Unnerved at the sudden change in his demeaner, Adalyn added, "I…I should make a phone call."

She started to stand up, but the man snatched her wrist in his tight grip. When she looked at his eyes, her heart skipped a beat as she saw just how angry they looked.

"Okay, I…I won't leave. I…just need to call my mom and let her know I'm okay. She'll be worried about me if I don't. Wouldn't your mother worry about you if she didn't hear from you for a long time?"

The words seemed to affect him in some way because his eyes changed and he reluctantly released her wrist. So he had a soft spot for mothers. She made a mental note of that.

Adalyn grabbed the teddy bear, left the kitchen, and went out to the reading room where she remembered seeing a landline. She tried to ignore the creepy porcelain doll still sitting in the chair. The telephone in the room was an old-fashioned black one that looked like a rotary phone. Fortunately, it had buttons instead of a dial. She contemplated dialing the UK equivalent of 911, but the doll's unblinking eyes staring at her made her feel like the man was listening to the phone call which wouldn't surprise her. So she quickly dialed her mom's number back in Maryland and made sure to choose her words carefully.

"Hello?" her mother's voice answered which immediately made Adalyn feel just a little calmer.

"Hi, Mom."

"Adalyn? Where are you calling from? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just wanted to make sure I checked in so that you didn't worry about me. Everything's okay here. The trip took a couple unexpected turns, but I'm all right, I promise. How's your trip to the Grand Canyon?"

There was silence on the other end for a minute, and then her mom answered, "It's good, I just wish that I could get some privacy sometimes, you know? Lots of tourists and all."

"I know, it's hard to get that here too."

More silence, and then, "So how are you doing? What's your hotel like? Are you in the city or the country?"

"The country. My hotel is really out of the way, kind of in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty hard to find when I first got here. I had to get a cab driver to help me out."

"Did you end up having to share the room with someone?"

"Yeah. So far, they've been kind of nice. But I don't know long that's gonna go on."

"It's going to be fine, I promise. You'll be okay."

"Thanks, Mom. I-I've gotta get going, okay? I don't want to be on the phone too long. These calls are kind of expensive, you know?"

"I know. I love you so much, baby."

Trying to keep her voice from breaking, Adalyn squeezed the teddy bear and replied, "I love you too."

Adalyn put the phone back onto the receiver and took a breath. 'Grand Canyon' was her code word to use with her mother when she was in trouble and needed help. All of the following questions had been to discreetly ask if someone was listening to both sides of the call, where her location was, and if there was someone with her who was hurting her or planned on hurting her. She hadn't been able to give very much information, but she trusted that her mother had gotten enough to be able to send some help her way.

She could already tell that she wouldn't be able to leave the mansion of her own volition any time soon.

Adalyn looked at the porcelain doll staring at her. She slowly walked up to it and lightly ran her finger over one of its cracked cheeks. It must've taken weeks to glue this thing back together and she admired whoever had that kind of patience.

She turned around to go back to the kitchen and jumped when she saw the man, Brahms, standing at the entrance to the reading room. "For someone so tall, you sure are light on your feet," she said. "Um…thanks for letting me talk to my mom." She looked at the various cracks on his mask and then back at the doll. "Wait, is this doll…supposed to be you?"

Brahms tilted his head to the side.

"Who are you?"

He handed her the two pieces of wrinkled paper with the schedule and the rules. Apparently, she wasn't going to get an answer to that question, but then she hadn't really expected one since he'd only said one word all day.

"Okay, a schedule and rules. Let's see here."

Her eyes scanned over the rule sheet again for the ones she'd missed.

She counted on her mother to somehow bring her help. Now that she knew she was in trouble, nothing was going to stop her from coming to her daughter's rescue even if it meant coming to this house and prying her out of Brahms's hands herself. But with such limited information to go on, it could be at least a week until any form of help arrived. So in order to survive in the meantime, she would play Brahms's game.

Rule #4, 'Never Cover Brahms's Face', didn't really make a lot of sense considering he wore a mask.

"Who's Malcolm?" she asked reading Rule #8.

Brahms's hands tightened into fists.

"Never mind, never mind. I guess this all seems easy enough. But I'm new here, so you'll have to help me figure things out sometimes, okay?"

Brahms nodded, his eyes lighting up at the prospect of a new companion staying with him.

"Okay. Um, what time is it now? 5:30? Well, I guess that means we'll…" She looked down at the schedule. "…clean out the rat traps. Lovely. Okay, can you show me where those are?"

Brahms took her wrist and led her towards the back of the house and out to the garden. She'd have to have a conversation later about not dragging her around anymore.

With her Converse shoes still wet and muddied, she was forced to go out onto the wet ground barefoot. Brahms handed her a black trash bag and a pair of rubber gloves.

Adalyn rolled up the sleeves of the sweater and slipped the gloves onto her hands. Then she followed Brahms to the first trap that had indeed caught a large rat. She grimaced in disgust and opened the trap before dumping the dead rat into the trash bag and resetting it. If she just didn't think about it too hard, she could get through this. Brahms proceeded to lead her all around the mansion pointing out each trap, several of which had dead rats in them. It was not comforting to see that there were so many rodents surrounding the mansion, but at least it seemed she didn't have to worry about them coming into the house.

Once all of the traps were emptied and reset, Brahms started leading Adalyn back to the door they'd first entered the gardens from. However, as she was removing the dirtied rubber gloves, Adalyn tripped on a loose stone in the walkway and fell to the ground.

Brahms was next to her in a second, helping her to sit up and looking her all over for any injuries.

Adalyn winced when she realized she'd torn a hole in the jeans and skinned her knee. "Ow," she muttered. "It's fine, I'm okay. It just stings."

With hardly any effort, Brahms suddenly swept her up into his arms which made Adalyn cry out in surprise and unconsciously clutch onto his sweater to keep from falling out of his hold.

"It-It's okay!" she said quickly. "I can walk on my own!"

He paid her no mind as he just continued walking down the pathway and up to the house. Once back inside, he placed her down onto one of the chairs in the reading room. Then he left for a moment and came back carrying a small box and a wet cloth.

He knelt down in front of her and very gently rubbed the wet cloth over her scratch to wash away the blood on her knee before carefully placing a bandage over it. Then to her surprise and embarrassment, he lightly pressed the porcelain lips of his mask onto the injury.

Was he…kissing it?

Adalyn didn't understand how the same man who brutally killed two intruders and later disposed of the bodies (and for all she knew had done so before) would lightly 'kiss' her knee to make it feel better.

"Uh…thanks," Adalyn said quietly. She quickly looked at the schedule again, trying to keep her hands from shaking. "Okay, time for dinner now." She stood up from the chair and walked back into the kitchen. "Let's see what we have here." She opened several of the cabinets, the refrigerator, and the large freezer next to it. "Okay, there's almost no food in this kitchen. What have you been eating all this time? I mean, apparently, someone was making deliveries, but clearly, he's not doing that anymore. How have you been getting food?"

Brahms didn't answer.

"All right, let's consider our options. I can make a phone call and see if I can order some delivery, or I can see if a grocery store would deliver some stuff out here so I can cook something." Adalyn looked up in frustration. "Except I have no idea where I am." She rubbed her hands over her face and then looked over at Brahms. "What do you want me to do?"

Brahms came up to her and once again took her wrist in his hand. Adalyn swore she was going to have a bruised wrist by the time she got out of here, assuming she survived that long. He led her under the staircase and back through the hidden passages behind the walls until they arrived at the space where he'd first brought her. Then he opened the additional fridge and the freezer to show her that he had stored up plenty of containers inside.

"Whoa," Adalyn said. "Well, this should at least last us a week or so. I guess we'll figure out what to do after that when the time comes. Let's see what's in here and how much of it is still good."

So for the next couple hours, Adalyn spent her time going through all of the containers of food and deciding which ones she could use to make dinner. Her cooking skills left a lot to be desired so she was thankful that everything in the containers appeared to be leftovers from an already made meal. Once she and Brahms had decided on something, they returned to the kitchen and heated it up. Then she got some plates from the cabinets and set them out onto the very nice dining room table. When she went to bring the food out, she came back to see that Brahms had switched around the place settings so that she was sitting at the head of the table while he sat in the chair next to it. After she'd set the food down, Brahms pulled her chair out for her and gestured for her to sit down. Confused once again at his politeness, Adalyn slowly took a seat.

"Um…do you want to take your mask off to eat?" she asked.

Brahms put his hand to his face as if to keep the mask there and sat down.

"Uh, I can go to a different room if you need me to."

His hand shot out onto the table.

"Okay, okay, I won't go."

Dinner was an awkward affair. Brahms never touched his plate, and she wondered if he ever planned on eating anything at all. Maybe the set dinnertime was just a formality for him and he ate whenever he pleased. She'd noticed a microwave above the refrigerator in his 'room' and guessed that he planned to eat there later when she wasn't watching him. Because he didn't eat, he just spent the whole time watching her which made her extremely self-conscious.

All too happy for it to soon be over, Adalyn stood up from the chair and began removing dishes from the table. Brahms didn't let her take his plate. Agreeing to his silent demand, she dropped her own dishes into the sink in the kitchen, took a slow breath, and then went back into the dining room.

Brahms's plate sat empty and she could see his chin moving up and down indicating he was currently eating the food.

"Did you just wolf all that down at once? Be careful, you could make yourself sick like that."

Brahms picked up his plate and stood up from the chair. Then he repeated her action of moving it to the sink.

"I guess I should wash these."

Adalyn turned the sink on and began to quickly wash the used plates and glasses. She was acutely aware of Brahms staring at her backside, watching as she completed the chore. It seemed to take an hour to wash everything, but it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes.

Adalyn dried off her hands and then turned her head so she could sneeze into her arm. Ugh, the cold air was starting to get to her.

"Bless you," Brahms said in his childish voice.

Adalyn looked at him in surprise. That was now three words. "Um, thank you."

Once the dishes were cleaned and put away, Adalyn looked at the schedule again.

"All right, what's next? Bath Time." Adalyn's face warmed. "Um, okay. Bath time it is. Uh…you'll need a change of clothes then. Do you want to go get those?"

Brahms looked down at the clothes he was currently wearing.

"You can't just put those back on. You'll need to wash them."

Looking somewhat embarrassed, Brahms went back to his 'room' and then came back holding a pair of pants, a white undershirt, and a sweater that looked really similar to what he wore now and just as dirty. Unwilling to debate the matter further and deciding to just wash all of his clothes tomorrow, Adalyn started up the staircase and into the bathroom in the hallway, Brahms closely following behind her.

She turned on the faucet in the tub and waited until the water warmed up to plug the drain. "All right, well, I'll just wait outside until you're done."

She started to leave, but Brahms grabbed onto her arm.

"Help," he said.

That childish voice didn't match at all with his tight grip on her and gave her conflicting emotions. At the sound of that little voice, the maternal side of her wanted to oblige his request, but his hand on her arm made her want to do whatever she could to get out of the room. Regardless, she clearly didn't have any say in the matter.

"All right," she breathed, her heart hammering in her chest from what she was now forced to do. "I'll help. Um…let's take the sweater off first." She slowly took the ratty green sweater off his arms which allowed her to see his defined biceps and triceps. She had known he was strong, but seeing his bare arms made her realize that he could easily snap her in half if he wanted to.

"Okay, um…now the shirt."

Brahms carefully slid off the white undershirt, and Adalyn's eyes widened when the absence of clothing revealed that much of his skin was viciously scarred as if he'd been burned, and he had what clearly looked like a pretty recent wound on his abdomen that he must've tried to stitch himself.

"Holy crap, what happened to you?" she exclaimed as she went to examine the wound. "Are you okay?"

It was then she realized what she'd done and she quickly looked up. Geez, Brahms was so freaking tall. It wasn't fair he had so much advantage over her.

She nervously cleared her throat and tried to back up, but Brahms put his hand over both of hers and kept them resting on his stomach.

Blushing furiously at this horrendously awkward position she'd found herself in that was about to get worse, she carefully took her hands out from under his hold. "Does it hurt?"

Brahms shook his head.

"Good." She couldn't believe she was about to say this. "All right, now the pants."

Brahms slowly slid his pants down to the ground so he was now just standing in the middle of the bathroom in his mask and light blue boxers.

I hate my life so much, Adalyn thought to herself. Maybe I should just go ahead and let him kill me.

Then she noticed that he started to remove the boxers. "No, no, no, no, no, no, just leave those on, please."

Brahms tilted his head, seemingly asking why he wasn't taking all of his clothes off to take a bath like normal.

"Okay, let's get this over with." Adalyn put her hand into the full tub. "Is the water okay?"

Brahms put his hand in it too and nodded.

"All right, then go ahead and get in."

He slowly stepped inside the bathtub, and despite the blatant awkwardness of the entire thing, Adalyn couldn't help smiling a little when she saw that Brahms had to bend his legs in order to fit inside it.

"Okay, I need a cup or something. I'm going to be right back, okay? I promise."

When she went to leave, Brahms's hand shot out of the tub and grabbed her wrist for the hundredth time.

Adalyn sighed. "Brahms, I can't give you a bath if I don't have some way to pour the water over you. I just need to leave your side for thirty seconds to get a cup from the kitchen. Okay?"

It was clear he didn't like it, but he let go of her wrist.

Adalyn went out of the bathroom and down the stairs to the kitchen where she remembered seeing a plastic cup in one of the cabinets. She wished that she could stay down here a little longer because Brahms never leaving her side was getting really suffocating. But she didn't dare take longer than she'd said she would because she'd rather him not waltz around in that state of undress.

She quickly made her way back up the bathroom with the cup in hand. "See? I came back, didn't I?" She took off the large sweater she was wearing and set it onto the closed toilet. "Are you sure you want to keep your mask on? I don't want it to fall off or get wet."

Brahms put both of his hands over the mask, like that was his way of making sure it stayed on.

"Suit yourself, I'll try to be careful."

Adalyn decided that just like when she'd had to empty all of the rat traps, she just needed to not think too hard about what she was doing. With a deep breath, she approached the tub, filled the cup with water and gently poured it over Brahms's thick curls, careful to keep water from hitting his mask.

For someone who seemed to enjoy having a set daily schedule that included a bath every night, she had no idea how he'd managed to get so dirty and despite it all, it was something of a relief to be able to make him clean again even if he was about to put very dirty clothes back on.

Adalyn squirted some shampoo into her hand and then carefully worked the liquid into his hair. While he seemed to enjoy himself, she saw no indication that he enjoyed it as anything more than someone taking care of him.

Adalyn wondered if at the end of the day, that was all Brahms really wanted. Someone to take care of him and someone for him to take care of.

Clearly, there were some developmental issues at work here because sometimes he acted like an eight-year-old kid while other times he acted like the fully-grown man he was. She had no idea where his parents were or how long he'd been living alone like this or why he had decided to live in the walls when he seemed to live in this huge mansion completely alone. Having only spoken four words so far, Brahms probably wasn't going to give her any answers either.

Finally, Adalyn unplugged the drain in the tub and retrieved a large towel from one of the cabinets in the bathroom. "Okay, Brahms, stand up."

He did and stepped out of the tub. Once again, Adalyn was reminded of just how much he towered over her. She felt a little silly giving him a bath and telling him what to do like she was his mother when he was so much bigger than her.

"Dry yourself off."

Thankfully, he did that one on his own.

"Okay, now put your clothes on."

For the love of all that is holy, PLEASE put your clothes on.

Brahms slid on his pants, followed by his shirt and then another ratty sweater.

Good enough for her.

"Good job. It's time for bed."

She started to go back downstairs to go into the passages where his 'room' was, but Brahms stopped her and pointed to the child's room she'd seen when she'd first come up to the second floor.

"You want to sleep in here?"

Brahms nodded.

Adalyn walked inside the room and got a better look at it now that she wasn't running for her life. "Did this use to be your room?"

He nodded again.

Adalyn pulled back the covers on the small bed. "All right, get into bed then."

Brahms obediently sat down and then slowly lay back onto the pillow. Once again, he was much too big for the bed and had to bend his legs to fit.

Adalyn pulled the blanket up to his chest. "Okay, good night, Brahms."

"Kiss," Brahms said quietly.

Right, Rule #10.

Perfect.

Adalyn cleared her throat again and then carefully leaned down to place a soft kiss onto the forehead of the porcelain mask. "Good night."

"Good night, Adalyn."

Adalyn let out a light laugh. Three words at one time? She must be good at this.

She turned off the lights and shut the door behind her then let out a large sigh of a relief.

It would be so easy now to go downstairs and escape out the front door. Well, it seemed easy, but she wouldn't be surprised if Brahms had locked all the doors to keep her from leaving. Even if he hadn't, he would most likely hear her trying to get out anyway and with all those secret passages, he'd probably be able to get to her within a few seconds.

But even if she was able to leave the house, then what?

She still had no idea where this stupid mansion was. She could go out the front gate and follow the road, but it was surely miles away from any kind of town or civilization at all. She could get attacked or eaten by a wild animal or die of dehydration long before she ever reached another person. As much as she hated to admit it, she was honestly safer in this house with Brahms than outside on her own, so long as she followed his rules.

Adalyn went across the hall to the master bedroom and lightly closed the door. After searching through some of the drawers in the dresser, she managed to find another shirt and pajama pants. It was unnerving that there was an entire room filled with female clothing that fit her. Even a bunch of toiletries were still in the bathroom, as if someone had lived here and decided to just up and leave one day without taking anything with them.

After changing into the pajamas, Adalyn turned off the bedroom light and crawled into the bed, trying not to cry again. Her throat already felt sore, and her chest was tight, and crying would just make it worse.

At least this entire nightmare of a day was over.