Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
My instincts were itching, warning me that something was going to happen this evening. What, I couldn’t be sure. And maybe it wasn’t my instincts. More than likely it was my overactive imagination that tended to create completely unrealistic, romantic scenarios that couldn’t possibly come to life.
I kept drawing cards from my deck when Knox wasn’t around, and The Devil returned again and again. Same with The Lovers. It was laughable now, the way the universe was shoving this in my face. Or maybe it was my unconscious wants, my shadow showing me that it would not be ignored.
I couldn’t trust my own mind, that was becoming more and more apparent. Knox made it crystal clear that I couldn’t trust him. The only person I trusted completely was also being held hostage, her under the threat of death.
The bottom was falling out of my life, yet there I was, taking extra time to style my hair and dab on some makeup after showering. As if I were going to have a date with my captor.
My wardrobe did not offer much variety, and I didn’t pack to look sexy. But I’d put on my most favorite pair of jeans, worn and faded, clinging to every inch of me like a glove no matter how many times I washed them.
I put on a simple white tank and a cardigan stitched with tiny wildflowers. With my hair piled at the top of my head, I fiddled with pulling a few strands out here and there, trying to make it look effortless when really I spent five minutes making it seem that way.
I put on a thin amount of concealer, marveling at the freckles across my nose that hadn’t been there before. They made me look younger. My eyes were brighter than they’d ever been as I brushed mascara on my lashes. As I dabbed blush on my cheekbones, I contemplated the woman who looked like a child who had run through the mountains, picking wildflowers with an unscathed heart, a full belly, ignorant to the horrors that awaited her.
Somehow, during my captivity, I’d found that child. And I was welcoming her back.
Was my kidnapping … healing my inner child?
Ridiculous.
But true, nonetheless. And yes, it might’ve been the magic of the mountains, the way the air smelled cleaner here, the sun shone brighter, and the trees stood taller.
But mostly it was the man who was cut out of the environment like an intruder and a native all at once.
It took effort to act normal while walking out of the bathroom. Then again, I never acted ‘normal’ while anywhere in Knox’s line of sight. Every inch of me was coiled, tense, hyperaware in his presence. That was likely why I crashed so hard every night, my body was working overtime in a constant state of survival mode.
I needed to get used to that, I supposed, since it was looking more and more likely that the rest of my life—however long that was going to be—was going to be lived like that.
Knox was leaning against the countertop beside the stove where dinner was simmering.
He wasn’t doing anything, just leaning, one ankle over the over, arms crossed, eyes focused on the doorway I was emerging from. As if he’d been staring at it the entire time I’d been in the bathroom.
I didn’t do what I normally did, which was refuse to look in his direction and pretend to busy myself with sorting dirty clothes, taking them to be washed or hiding behind the cover of a paperback I wasn’t reading.
Instead of doing that, I met his stare. I didn’t know what my expression said. I wasn’t trying to challenge him like I had in the past, wasn’t trying to convey some semblance of strength nor determination. Not even hatred.
Because I didn’t hate him. Not anymore. My feelings for him were like a rose, full of thorns sharp enough to draw blood combined with lovely soft edges.
Maybe that’s what I wore on my expression, all of my discomfort and longing for him. Whatever it was, he picked up on it. I knew that because when he stared at me, he did it like he was trying to study me, learn me so well that he could write a book on how to break me.
He didn’t look away. He didn’t even swallow.
We stayed like that, staring through the air that had become charged at some point.
I spoke first. He certainly wouldn’t have. He seemed as if he would be content to stand there and stare at me for hours.
Which he was.
He did it all day every day.
And it was only then when I truly realized that he wasn’t staring at me like a captor watching a captive. He was watching me like a man living in eternal darkness gazing at his first glimpse of sunshine, unwilling to blink lest it leave.