Unable to meet Van’s eyes, she kept her back to him under the guise of arranging potato chips on three plates. She cleared her throat. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t like him.”
Her hand flexed, crinkling the foil bag in her grip. Apparently, his jealousy had reached a new degree of crazy. He never liked the male slaves, but this was the first time he’d vocalized it.
“I want him gone.” His sharp tone punched her in the back.
Objections amassed in her throat. They wouldn’t find a replacement slave in time. And they couldn’t just send the boy back. He knew where they lived, had seen their faces. Van’s gone meant one thing, an unthinkable alternative he’d never suggested before. Somehow, she mustered an exasperated sigh and a bored tone. “Why?”
“His parents are all over the fucking news.” His voice grew louder, more guttural. “Their whole goddamned town is searching for him.”
This wasn’t about jealousy? She shivered as he paced behind her, the air frosting with each pass, sending ice through her lungs. “He’s not like the others, Van. We knew he’d be missed.”
She didn’t have to turn on the news to know what love and desperation looked like. Haunting images stabbed the backs of her eyes. She squeezed them shut to trap the remembered videos of Mom grieving alone and the god-awful need to reach through the screen and hug her.
His fingers bit into her bicep, spinning her so violently her hip slammed into the counter’s edge. “Why did you choose him?” He shook her shoulder, his grip punishing. “Answer me,” he shouted, his fury a hot mist in her face.
She blinked rapidly, grasping at the most logical answer. “He fit what the buyer wanted.” She dragged her gaze to his and flinched at the feral expression twisting his features.
“Bullshit.” He captured her jaw in a steel grip, lifting her chin until she stretched on tiptoes. “A hundred other fuckers would’ve met the requirements. This one fit what you wanted.”
The truth of his words paralyzed her, shriveling all of her justifications for choosing Joshua Carter. The real reason made her throat tighten. He represented purity, beauty, family, all of the things that had been taken from her. He was a glimmer of goodness in her dark fucking world, a warm spark she could hold, if only for a fleeting span of time.
Her fingernails stabbed her palms. She was such a selfish, vile bitch.
Van shoved her away, turned her over the counter, and pressed her face against the laminate. “And the way he was looking at you really pisses me the fuck off.”
When his hand tunneled between her thighs, her heart sputtered. “No.” She jerked beneath the prison of his immovable body. “No, Van. I have a job to do. I need to be in the right frame of mind.”
The intrusion of his fingers speared between her labia, pinching dry flesh. “What frame of mind is that?” His tone, as cold and penetrating as his touch, froze her to her bones.
“I am a Mistress, not your sex slave.” She tried to match his iciness, but it came out desperate and high-pitched.
He yanked her from the counter and slammed his knuckles into her face. She managed to stay on her feet as jolts of pain fired through her skull. A warm trickle wet her lashes and smudged her vision. The ache in her heart was worse, but she would not give him the perception he’d hurt her beyond the cut of his fist. She kept her hands to her sides and met his biting silver gaze head-on.
Angry red splotches stained his neck and cheek, and she imagined his blood simmering beneath the skin. He clutched the counter’s edge on either side of her hips, his face level with hers. “When I dispose of your body, no one will ever find it.” His voice dropped to a chilling rasp. “You know why?”
Her heart sped up, increasing the throb above her eye. She held her muscles as motionless as her glare.
“Because no one will care enough to search for it.” He angled over the plates and hocked a foaming bubble of spit on one of the sandwiches. “Clean up your face.” His smirk flared the bruise around her heart. “You look more like a slave than your little cunt boy.” He grabbed an unsoiled sandwich, sat at the table, and dug into the roast beef.
What they were, what they’d become together, wasn’t sane or healthy. It was in his blood to spew nasty things in a fit of rage, including threats on her life, and she’d conditioned herself over the years to bury it. His temper would eventually ebb, and the hurt from his words would, too. Because she didn’t love him, he didn’t have the power to leave a permanent scar on her heart. But that reminder didn’t help the rawness of the moment as she moved to the sink and turned the tap to warm.
Ducking her head, the spray showered her face, renewing the pain around her eye. The water ran red, but no amount of cleaning would remove the evidence that she was just as much a prisoner as the ones in chains. And somehow, she would have to stand before the boy with a black eye as his Mistress.
Van finished his meal and reclined in the chair, studying her. No hint of civility, but the tension in his jaw loosened. “If you spent your allowance on makeup instead of your skydiving bullshit, you’d be able to cover that before you went upstairs.”
She dried her face, blotting the hurt over her eye. Her fingers recoiled from the bubbled scar on her cheek, the cut that makeup could never cover. Not that she would waste a dime on meaningless luxuries. Their monthly funds from Mr. E paid for basic expenses, groceries, gas, and tools for training. She and Van split whatever was leftover, and she used her allotment on freefalling. Her only freedom.
As she replaced the ruined sandwich top with a new slice of bread, Van tossed a bag of frozen peas on the counter beside her. It wasn’t an apology, but an offer to move on.
She held the icy bag to her eye. Too bad it couldn’t numb the emotions swelling her throat.
Chapter 17
Josh chewed the hell out of his cheek. Fifteen minutes alone with the naked girl and she wouldn’t answer any of his questions. She was probably thinking, Fifteen minutes with the naked man, and he wouldn’t shut up. Too bad. The need to hear about her experience coiled him into a restless chatterbox. He didn’t just want to make sure she was okay. He needed to hear everything she knew.
He tried to draw her in with highlights from his family farm, his coursework, and football achievements while shifting his weight from one knee to the other to transfer his discomfort on the hard floor. When she said nothing, he switched back to questioning. “Do you know what they have planned next or why Van was ticked off?”
She remained statuesque in her folded pose on the cot.
He pressed his lips together and tried to rein in his frustration. “Does anyone ever visit?”
Her hands and arms were limp, her silence ominous, indicative of psychological trauma.
He drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. “Have you ever left this room?”
She stared at her lap.
“Who is Mr. E?” His stomach growled. What he wouldn’t do for Mom’s biscuits and gravy right now. He winced, thinking about her safety. “Have you ever met him?”
A big empty nothing.
He sighed but refused to admit defeat. “You seem like a nice girl. Pretty, too, though I’ve yet to see beyond the top of your head.” Okay, that last part wasn’t entirely true. “I’m not looking at the rest, I promise.”
Funny how quickly he’d become unconcerned with his own nudity. He yanked his wrists, clattering the chains, and her head didn’t move from its downward position.
“We’re in this together, right? I just need your help understanding what this is.”