In The End Box Set | Books 1-3 Stevens, GJ (story books to read TXT) 📖

Eventually she bent to the side and pulled a pair of fresh underwear from the pile.

“Do you…?” she said.

I held back my reply, instead taking a moment to swallow down my thoughts and confusion at my body’s reaction.

“No, thank you. It’s fine,” I said, and took the cotton from her hand and disappeared behind an aisle of clothes to finish dressing. I waited longer than the time it had taken to dress trying to resolve the feelings in my head.

“Thank you,” I said, pretending to myself I felt no disappointment when she’d already changed as I arrived back to see the candles flickering in the clearing.

We ate cold beans from cans without talking. I didn’t care, each mouthful soothing my pain as I listened to the air void of sound other than from my companion eating. Tiredness fogged my thoughts. I hadn’t slept since I didn’t know when and I could feel myself drifting, eyes heavy. My heart rate spiked as I thought of waking and not knowing who I was.

“You need to tie me up.”

Alex sat up straight, not giving a reply.

“I need to sleep,” I said, but she didn’t get my meaning, her brain clearly frozen on the words. “It’s not safe to be around me. You need to tie me up in case I can’t control myself.”

I felt frustration bubbling in my belly; at least I hoped it was the reason for the feeling. I saw the confusion on Alex’s face, along with the smile she was trying to force down.

“I won't fuck you,” I snapped, the raise of my voice echoing across the room. “You’re safe from my advances, but if the medicine I’ve already had isn’t enough, then you won’t know what hit you.”

Her face fell with my words and the abrupt change in mood. She stood, disappearing out of the light. Her voice carried softly from the darkness.

“It’s not like that,” she said. “You’re safe from me, too. I’m not into…”

The words vanished to nothing as I closed my eyes. Letting go of a deep breath, I used my good hand to rub the water from my eyes.

I heard her before I saw her shape in the shadows. I heard the rattle of the chain before I saw its gleam in the flicker of the candle.

By that time I’d already clipped the cuff around my good wrist with the empty bracelet, ready to clip to the free end once its length had encircled the pipes leading up to the radiator on the far wall.

With the bracelets fixed, she hadn’t said a word and I lay down, turning back and forth to find comfort and closed my eyes.

I couldn’t think of her feelings in that moment. All I could concentrate on was what it felt like to feel human and hoping I would see the morning with the same perspective.

***

I opened my eyes.

I was alive. I was me. I was the same as when I’d fallen asleep. I felt no need I hadn’t felt before this all happened. Toni had lied about so much; maybe she was lying about the dose I needed.

An engine revved too hard close by, but it was moving away.

The room was the same, but different in every way. Daylight poured from the skylights I hadn’t noticed last night.  I turned for Alex to shout for her to wake, to call out so she would know someone was stealing the van.

Her hand-built bed was empty, the gun missing from where it had rested at her side.

If this wasn’t a dream, I’d made it through the night. But if this wasn’t just inside my head, I’d not only scared away my camera operator, she’d abandoned me and left me for dead.

90

The pain in my hand told me it wasn’t a dream. The dull ache in my swollen fingers was an improvement on the sharp stab with each pump of my heart before I’d slept. The rattle of the chain as I sat up rang high in my ears, confirming it wasn’t the result of chemicals forming pictures in my mind; as did the hunger deep in my belly when I surveyed the ruffled blankets where I’d slept to see if she’d at least left me the key.

She hadn’t.

I should have known. Why had I trusted someone I’d only just met, despite what we’d already been through together in the short time? Maybe Toni had been right all along. Maybe I couldn’t be trusted not to stray given half a chance. Maybe I trusted too easily, despite what I’d seen in my career and the training Toni had inadvertently given me. Why did I throw that experience out of the window any time someone paid me any attention?

I laughed whilst shaking my head. Was it only a day since we’d met? But my thoughts darkened as the sound of the engine faded further into the distance.

Why had she left? I still struggled to think of her as a woman, despite the evidence. Had I damaged her ego when I said those things? The way she reacted to my words. Had I seen things between us, from her, that weren’t there? Had I scared her off with thoughts she didn’t want to bring to the surface?

Or was it all in my head?

Pressure rose in my chest; the knot in my stomach grew at the thought of her not even unlocking my bounds or leaving me the key. She knew I would be at the mercy of the first person to come through the door, alive or otherwise.

Since I’d been a teen, I’d needed no one. Never a man or a woman before now and I hated Toni even more for putting me in this position. I knew she’d always wanted me in her control. Our fights,