife through Elliot’s chest, a pillow over Grandma’s face, and I can’t even say what I dream of him doing to Elliot’s daughter, it’s so depraved.

So when the door slams into my stomach, and the person attempting to open it swears loudly, I respond with a low, guttural groan. I scrabble to my knees, head still spinning, and I’m relieved when I see it’s The Prospect. The dude who let me shower. The nice one who told me I had eyes just like her.

“I’m sick,” I say to him, backing up my story with a genuine hacking cough. My chest rattles with mucous; my breathing is ragged and desperate.

“Please,” I say, my arm darting out to close around his wrist. “You said I looked just like her. My mother’s here. She’s a nurse, she can help me.”

He snatches his hand away, narrowing his eyes at me. “What the fuck do I care if you’re sick?” he asks.

I feel my face fall. “Where’s Dornan?” I demand, trying to peek down the hallway. A look of annoyance passes across his face as he kicks at me with his steel-capped black boot. “Get back inside,” he says, pressing himself and the food tray through the narrow opening and slamming the door shut behind him.

I scoot away, giving him some room to stand.

“That’s your mama out there?” he asks, his eyes darting around the room.

“Caroline?” I reply. “Yeah.” I fucking knew it. I knew that bitch would be here with Dornan.

“You know she’s got no idea who the fuck you are, right?”

I stare at the ground. There’s an awkward silence, until finally he nudges me with his boot. I look up to see he’s extending his hand to me. “Come on,” he says. “Get up. Eat something.”

I look at the tray of food in his other hand with renewed enthusiasm. “The starve-out’s over?”

He shrugs, hauling me to my feet with zero effort. He seems like an incredibly intense asshole, but he’s somehow different to the rest of Dornan’s mongrels. Is it my imagination, or does he seem to dislike Dornan? I wonder if I could somehow convince him to help me.

I bat my eyelashes at him, smiling as much as I can while I feel like I’m dying from the fucking plague, and search his face for any indication of his intentions.

“What’s your name?” I ask softly.

He laughs, plonking the tray on the small wooden table beside him. “Oh no, nina bonita. Don’t flutter your pretty eyelashes at me. I’m not going to help you.”

My heart sinks, but somewhere in the back of my mind, that phrase registers. Nina Bonita. The pet name Mariana had for me.