I wiped the rest of my earlier tears from my face, feeling more than a little awkward. This was such a weird situation. I had doubled back to grab my suitcase, and Will probably heard me struggling with it; Dad was a jerk, but he'd carried it most of the way here. Good for something, I guess.

I almost thought I saw a shadow on the staircase, but dismissed it. Either it was my imagination, in which case I didn't care right now, or it wasn't, and it was Will's "employer" the wolf-boy, in which case…I didn't care right now. It wasn't like we were going to be friends, or anything.

And…it was Rooms. With an s. Will said the whole floor was mine. I'd shared with my sisters all my life, until they'd left to live with their boyfriends. And even when I'd had my own space…it was nothing like this. Fresh-painted walls and crown moldings. Mansion-worthy, I supposed.

"'Lindy's Room,'" I read from the gold-stenciled lettering on the door of what I guessed was my suite. Stalker, much?

But God. The room. Roses were everywhere. In vases on nearly every surface, in all sizes, varieties and colors. It made the whole room smell lovely. My mind flashed for a moment to Kyle Kingsbury. I always thought of him when I saw roses. Poor, stupid Kyle. The most persistent rumor about him was that he was in rehab, which I suppose made him seem glamorous to the students at Tuttle. But…I just think of my father. Addiction is not sexy.

"My employer grows roses," Will said at length; an explanation, I supposed.

"He grew these?"

"He thought you might like them."

I nodded and examined the rest of the room more closely. There was artwork on the walls, brand-new furniture, including a king-sized bed with the most expensive-looking sheets I'd ever seen. I shied away from this: a stalker madman might not create such luxury for one he intended to rape and murder…but he might. I saw a window and walked over to it.

"It would be very far to jump, wouldn't it?" I murmured, fingering the thick glass and admiring the view between the slats of the wooden blinds.

"Yes it would," Will answered, "and the windows don't open that far." A beat later he ventured, "Perhaps…if you give it a chance, you won't find it so terrible, living here."

"Not so terrible?" I repeated, incredulous. I backed away from the window and continued to explore the room. There was an enormous walk-in closet, and I set to inspecting it for torture devices. You never knew. "Have you ever been a prisoner?" I asked scaldingly. "Are you now?"

"No," Will answered firmly. I wondered which one was the firmer 'no.'

"I have," I muttered. All I found on the floor of the closet were shoes. And, I realized, they were all brand-new, and my size. God. That was creepy! In what universe was that not creepy? The clothes were all in my size, too. Where would I even find occasion to wear some of this stuff? It looked like a small section of Bloomingdale's, not an actual wardrobe for someone like me.

"For sixteen years, I've been a prisoner," I said to Will, turning my back on the bribe. I couldn't be bought with fashion. For all I had been stalked, it was almost surprising that anyone could think otherwise. "But I've been digging a tunnel. On my own, I applied for and got a scholarship to one of the best private schools in the city.

"I took a train there every day. The rich kids there ignored me because I wasn't one of them." I scoffed. "They thought I was scum. Maybe they were right." I frowned. It was hard for me to say this aloud, and that surprised me. "But I studied my hardest, got the highest grades. I knew that it was the only way out of my life, to get a scholarship, go to college, get out of here." Will said nothing, but I had gotten myself good and angry, now. "But instead, to keep my father out of jail, I have to be a prisoner here. It isn't fair," I said evenly, though I was seething, again. I was furious when I realized tears had come unbidden to my eyes, and I refused to vocalize them. At least Will wouldn't see them.

"I understand," was all Will said.

"What does he want from me?" I snapped. "To make me…work for him? To…to use me for sex?" And the tears. God. I wiped them angrily away.

"No," Will said, and there was an unyielding firmness there, again. "I wouldn't go along if that were the case."

"Really?" I breathed, and it sounded snippier, but I was actually relieved. "What then?"

"I think…" Will paused, and then tried again. "I know he is lonely."

Lonely. Sure. If you had enough money, you could get away with it, I guess. I sighed but didn't say anything.

I walked around again, pulling a yellow rose from one of the vases. It was gorgeous. Not the kind of flower you could just buy on my side of town. Expertly de-thorned, and petals like velvet. I brushed the bloom against my cheek, but then I replaced it.

Will seemed content to let me be, as I dragged my suitcase into the room with my name on the door, though compared to my department store closet, the clothes I'd packed seemed dingey and unworthy. Like me, I guess.

I opened a door from the room – my room, it said on the door—so that I could continue to explore what Will had claimed were my rooms with an s.

Oh. Oh my. The next room stopped my heart, and I gasped aloud. Will didn't exist anymore, my dad didn't exist, Hob didn't exist, my unknown jailer didn't exist. Because this was heaven. This…this was my sanctuary. It was a library. A library. It was one of my rooms with an s. Maybe my stalker had gotten it wrong, trying to buy me with Bloomie's, but this. This was my currency. This had a chance at buying my cooperation. I mean, not totally. There were things I wouldn't do, if I could help it.

Books. Books and books and books and books. Shelves that reached the ceiling, and ladders that reached the tops of the shelves. And I saw Shakespeare, Vonnegut, Austen, M.T. Anderson…books about physics, religion, philosophy. Hunter S. Thompson. I tilted my head back and back, to see the rows nearer the ceiling, and then I was climbing a ladder, pulling out Shakespeare's sonnets, clutching the book to my chest, smelling it. Brand new. I pulled another book –one of his tragedies, I think, and felt more grounded. I descended the ladder carefully, clutching my treasures, eager to read them.

But I saw Will. And then I remembered that this wasn't my heaven. My sanctuary. This was…this was just a really, really nice prison library. And I wilted. "When I was a kid, I used to like to go to the library," I said, fidgeting with the books in my arms, knowing they were bribes, but unwilling to put them back. "Because it was safe there," I added softly. That's…that's how I got to love reading so much."

There was another beat of silence.

"You're safe here," Will said presently, and I laughed.

"Safe?"

"Yes, safe," Will rejoined, and that firmness was there. Will had passions, and they made his voice sound strong as steel. "That story, whatever the hell your father told you? Is a lie. But you will be safe here." A big fat or else was left unsaid, and I smiled, though Will didn't see it. "I wouldn't go along with it if that wasn't the case," he insisted. He'd said that earlier, and maybe he just really wanted me to let my guard down so that I'd be caught unawares, but I wanted to trust him. "Adrian only wants a companion."

I winced at the word 'companion.' It was archaic, like when Dad had said Adrian was a freak. A word from another time, obsolete, and un-PC.

Weirdly, I thought of my dad, then. And not…not the scum who'd abandoned me here. My dad. Who held my hand when I crossed the street, and kissed my knee when I fell. Before my mom died, he was a respectable person. Before he'd sell his soul –and mine—for a fix.

"Live here a year," Will said, and I looked at him. "I'll tutor you, and you can take the state tests, like the home-schooled kids do. At the end of the year, you'll be alive, safe, and a year closer to graduation. Can you say the same if you stay with your father?"

I opened my mouth but couldn't bring the lie past my lips. No. No. A thousand times no. I hadn't felt safe in my father's care since I was ten. I hadn't felt safe in that hellhole of a house since I was thirteen, when Hob became his new pusher.

"I think I need to be alone now," I said, feeling a sudden need to punch something. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that my dad had sold me here. It wasn't fair that he'd done it before. It wasn't fair that, for all it was a prison, in every sense, it was still the safest I'd felt in a long time. At least my door had a lock. At least I could barricade the door with something. That was more than I'd had at home.

"I'll give you a chance to rest," Will said, offering a bland smile slightly to the right of where I was standing, "and look over your new home," he added. "Magda will bring your lunch at noon. You can meet her then. If you need anything, ask. And it's yours."

And with that, Will left, and closed the door. I was alone.

I clutched my books close to my chest, and numbly wandered back to the main suite. 'Lindy's Room.' Despite my misgivings about the bed, I beelined for it, putting the books on the night table. And then I collapsed into the pillows and comforter and started to sob.