The earthy and spicy odor helps bring me to reality as I awkwardly sit up. I groan as the pounding of my head and the severe ringing in my ears nearly force me to lie back down. I try to pull against my restraints, but quickly stop when the flare of pain in my wrists where the rope has rubbed them raw has me realizing there’s no hope. My feet are free from any kind of binds, which means I can still walk… run… kick. But even though the room is dim, there’s enough light to show I have no place to run to. There is no one in the room to kick. I’m alone in a wine cellar. Naked. Sitting helplessly with my wrists bound behind my back.
The cellar has to be Nick’s. There’s no other place I can be.
The memories of everything that had happened before a rag was placed to my face comes flooding in, my stomach roils as my nightmare forms.
As if my thoughts are the theatrical cue for his entrance, a wooden door at the top of a flight of stairs opens. Nick Hudson walks down the stairs with heavy-booted feet and the click of his cane on every stair.
“I figured you’d be waking up,” he says when he reaches the bottom of the stairs and examines me with hungry—or amused—eyes. I can’t decide which one.
I want to conceal my nudity, but I also don’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how uncomfortable—and afraid—I am. For some reason, I feel keeping my pride, and head held high will help fight against my situation. The additional light from the open door exposes more of the cellar. Besides a few boxes or such tucked into the darker corners, I can tell there isn’t much around me to use as a weapon if I somehow drum up the courage to strike out. The door he entered from appears to be the only way in and out.
“How was your nap?” Nick asks with his arms crossed against his chest and a smirk on his face. He’s wearing the same outfit he wore at Wonderland which is giving me my only sense of time.
The shadows of the room hide his eyes, but I have no doubt the man has a twinkle in them as he asks the question. It’s clear he’s finding my situation amusing with his sick sense of humor, and I fight the urge to spit in his direction.
“Where am I?” I ask, surprised to hear how raspy and shaky my voice is. It betrays me in my quest to show strength.
Regardless of how I sound, however, I refuse to cry and plead for him to let me go. Something deep inside me tells me it will be no use.
“The wine cellar in my home,” Nick says.
“Your home?”
“It was time we left Wonderland. You now get to see my mansion which I don’t share with many since I host my Wonderland in different locations. I prefer to have my tea parties elsewhere. But my home will be your home. It’s comfortable. There’s a full staff, security, and you’ll be able to sleep without worrying if a Sidorov will kill you in your sleep.”
“Is this where you plan to keep me? For how long?” Damn my voice for cracking and barely coming out as a squeak. I also try to ignore the way he seems to take in every inch of my body as I helplessly sit with my chest forced into greater prominence due to the fact my wrists are tied behind my back. “Why don’t I have any clothing?”
“I decided to put all my cards on the table from the start,” he begins. “I want you to see where you can end up. This is how you can spend the rest of your days. Naked. Cold. Afraid. We’re working backwards, starting at the end of the story and making our way to the beginning. Of course, I hope that’s not the actual ending of our story—you being tied naked in a cellar—but I still want you to get a taste of this reality to deter you. I think it’ll help you make wise choices from now on.”
“So, you don’t plan on keeping me this way?” My head spins, and my body begins to shiver as the cool draft of the room has finally penetrated my bones. “This is a lesson?”
Nick takes a few steps toward me and then squats so he’s at eye level with me. “Let’s talk about getting on that same page, shall we?”
I take a deep breath to try to calm the raging fear threatening to consume all rational thought. I have to come up with a way out of this situation. I have to figure out a way to outsmart this twisted, fucked up, demented, and bizarre man who now has some obsession with me.