In the silence of the library, I sat by the window, lost in the pages of a book. It was my only escape from this boring reality. I had a lot going on in my head. And if I didn’t distract myself with something meaningful, I just might lose my mind.
Outside, songbirds were chirping in the trees like a choir on a Sunday morning. It was a strange experience for a girl who’d spent all her life in a concrete world.
I’d never been around nature for this long, and it was both refreshing and unsettling at the same time. The smell of damp earth, the scent of fresh flowers, and the serenity of the environment opened my eyes to what I’d been missing.
For so long, I was used to the loudness of the bustling city. And that alone robbed me of the possibility of something better. Something quieter. I didn’t know what true peace and quiet looked like until now.
Here, away from all the noise and the craziness of the city, I could think more clearly. Even the air was healthy. No soot. No dust from a nearby construction site. No smoke from exhaust pipes. Nothing. Not a single pollutant.
And for the first time, it was as though my lungs were thanking me. I was more relaxed, and my mind was more stable in ways I couldn’t explain. Being close to nature was gradually teaching me lessons I never thought I needed.
It opened my eyes to some of the damage our technology and innovations had done to the ecosystem. The kind of peace I found in this prison, ironically, was better than what I had back in the city.
There were no rush hours here, no crazy drivers yelling, cursing, and honking their horns. The whole environment just seemed like heaven. Beautiful and serene.
The longer I stayed locked in here, the more I understood why my captor chose this area. He was a man of few words, and clearly, he loved his privacy and hated noise.
Even though I’d never admit it, deep down, I was starting to like it here. The place had everything I could possibly need: food, power, serenity, and most importantly, access to an endless collection of books.
What else could a girl need? Besides, I was already an indoor person used to staying by myself.
To me, this was heaven.
Or at least it would’ve been under different circumstances.
In reality, it was supposed to be a prison. However, lately, I wasn’t so sure about that anymore with all the tension between my captor and me. There was something about the way he stared at me when he thought I wasn’t looking that sparked a fire inside me.
It was lust.
I knew that for sure because I was struggling with the same thing myself. In fact, it became worse for me after the kiss and the way he massaged my hurting wrist.
At this point, our actions had blurred the line between captor and captive. I had no idea what I was to him, and I was curious to find out. The only problem was that I wasn’t sure how to go about it.
It would be weird to ask him directly.
Right?
Should I keep cool and pretend I wasn’t feeling the pull between us?
Should I kill whatever emotion this man had stirred up within me?
He was a monster—a ruthless, cold-blooded murderer. In other words, a red flag. I should stay in my lane, mind my business, and pray that something would move him to let me go.
As strangely comforting as this place was, it made me feel useless, purposeless, and unproductive. My life was on hold because one man decided to play God over me. This man was the reason for my pain and also the one my body craved.
I hated him. I hated how he made me feel.
But unfortunately, it was my current reality.
As I kept reading, something outside caught my eye. Birds, dozens of them, scattered from the trees, squawking and flapping their wings loudly in the air.
It was almost as if something had scared them off, something worth worrying about. My eyes squinted, and I rose from my chair after spotting some strange movements in the trees outside.
At first, I didn’t get a good look at them, just their shadows on the ground and the tree barks. However, the moment one stepped into view, I saw him clearly. He was huge, masked, and armed with a rifle.
Before any new thought could cross my mind, more masked men appeared behind him. Armed and dangerous. They weren’t the mansion guards. No.
Their outfit and their silent movements, like soldiers skilled in infiltration and espionage, alerted me that they were trouble.Bigtrouble.