Jess Haines - Enslaved By the Others

After a week of sitting and stewing in mystery, I could almost believe Max had forgotten I existed. A couple of the girls had loosened up enough to say more than two or three words at a time to me, and I knew all of their names now, but not much else. We weren’t buddies by a long shot and, while they might have been comfortable with each other, I was clearly still too much of an outsider—too Other—for them to want to get chummy.

A good portion of my time was spent working out nervous energy in the pool or reading books. The library had a fairly extensive collection of classics and some recent literary fiction, though I couldn’t help but wonder if he had books like Memoirs of a Geisha, Stoker’s Dracula and The Handmaid’s Tale stocked for his captives because he had a sick sense of humor or if the irony went right over his head. Whatever the reason, the reading material was about the only thing that kept me from going completely bonkers. This was like some weird vacation, except I wasn’t staying in a hotel I could check out of whenever I wanted, and I was more worried about vampire infestation than bedbugs.

When Max did show up, I nearly had a heart attack. With my nose buried in a book, and after getting so used to the comings and goings of his security and maintenance people, I didn’t even notice his entrance. It was his voice that made my heart seize up in terror, except he wasn’t talking to me, or paying me much attention at all.

“Did you miss me, sweet?”

My fingers tightened abruptly around the paperback copy of The Count of Monte Cristo , tearing a page in the process. I peered over the top of the book, otherwise going still. Sick relief that he was talking to someone else didn’t unravel the knots in my stomach. I didn’t want to give him a reason to look my way or to notice me.

Halfway across the room, Max was sitting on a divan beside Vivian, one of the girls who made it a point to avoid talking to me. It was late, dark, with only a few lamps casting pools of light to hold back the shadows. Everyone else had cleared out when I wasn’t looking.

Vivian was staring down at her hands clenched together in her lap, nodding a little too emphatically in response to Max’s question. He smiled and held out a hand, palm up. Though hers shook, she untangled her fingers and placed a hand in his. He lifted her wrist to his mouth and bit down, his gaze flicking in my direction. Too awkward to leave the room, too late to hide behind the book—I focused on Vivian’s face instead, heat burning my cheeks. Though she didn’t make a sound, her breathing had sped up, her mouth slack, her eyes closed.

It felt like walking in on people having sex who were a little too involved to bother stopping on their voyeur’s account. The reminder of why the other girls were here was enough to turn the blood to ice water in my veins.

The reminder that this might be why I was here as well paralyzed me with fear.

Max pulled away from Vivian before long, his tongue scraping over the place he’d bitten. Even from this distance, I could see the slick coat of red staining his fangs and tongue, like he’d been sucking on a cheap, too red lollipop. Her trembling increased marginally, but she didn’t pull away or do anything to fight as Max licked at the punctures. I had to wonder if he was making such a point of it for my benefit or hers.

He pressed a light kiss to the bite, set her hand back down in her lap, then reached over to tilt her head so he could press another to her brow. It might have been sweet if she hadn’t so obviously been making an effort to keep from bolting in terror at his touch. Considering how cavalier he was with human life, it was no wonder she was afraid. Any bite from him could be her last.

His gaze briefly slid back to me before he rose and stalked back to the exit on quiet feet. He glanced at me once more over his shoulder, then to the book in my hands.

“You might find something like The Picture of Dorian Gray more enlightening.”

I nodded mutely, staring back at him as he slid out of the room like a shadow, the door lock engaging with a click. Just before the door shut, I almost called after him to ask if Sara was still here and alive, but the thought of having his attention on me again for any reason filled me with sick dread. What if he decided to feed on me next?

And exactly what kind of object lesson did he think I might learn from Dorian Gray ? It wasn’t like I was about to sell my soul to Max for the sake of beauty or wealth. Unless he wanted me to read and reflect on my relationship with Royce, which was already borderline Faustian. Or had been, before he sent me away from what might have been a very long and decadent life together. He had stashed me in Los Angeles while he dealt with whatever troubles were threatening me in New York. Royce never had been quite clear on what I was hiding from, aside from the police, though I trusted his judgment enough to accept it was serious business.

Whatever the reason, I had to keep in mind it was Max Carlyle making the suggestion. Who knew what he might be thinking? The guy was crazier than a shithouse rat.

Once I was sure he was gone, I put my book down, clearing my throat. Vivian didn’t look up, her attention fixed on her hands, once again clenched in her lap. I moved to her side. She shrank away when I sat down next to her, like she thought I might hurt her, too. I held out a hand in offering as a lump formed in my throat, too big to talk around. She tilted her head to look, biting her lip, I supposed either too afraid to move or speak. Knowing what that felt like, I kept my mouth shut, leaving my hand where it was.

After a very long moment, she slipped her hand into mine. I gave her cold fingers a light, and what I hoped was reassuring, squeeze. Her trembling didn’t let up in the slightest but her bunched shoulders did come down a bit. Long, wavy strands of dark brown hair clung to the perspiration on her skin.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.

Every tear that slid down her pale cheek was like another knife in my heart. Once again, all I had done was sit back and watch as Max assaulted someone. Some part of me was too cowardly to interfere. All I could offer her was a bit of empty comfort, a human touch to remind her that she wasn’t alone.

It was odd, but it stung my pride as the days passed to see Max come and go, drinking from the girls or from Na’man, the one guy he kept locked in here with us. He left the others shaking, emotional wrecks in his wake—while completely ignoring me.

He occasionally took one of them out with him, then returned them a few hours later as pale shadows of themselves. I did my best not to think too hard about what he might have done to them during those little excursions. I could guess by the traumatized looks and empty gazes, the way they shivered and cried once he was gone.

Those were the times I was thankful he seemed to have lost his interest in me. And hated myself more for being too afraid to try to stop him from hurting them, and for being grateful it wasn’t me.

It was even worse when I finally worked up the courage to ask him—from safely across the room during a rare daytime visit—if Sara was okay. He looked at me with such a flat, emotionless expression, his gray eyes washed out to the point of appearing nearly colorless in the dim sunlight, that I couldn’t find it in myself to say anything else. I had to turn my gaze away. He didn’t stay long after that, taking blood from Iana and then leaving without a word. It was disheartening, to say the least.

His perfunctory appearance and manner made a little more sense a couple of hours later. The smell of rotting peaches from Iana’s strange blood was still on the air when Vivian called out from the pool room, the urgency in her voice and frantic gestures bringing all of us to hurry and gather by the windows.