I look down. I’m tied in thick black string. It crosses my body, cuts into my skin. I’m also wearing that damn dress.
“Restrained by your own devices,” he continues. “Your own self-induced limitations. How will you escape the binding restrictions you’ve imposed on your flesh?”
I blink at him, unimpressed.
He shrugs, then brings the glass to my lips. “Tough crowd. I thought the metaphor was fitting. That little string always wound so tightly around your fingers, cutting off blood flow, the way you cut yourself off from living. Then you enter the maze, following the cries, to find the final test.”
Maze? I hear it then—the sound that’s been in the background until he mentions it, bringing it forward. Screams carry from the dark, reaching my ears.
“Who is that? What have you done, Grayson?”
He makes me drink the water, and I struggle to force it past my constricted throat. But something else is…off.
I turn my head away in refusal, and notice my damp hair as it drags over my bare shoulders. “You drugged me,” I accuse.
“I didn’t want to, if that makes a difference.”
“It doesn’t. What did you use?” My head is fuzzy. I need to know if I’ll suffer any side effects. I need to think. To prepare.
“Chloroform.” He states it so casually,
nonchalant. “You needed a bath, and as appealing as it sounds, wrestling you in the tub would’ve eaten away too much time.” Then he grasps my hand. “You’re scared.”
“I’m not scared of you.”
He encloses my hand in both of his. “You are frightened, London. Hands get cold when blood flows from the extremities. It’s a telling psychological response.” He releases me. “Let’s eat.”
He slides a plate closer, then cuts a piece of steak from a fillet. I try to crane my head toward the screams, but it’s painful, and the night masks the scenery past the veranda.
“I never asked, but I presumed you weren’t a vegetarian.”
Too starved to care, I lean forward and bite the meat off the fork.
He slices another piece free. “How much of your memory did you regain?” he asks, offering me the steak.
I take the food, chewing slowly. I don’t want to go back there. I’ve allowed my mind to slip once…I can’t afford to lose control again. “I remembered enough.”
“Do you remember how old you were when you were taken?” Grayson selects a steamed carrot this time. “I remember well. I was seven. Too old for that selective memory thing, where the mind represses bad things to protect itself.” He feeds me the carrot. “You must have been younger.”
“I don’t know,” I admit. I don’t even know if what I experienced in the cage was real or some drug-induced trip. “Why don’t you tell me? You seem to know everything about me already.”
“If I knew everything, we wouldn’t be here. And if we both knew all the answers, then we’d be far past this courting bullshit.”
I laugh. I can’t help it; I’ve gone completely mad. “Courting. I suppose this would be considered dating to a psychopath. A romantic dinner after a little strangulation foreplay.”
The screaming tapers off, barely audible now. He wipes a cloth napkin beneath my lips. “So you prefer something more mundane, like dinner and a movie. Where I bore you with my career achievements. And you force yourself to flatter me, stroke my ego, all the while I’m hoping you get liquored up enough for a quick, sloppy fuck by the end of the night.”
I glare at him.
His lips curve into a smile. “You do like your torture, don’t you.”
“You know what I like more? People who keep their word. You said once I confessed to the mistreatment and misconduct of my patients, then you’d release me.” I lift my chin. “I’m sure you have a recording of that stashed somewhere…so, the damage is done. My career is surely to be ruined. My files confiscated. Experts called in to reevaluate my patients and treatments. You’ve won, Grayson. Another successful punishment dealt and suffered.”
He pushes the plate away, and I mourn the loss of food. “I do have your recorded confessions, but they won’t do any good. You were half delirious, clearly under duress amid your abduction at the hands of a madman.” He stands and looks down at me. “That’s not why you had to endure and pass the test.”
Anxiety coils around my chest like a snake as he pushes the table back, creating a space for him to kneel in front of me. I glimpse the bloodstain on his shirt. Where I stabbed him. I eye the knife on the table.
I attempt to push away, but my legs are restrained just as tightly as my arms. My bare toes scrape the concrete.