So… Jenny was fucked. No more chances to win, no more tricks to play; Julian had her and there was no escape. He'd wrapped his arms around her and dropped them both down into the vortex, blue electricity crackling around them as they fell and Jenny screaming herself raw. The fall felt like it had gone on forever but was most likely only about ten seconds and, instead of the back-breaking impact she was expecting, Julian had landed them with a cat-like grace, his arms still wrapped tightly around her body. She struggled, trying to get away from him, but his arms were like steel, holding her in place as she screamed bloody murder at him. Julian had tried to calm her, whispering soothing nonsense as she twisted and writhed in his arms but, when she wouldn't, couldn't, calm down, he scooped her up and over his shoulder.
She'd been in such a state, wailing and hitting out at Julian as he carried her up the wrought iron spiral staircase that she hadn't really taken in the house. She remembered the staircase because going up it upside down had made her want to puke and she'd hoped that it'd flow right down Julian's back.
He'd plopped her down onto a huge ebony four-poster bed that was all black satin sheets and deep purple muslin curtains and then promptly disappeared, leaving her in a room with no doors or windows. To her eternal shame, Jenny didn't scream and howl obscenities at the ceiling like she always thought she would; instead, overcome with the uncanny despair of her situation, Jenny passed out and didn't dream.
In the morning, Jenny awoke and found herself facedown and unfortunately spread-eagled in a pile of black satin, shoes still on, skirt rucked up to right beneath her arse and she had the mother of all night wedgies.
'Classy, Jen,' she mumbled as she tried to untangle herself and pull her skirt down.
'Actually, I was rather enjoying the view.' Jenny gasped and flipped herself over, instinctively pulling at the slithery duvet cover so she could hide behind it. Julian was dressed all in deepest black, highlighting the way the snowy-white beauty of his pale skin contrasted with his combat trousers, short sleeved tshirt, that was almost snug around his lithe muscled arms, and his frosty-white hair looked artfully tousled. He was leaning back against the wall, which Jenny noted was decorated in black and silver damask just like she'd always wanted, with his arms crossed and he was smiling at her. Well, giving her that heavy lidded predatory cat smile that made him look like a smarmy shithead (and kind of hot, she admitted to herself, sullenly).
Brow creasing, Jenny wondered how she knew it was morning if there were no windows in the room but then her eyes followed the soft hazy daylight back to its source. A huge inverted shield-shaped window with crossed dark wood beams took up nearly the entire left wall of the room. Beneath it there was a deep blue velvet covered loveseat, decorated with jewel coloured silky-looking scatter pillows. Outside the window Jenny could see a lush green lawn below, punctuated here and there by flowerbeds filled with lilies, roses and tulips of every imaginable colour and rustic looking benches. Further away, Jenny could see a large pond that had an aged stone bridge rising gently over it where you could watch the fish swim and dart around. Beyond that there was a large swimming pool, not Olympic sized but big enough to swim lengths in, and a patio-type area where there were sun loungers and big umbrellas for shading against the warm sunlight.
Jenny felt her eyebrows reaching for her hairline until she saw Julian's smile widening in pleasure at her reaction. The bastard doesn't deserve happiness, Jenny snarled to herself, thinking of Summer, of Tom, of how her friends had suffered at the hands of this arsehole. Straightening her back and lifting her chin, she forced herself to look him in the eye and show no fear, hiding her trembling hands behind her back as she bared her teeth at him and said 'You know who watches people sleep? Creepy. Fucking. Rapists.' Jenny hissed it at him with as much vitriol as she could manage, trying to force all her rage and hatred for him into her sharply punctuated words.
Julian's sly smile disappeared in an instant and his eyes narrowed further, until they were like razor sharp flecks of startling blue ice, his pupils small in a way that was rare; usually when he looked at Jenny, his pupils blew open, almost enveloping the blue depths of his iris. His arms slowly unfolded and moved to his sides where his fingers curled into fists as he glared at her, the tendons in his arms going taught and his knuckles turning even whiter as he clenched them. Jenny felt her stomach flip as her earlier courage ebbed in the face of his anger and, for the second time since he'd taken her, she wondered if she was going to throw up.
'Jenny,' Julian hissed, his habitually musical voice sharp edged with bitterness and fury, 'do not make the mistake of forgetting where you really are and what I am.' On the word am, the room around them flickered and Jenny gasped as the freezing winds of a biblical blizzard tore through her, ripping the breath from her lungs and blinding her in an instant as icy shards of rock, sharp as broken glass, sliced into her bare legs. For a second Jenny was truly terrified, bone-deep fear that manifested as the urge to scream and cover her face with her hands, but then it was gone and she was back in the bedroom, warm and quiet, the cuts on her legs mysteriously absent. Julian leaned his head to the side, glaring intently at her from underneath his thick black lashes before dropping his gaze and smiling to himself as he walked towards the bed. Jenny scuttled backwards until her back slammed against the ebony headboard and dug her fingernails into the palms off her hands, irrationally begging herself to wake up from this unbelievable nightmare, to no avail. There was no escape this time, not unless Julian wanted her to leave and, after all the horror of the games, that seemed unlikely.
Her stomach gurgled loudly and Julian pursed his lips into a tight smile, looking like he was trying not to laugh at the world's best joke. Jenny hated his mood swings, his unpredictability; it reminded her of when her alcoholic uncle, her father's brother, had come to stay during a particularly rough patch and the whole household had been forced to walk on egg shells so that he wouldn't suddenly blow up at them. When he finally did, he'd screamed violent threats at her little brother until her father came rushing in and threw him out of the house, hurling his luggage along after him.
'Look, Jenny, I don't want to fight today.' Julian was back to his reasonable voice, deceptively soothing in its gentleness and clarity. 'Are you hungry? I have breakfast for you.' With one of those quick, deft hand movements, he plucked a platter out of the air and placed it in front of her and, despite herself, Jenny felt saliva pool beneath her tongue as the smell hit her. Warm buttery croissants, little pots of jam, one strawberry, one raspberry, both seedless, a cafetierre filled with steaming, delicious smelling coffee, a jug of hot milk which had a mini electric whisk next to it in order to froth the milk and a small glass bottle of caramel syrup with which to sweeten her coffee. Her favourite breakfast laid out in front of her and all she could think about was the first time Audrey had introduced her to milk frothers and they'd ended up drinking an insane amount of coffee, jabbering away as they were overcome with caffeine jitters, crying with laughter at the state of each other and Dee's face when she arrived to find the two of them vibrating with energy and wearing milk foam moustaches. Jenny stared down at the tray and felt her mouth dry up, appetite gone, her stomach consumed with an aching homesickness and despair that brought the hot burning feeling of tears to her eyes.
'Julian, I want to go home.'
