Then I closed my eyes and prayed for the darkness to take me.
I thought I heard him say something else, but I was already slipping into the void. It didn’t matter anyway. Nothing did.
I drifted in and out of sleep, pain mixed with the terror of hearing the clanking of my cage being lowered. Numerous times, I jolted awake to cries of someone else being tortured.
“Little one.” I woke to the deep male voice. “Wake up.”
Chains rattled and my cage began to lower. No. God, no. How long had it been? Days, minutes, hours? I had no concept of time, just the realization that the monster was coming to get me.
“Danni.” I slowly glanced over at him. He was standing with his hands gripping the bars, eyes hard and determined. “I’ll get you out. I’ll find a way, damn it.”
“Not again . . .” I mumbled in a haze of shock.
“Jesus!” He hauled on the bars, his face tight with frustration. “Don’t give him what he wants. Fuck, you can’t give in, you have no idea what it will do to you,” he said in a ragged voice.
“Balen.” I whispered his name, but I couldn’t see him anymore as my cage lowered until it settled on the floor. The door unlocked then jerked open. Cold hands gripped my forearms, dragging me across the dirt floor to the steel table. Clanging sounded, and then the harsh metal clamped around my ankles and wrists. I sucked in air as my abrasions rubbed against the restraints.
Then . . . the familiar sound of his footsteps.
My body started to shake as I recognized the stride—slow and precise. Then the smell of black licorice flooded the air and my throat constricted, reflexes making me dry heave.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I prayed to wake from the nightmare. To be back home in my apartment and bitching about doing the laundry. I’d do anything to open my eyes and have a room full of dirty clothes to wash.
The steps stopped and then his jagged nails dragged across my collarbone to my neck.
“Magnificent. Skin like a dove’s. Soon you’ll become my slave, eager to do as I please, and begging for my blood.” His fingers pressed into the bruise on my throat. “And then he,” he looked up at the cages, “will watch you become mine.”
I jerked against the shackles, my eyes flying open as a flash of defiance reignited. “Fuck you.”
He chuckled. “I wondered if I’d driven away that fierce spirit. Drink from me and this will end.” He ran a nail across his wrist and blood rose to the surface. He held it inches away from my mouth. “Drink, Danielle.”
I met his eyes, ignoring the lure that would end this. “It’s Danni, asshole.” It was all I had left, the last rebellion.
He gripped my chin and tilted my head to the side. “I’m very patient, Danni.”
I heard the familiar hiss and my body tensed, legs and wrists yanking on the restraints as a scream tore from my throat.
He chuckled at my struggle, his grip tightening on my chin.
It was then I heard his voice from above. That deep, strong voice that lived in hell with me.
“Ryszard. Stop. Jesus, I’ll fuckin’ do it.” His voice sounded haggard—defeated.
The icy hands left my body.
I lay shaking, unable to decipher what was going on around me, except for Balen’s comforting voice floating through my mind.
“No more pain, little one. Never again. I swear to you. Never again.”
I STARED AT THE portrait of the man—eyes green, like a leaf that had consumed an abundance of rain. His chin sharp and angular, lips thick, and a nose with a slight notch on the bridge. He appeared arrogant, confident, and definitely proud. I’d painted his dark umber hair wet, drops of water clinging to the ends of the strands, which hung an inch below his ears. One drop rested on his cheek as if he were crying.
“Danni, you have to stop doing this,” Anstice said. “It’s not . . . damn it, it’s not healthy.”
It was my best one so far. I thought I really captured his pain this time. The outer corners of his eyes drooped and sadness penetrated as he stared directly at you from every direction. Alone and haunted, as if something horrific had happened to him—a tormented soul.
“This is it,” I said, staring at my painting. I rubbed my arms, easing the familiar goose bumps that rose whenever I looked at him. “He’s the one in my dreams.”
My best friend sighed. “You said that the last time and the time before and the time before that. You’ve painted what . . . twenty, thirty portraits of this guy?”
I shrugged. Yeah, so what. I’d lost count. He lived in my dreams every night, driving me to paint him again and again. He was like a mosquito buzzing in my ear, and no matter what, I couldn’t swat it away. The absurdity of it was that the damn mosquito had become a familiar friend.
I ran my finger across the canvas, touching his slightly parted lips. He was real. I’d known him, spoken to him at one time. I even knew the sound of his voice, a deep baritone with a hint of huskiness.
“He was there. And don’t start with me, Anstice.” I pointed at the painting. “This guy had something to do with my abduction.” It was the way his eyes stared at me, telling me he felt my pain, knew what I’d been through. In my dreams, this beautiful man spoke to me, reached out with his hands and tried to save me from the black shadow who’d tortured me. I’d know if he’d been responsible, wouldn’t I? I was drawn to him and felt a sense of calm whenever I looked at the portrait. Even if my memory was washed away, my body knew.