I was in no hurry for that.
An hour later the sun was fully up and the room fully explored. It was a room, normal except for restraints at various intervals and one rather horrible chifforobe full of canes and switches and birches and whips, crops and tawses and things I'd never known existed in the days before Cole. Once upon a time I had wished that Mark might occasionally put me over his knee and give me a spanking. Never in response to anything. I didn't need my fiancé to "correct my behavior." I'd probably have bitten his head off if he'd ever tried. But just because it might spice things up. Something to struggle against. Sensation that was different. I might even have liked the mild pain. I didn't think it had anything to do with ideas like leaving behind the Annie Knox who was so in control at her job, never letting her guard down, especially when she was undercover and had to be drugged-out Annie or Lily the stoner, Jesse's old lady. Always in control even if no one knew it.
I didn't think my interests were that easily explained. That explanation – alphas like to have control wrested from them, to be controlled and even punished! – smacked of cheap psychobabble and pop psychology.
The idea that I simply liked pain I liked even less.
Since Cole had come into my life, explanations were less plentiful and the whole thing made less sense. I chafed at Cole's control. I'd come to learn that, no matter what, pain hurt.
Whatever the reasoning behind my desires, I'd find no explanations and no desires here. I'd created Lily out of whole cloth, fashioned her from girls I'd gone to school with and girls I'd arrested and other girls I'd seen hanging around with the dealers and the users.
I needed to do the same thing here. I needed to go undercover – deep undercover – and bury Annie somewhere safe. Lily wouldn't help. I didn't need opiates mixed into the hell that was Vincent Geddes and Kie.
I'd been eyeing the phone, wondering what Vincent would do about feeding me. The day before had been horrific. Now I was starving. There was nothing else for me to put on, so I wore the sweats he'd thrown at me back in Hollywood. There was no one else to ask for food, so I was going to pick up the phone and ask whoever was there what I had to do to get some.
There was no other way out of the room except the window that had proved I was on the third floor of a large house in a city that gave me no clues. So I'd have to find another way out. Undoubtedly there was an alarm on the window. I'd tried opening it and no one came, so maybe it reacted to weight on the sill or the screen being popped out.
Or maybe the fact that I was three floors up with a sheer drop convinced Vincent to skip alarms.
I sat down on the edge of the bed to figure out the parameters of the person I needed to create. Submissive, but angry. Obedient, but clearly only because she had to be.
So far? That was me.
But I needed to be untouchable. Stone-faced at any references to Cole. Scathing about his rules but not breaking them. I wouldn't be able to convince him that overnight I'd come to see the error of my ways and wanted to fall into line behind crazy Kie as concubine number two. But I could convince him I was going along to get along and to avoid beatings.
So far I was simply presenting Annie.
But Annie who logically accepted what was happening to her and waited to go back to Cole. Annie who believed whatever Vincent told her.
That Annie was the fake.
The real Annie was waiting for her chance. Her chance to run.
And her chance to kill Vincent and Kie.
I was still sitting on the edge of the bed when the screaming started.
5
Cole
I ran in the desert. I visited with Ariel. I stayed breathing down the necks of the hackers as they worked round the clock fueled by Red Bull and cheese snacks. Or in some cases, spring water and organic kale.
I contacted Claude and Chloe, and Dr. Andrews, and everyone just barely outside our circle but no one had heard from Vincent.
He'd vanished.
I destroyed three punching bags. I obsessively watched anything that might show celebrities of the financial world.
On day three I used my own discipline on myself and went back into my lab, working on several different synthetic and natural substances. Forcing my mind into new rhythms. Maybe something would come of it. I'd come out of a work session to find I had just remembered some random comment Vincent had made years ago, something about a vacation house or his own worst case scenario bunker or –
But nothing came to me. I distracted myself by thinking of how I would punish her when she came back to me. It didn't matter if it wasn't her fault. She'd be punished and I'd make damned sure she didn't enjoy it.
6
Annie
The screaming was coming from somewhere in the house. My first instinct was to respond as law enforcement. I ran to the door, already grabbing at a gun that wasn't on my person any more than actual clothing or a cell phone or a badge were.
The door was locked. For a second I hammered on it and shouted before reason returned. Not only had the people I was screaming for been the ones to lock me in, but whatever was happening, it wasn't happening to me and right now, that was the only thing I needed to worry about.
Except that was impossible. Because wherever here was, it was ruled by only one lord and master. Of that I had no doubt. Vincent ruled whatever this house was. That meant whoever was screaming – my money was on Kie though it could have been some girl brought in, god knows I was some girl dragged in – and if Vincent made someone he intended to keep scream like that, what the hell would he do with me?
For the hours that followed I drank water from the bathroom sink, paced the confines of my new room, tried to sleep, searched for food as hunger started to gnaw at me, and went back to pacing.
Vincent sent a guard to get me at sundown. She was a bodybuilder, that was certain, and she was in Vincent's employ. There was something about her, though, that didn't seem like she'd hurt me just because she could.
"Can you tell me where you'll be taking me?" I asked. I was waiting for her to handcuff me or click the restraints to the collar around my neck but she just gestured at me to pick up the shoes.
I sighed.
"Just bring them with you," she said, as if she shared a loathing for them. "I'm just taking you to dinner. You'll be fed and then you'll attend Mr. Geddes as he eats."
I didn't like the word attend but there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. "Thanks. Can you tell me what the screaming was I heard this afternoon?"
Her eyes snapped to a spot distant and past my left ear and she said flatly, "No, ma'am, I could not."
I tried again. "Can you tell me if it was Kie who was screaming?" I had my shoes in hand but no desire to leave the room, not even for food.
'No, ma'am, I could not."
I narrowed my eyes at her distant expression. "Are we under surveillance right now?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Was that a flicker of relief that ran across her face? It didn't matter. She'd been decent enough to me and I wasn't going to pursue it. I let her lead me to a kitchen where a variety of domestics or help or staff or whatever household workers were called by those rich enough to have them were also eating their dinners. The food was hot and decently prepared and nicely presented and five minutes later I couldn't have said what I ate, only that I wasn't hungry anymore.