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  Anger flooded me. I hated him for bringing me here. I hated him for the pain and the pleasure, for offering me release and tearing it away at the last moment. Most of all, I hated him for not believing me.

  “You can’t…” I whimpered, hating too the sound of my own voice, whiny and clinging. “Please. You can’t stop. I’m so close.”

  “You’re not close to anything,” Rien said. “I can see it in your eyes. You’re still holding on to whatever ideas you had of me before. You’re not here. You’re somewhere else.”

  “I’m not,” I cried angrily. “I swear…”

  “Next time,” he said, standing up, “I want you to keep your eyes open. The whole time. You understand? Or I’ll never take you any further.”

  He put his hands in his pockets and stood there casually, waiting for my reply. My whole body, every cell, clamored for touch, and now he was pulling away. Taunting me. Teasing me. Making me want something and then taking it away. I hated him for it.

  “Fuck you,” I hissed.

  He smiled then. I hated him even more for smiling because he was so beautiful when he smiled. A beautiful face that hid a monster behind it.

  “I like you, Sara,” he said, his smile twinkling in his eyes. “I think we’ll have a lot of fun together. You won’t have very much fun right now, I suppose. You probably won’t be able to move for another hour.”

  A cry choked in my throat. An hour? I had to wait an hour before I could move. An hour before I could touch myself and get rid of this awful ache. It seemed impossible.

  “Or I could bring you around sooner and strap you back down on the operating table in the other room. I’m heading there now, actually. If you’d like to join Mr. Steadhill and see what real torture is, I’m sure I could arrange it.”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Good. Then I’ll see you later, my dear Sara.” He bent down and kissed my forehead—and God, my body thrummed another ache as his lips touched my skin—and left the room. I lay on the couch, unable to move, unable to do anything but think about the monster who had captured me and how awfully, terribly much I wanted to feel his touch again.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Rien

  What a wonderful plaything. It was like learning a new instrument when I touched her.

  I hummed as I passed through the secret bookcase door, the wall sliding back into place behind me. On the operating room table, Mr. Steadhill was still breathing heavily. I turned on the music, a light classical quartet piece by someone I didn’t know. Baroque, maybe. The strings trilled their melodies in the air.

  I snapped on my gloves. Pleasure first, then pain. I enjoyed inflicting pleasure on the girl, but pain was my first love. Now, I picked up an eyedropper of silver nitrate and pulled up a stool next to the operating room table. Mr. Steadhill was asleep, but he would not be asleep for long. Raising the silver nitrate above the bare half of his face, I let the liquid drop onto his exposed tissue.

  He woke with a jerk, his body twisting on the table. The screams from behind his gag did not go well with the music, and I frowned, reminding myself to go back to the linen-knotted gag instead of cotton. Drip, drip, drip went the eyedropper.

  I remembered when my parents had forced me to learn the cello. All of their friends had children who could play the piano or the violin. My mother didn’t love cello music, but she loved the idea of cello music. And she loved the idea of having a son who could play such an instrument. What a thing to brag about!

  At first I’d hated it, but then I started to practice alone in my room. When I took up the cello and set it in front of me, cradled between my knees, I realized that I liked it. I liked the way my fingers curled around the neck. I liked the way I could scrape the bow across the strings. The low notes would vibrate the wood so that my whole body trembled along with it. The notes would run through me like waves of water.

  Once my mother realized I loved the cello, she sold it and bought a grand piano instead. I never played another note.

  Drip, drip, drip. The silver nitrate would cauterize the facial wounds that were already becoming infected. Although my operating room was sterile, the air was not. I thought back to my medical school lessons. One of the first scientific experiments to prove that infections could move through air was by deliberately infecting patients. It was something that my professors had called inhumane. Back then, doctors would put an infected patient next to an uninfected one. The only thing between them was a gauze membrane. They did not touch, but the infection would spread from one patient to another. Then they knew that the disease passed through air as easily as through bodily contact.

  Was that inhumane? The knowledge of these diseases must have saved thousands of lives afterwards. I couldn’t judge these early doctors for their actions. They thought that what they were doing was for the best.

  “What I am doing is for the best,” I said, dripping the silver nitrate onto Mr. Steadhill’s face. He screamed and screamed and did not understand. His muscles twitched under the drips of the concentrated liquid. His eye was glazed over, reddened. I would have sprayed it with saline, but he really didn’t need his sight in both eyes. Instead, I dripped silver nitrate onto the eye.

  Oh, how he howled! It was a glorious sound, even muffled.

  “Now you’ll live for longer,” I said, patting Mr. Steadhill on the shoulder. “I know that might not be what you want, but it’s for the best.”

  The music played on and I cleaned up, putting back the silver nitrate and storing the extra operating table off to the side. I did not think Sara would need to come back into this room. I would keep her in the library.

  Yes, that would work. I whistled as I washed my hands in the sink, happy to have part of the plan figured out. Mr. Steadhill would die soon; I would keep him around for another couple of days. I had an idea of how to use him, but the idea wasn’t completely clear in my mind. Still, I was happy to have him around to play with, especially since I didn’t have any other clients this week. Perhaps he would offer to pay me for his release.

  And Sara. Sara. She was a new instrument to learn. I understood only a tiny sliver of her so far, but I was certain I would know more. I would get better. She was unfamiliar to me now, but I would uncover the desires that ran through her, all of the nuances of what she wanted from my fingers and lips. She was new, and innocent, and although I did not know if she would stay, for now I would keep her and discover more about her. Soon, I would tease out all of her secrets.

  Soon, I would make her body sing.

  Sara

  My fingers moved first, twitching at my side. Once I saw them move, I wiggled my toes. The effect of whatever he used to paralyze me was wearing off quickly. Soon I was able to lift my entire right arm. I pulled my dress down, pulled the straps back up. I used my one good arm to prop myself up on the couch. I still ached for release, but reconnaissance was more important right now. I suppressed my body’s aching and looked around.

  The library wasn’t very big. Behind the couch was a wall filled entirely with shelves. I tried to figure out where the opening was. We had come through that wall, I was sure of it, but I couldn’t tell which part of the bookcase was the doorway. Maybe there was a hidden switch or something. There had been a switch from the other side, I remembered, but from this side?

  In the corner was a small end table. A stained glass lamp rested on top of it, casting a dim colored light over the room. And there was another door, a real door this time, that led to another part of the house that I hadn’t seen.

  I’d walked into this house as Susan, but now I was another character. As I looked around, trying to find a way to escape, I settled into my new character. It was a stereotype, sure, but one that I’d seen acted out a million times in movies. The Survivor. The survivor was a strong woman. She didn’t let anything get in the way of her goal.

  What was her goal? Easy. Escape. By any means possible.

  I couldn’t do this by myself. I couldn’t do this as Sara. But I co
uld do it as the survivor. That’s who I would be, I decided. From here on out. I would be smart and resourceful. I would look for chances to get out. I would take those chances. And I wouldn’t let him know that I was trying to leave.

  The doorknob turned. Startled, I fell back onto the couch. I didn’t want him to guess that the paralysis was wearing off. Secret. That’s what the survivor was. She never let any information slip that could possibly be useful. Already, her presence inside of me made me a little bit more confident. Bold. If I couldn’t figure out how to get out of here, then she would.

  Rien came in through the oak door carrying a tray. I peered over and saw a glimpse of a hallway through the door opening before it shut behind him.

  “Dinnertime,” he said as he approached the couch. He set the tray down on the floor. It smelled delicious, a warm spicy tomato smell and my stomach growled. I didn’t want to eat anything that he had made me, though. Eating would admit defeat, wouldn’t it? I didn’t want to admit to him or to myself that I was a hostage here. Survivors didn’t admit defeat.

  He shifted my body over so that there was room for him on the couch. One of the two decorative pillows fell to the floor. Gently, he put the pillow behind my neck and propped my head on it. I winced as his fingers brushed against my cheek, thinking about what had happened before. Thinking about what he had done to me already. Would he touch me again?

  Would I want him to?

  He picked up the bowl and offered me a spoonful. I looked down at the bowl. A pesto oil was drizzled on top of the tomato soup. But survivors didn’t eat whatever their captors gave them, not even if it smelled delicious.

  “You have the first bite,” I said.

  “Me?”

  “What if it’s poison?”

  Rien let the spoon drop back in the bowl and tilted his head back to laugh. The warmth in his laugh sent a strange thrill through me. He seemed genuinely amused.

  “Are you kidding me?” he said. “I could slice your throat open right now if I wanted to.”

  I stared down at the bowl, not saying anything. I wasn’t sure what a survivor would say to that. Probably something witty. I was still sinking into the part, though. I only scowled.

  “Fine. Have it your way.”

  With a smirk, he put the spoonful of tomato soup in his mouth. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, the underside of his chin dark with stubble. Why was I looking at him like that? He had taken me hostage. Survivors didn’t fall for their captors, no matter how handsome.

  “See? No poison.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I said, looking away. My stomach growled again, betraying me.

  “Your body is hungry.”

  “That’s different.”

  “You’re right.” He set the spoon back into the bowl and put it down on the tray. “There is a big difference between you and your body. Your body, for example, might want the pleasure I have to offer you. Even if you don’t want it yourself.”

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what he was going to do, but he only sat there next to me, breathing and watching me for a few moments. My fingers moved slightly at my side. I was definitely beginning to get my body back. Maybe I could fake being paralyzed until I had the chance to get at him. If I could jump up and choke him around the neck until he lost consciousness. Then I could run.

  Who are you kidding, Sara? I thought. You aren’t a daring hero. What if it doesn’t work? Then he’ll kill you.

  No. I was a survivor. I could figure out how to get away. I just had to wait for the right opportunity.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he said finally, breaking me from my thoughts.

  “Me?”

  “I want to know more about how you came to be here.”

  “Sure,” I said, breathing deeply. Just having him sit next to me was bringing back the memory of his fingers deep inside of me, and I was fighting to keep the thoughts at bay. I didn’t want him to know how deeply he had affected me with his offer of “pleasure.”

  “Start at the beginning.”

  “I got a call from my agent. He said that Gary—Mr. Steadhill—wanted someone for a temporary role.”

  “No,” Rien said. “I mean, the beginning.”

  He leaned over the couch, setting his elbow on the cushion back and resting his cheek against his knuckles. His body touched me, his hip grazing mine, and the heat that spun through my body made my thoughts slow and muddy.

  “The beginning?”

  “When you were a child. Tell me about your childhood. What led you to acting?”

  I frowned, not knowing why he would care at all. The back of his hand idly skimmed along my arm. Immediately I felt myself opening up again to him, wanting his touch. Surely he knew what he was doing to me. But he thought that I was still paralyzed. I licked my lips and began.

  “I never knew my dad. He left my mom before I was born. We were poor. I never really had anything. Then my mom got pregnant again with my sister, and we really didn’t have anything.”

  “By a different man?”

  I flushed. I never talked with anyone about this. I didn’t speak about my family much, and in Hollywood nobody asked. Family was unimportant, meaningless, unless you had a connection to a higher-up in one of the studios. Acting families were the only families that mattered.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Did you ever know him?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t like to talk about him?”

  “He wasn’t part of our family.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Nobody.” My skin burned in shame.

  “You’re a terrible liar,” Rien said. His fingers gently stroked my arm, going farther up and down with each pass.

  “I’m not.”

  “Who was he?”

  “He was a client,” I spat.

  Rien raised his eyebrows. I wanted to hit him then, punch him right in the face. I could see it in his eyes. He was judging us all, judging my mother for selling her body. Judging me.

  “A client,” he repeated tonelessly.

  “I told you we were poor,” I said.

  “And then?”

  I breathed out in relief and looked away from Rien. I would survive. I remembered surviving back then, when my mom went out late at night and slept with any guy who would pay her. Yes. I was a survivor. So was she. She had done whatever it took to survive.

  “Then? Then I grew up taking care of my sister. We were on and off the streets. I hated it. When I turned eighteen, I left and came to Hollywood to try and make it.”

  “Have you made it?”

  “Sure,” I said, sarcasm biting into my words. “Of course I’ve made it. Look at me. I’m on a leather couch, giving an interview of my life story. If that’s not making it, what is? I’m bigger than fucking Oprah Winfrey. I’ll give you my autograph later, if I can ever move my paralyzed hands again.”

  A small smile crept over his face.

  “So that’s why you took this job.”

  “So that I wouldn’t have to fuck a guy to make rent? Yeah, that’s why I took the job. That’s why I take every job.”

  “I’m sorry.” He pressed his lips together. It was stupid, but he looked so sincere that I actually thought he was sorry. I felt sorry for myself, anyway. What a stupid story. What a stupid life. I should’ve stayed with my mom and sister. I should’ve helped them more. One measly check every now and then was ridiculous. I wasn’t going to become an actress, and what’s more, I didn’t even want to act. I just wanted to get as far away from my real life as possible.

  I bit my lip. I wasn’t there anymore. I was here. I had to take care of myself here. And this was about as far away from real life as I could get.

  “Here,” he said. He picked up the bowl of soup. “You’re hungry. Eat.”

  I opened my mouth, not knowing what had changed between us, only that something had. He held the spoon to my lips and warm soup spilled over my tongue. I swallowed, trying to think about anything
besides the memories Rien had stirred. I didn’t want to talk about my past. I didn’t care about my past self. I was a new person here, or that’s what I wanted to be. And if I hadn’t been so stupid as to take this job…

  I swallowed the soup spoonful by spoonful. Rien didn’t talk at all. He held the food to my mouth and I ate.

  It was strange. Not being able to do anything else, I relaxed. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t have to worry about what to do next. I didn’t have to worry about being fed. Stupid as it sounds, I didn’t feel half as scared now as I had back when I was a kid. Not even with a killer sitting next to me with a bowl of tomato soup in his lap.

  Soon the bowl was empty. He fed me crusts of garlic bread, pinching off bite-sized pieces. I chewed the buttery bread, savoring it. Even the fanciest dinner on Melrose hadn’t tasted as good. I felt stronger. Better. Comforted, in the weirdest way possible.

  “You believe me, then?” I asked, once the last of the food was gone. “That I’m an actress? That I’m not this guy’s wife or whatever?”

  “Of course I believe you.”

  “Then… are you going to let me go?”

  “No.”

  My heart sank in my chest. After I told him all that, just to have him shoot down any possibility of escape–

  “Why not?”

  “How can I trust you enough to let you leave? You’ve seen me with one of my victims. You know his name.” He shook his head, as though thinking it over and coming to a conclusion. “I can’t.”

  “What are you going to do, then? Keep me here forever?”

  “Maybe. Yes. That’s a possibility.”

  Panic gripped my chest. The thought of staying in this room as a prisoner made me feel like the walls of bookshelves were shrinking, closing in on me.

  “Rien. Please. I’ll do anything you tell me to do. I’ll go straight home and I won’t tell anyone about this ever.”

  He raised his eyebrows, smiling.

  “Anything?”

  I flushed. Of course, he would think of that. I hated it. Hated him. But I would survive regardless.