“You shouldn’t. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with you yet.”
I sucked in a deep breath. “What?”
He walked over to me and grabbed my arm, yanking me away from the wall. “I am a cop. My duty is to uphold the law.” He threw me over his shoulder and started for the stairs.
“Hunter, what are you going to do?” I pummeled his back. “Hunter, please. Daddy!”
“I’m going to make this right. There’s only one thing to do.”
“They’re going to lock you up too for lying to protect me.”
“Serves me right for falling for a criminal.”
“Please, Daddy, don’t. You promised you would protect me. Your loyalty should be to me. Not anyone else. Please don’t betray me after making me trust you.”
Hunter stalked into his bedroom, unbothered by my attempts to get him to let me go, and marched me to the closet, where he dumped me on the floor.
“Hunter!”
The closet door closed before I had scrambled to my feet. I pounded on the door, but it didn’t budge. He must have set a chair under the doorknob.
“Hunter, please. Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it. I never had a choice. I never had a choice!”
I banged on the door and cried until I was hoarse, but no response. Exhausted, I curled up on the floor in tears, his scent filling my nostrils. This couldn’t be the end of us. I had to get out of there, but how?
I lost track of time, but hours must have passed when the bedroom door creaked, and footsteps came in.
“Daddy,” I called, my throat hurting. “I’m sorry. Please let me out.”
Hunter ignored me. The shower turned on, and I sat back. If he was taking a shower, then he would need to get clothes from the closet. Sniffling, I yanked a shirt from a hanger and took the hanger in my hand. I didn’t want to hurt him, but there was no way I could let him get away with it.
Just the thought of hurting him again made bile rise into my mouth.
The water was switched off, and a door opened and closed. I held my breath, but he never came to the closet. Rustling, then the sound of a zipper. Of course. We hadn’t unpacked our bags from the cabin. I dropped the hanger and whimpered, curling up in a ball, and sobbed into one of his shirts.
Footsteps approached the closet. Silence. Then they retreated, and a door opened and closed.
I cried myself to sleep until my full bladder woke me up. I squirmed and tried to keep it in, but I couldn’t. Humiliated, I crouched into the corner of the closet and peed. It was like being in the display box all over again. Or being at the facility where Knight and his team had locked me up.
I couldn’t go back to sleep, not with the rank odor that now permeated the closet. When I got hungry, I searched through the pockets of his coats and pants for something to eat. I would never have thought Hunter would be capable of this. Of locking me up and not feeding me, but he’d done it. My caring, protective Daddy.
I found a half bottle of Tic-Tacs in one of his jacket pockets. I sobbed with relief and popped them into my mouth. Nothing else turned up in the rest of his clothes. Why was he leaving me here in limbo, not turning me in but not giving me my freedom either? Anger built inside me. The longer I was here, the more my fury mounted. I threw his clothes in the corner where I’d had to take a piss. And then I peed some more on them, just like the caged animal he treated me as.
I must have fallen asleep again at some point. Hands touching my body woke me up. I slapped at the intruder and screamed.
“Cosmo, it’s me.” Hunter pulled me from the closet into his arms and sat on the floor. “I’m so sorry.” He kissed my face, my cheeks, my nose, my forehead. “Oh my god, you’re driving me crazy, and I can’t think straight when I’m around you, but I can’t be without you either.”
I threw my arms around him and buried my face into his neck, too exhausted to cry anymore. “Did you meet with Agent Knight?”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” he asked. “I didn’t tell him anything. I planned to. On my way to see him, I planned exactly what I was going to say, but when we were at his place, I couldn’t.”
I stiffened in his arms. “Did you sleep with him?”
“I tried that too, and I couldn’t do that either. I kept hearing your voice begging me not to betray you. You were right. Virgil controlled you and your actions. You didn’t have any other choice, did you, Cosmo?”
“No, I didn’t.” I sniffled. “It was wrong, and I don’t like that I did it, but he didn’t give me much of a choice.”
“Cosmo, now that I know the true nature of your involvement in Virgil’s killing spree, I need to know something.”