Part Four


They'd used rope, heavy loops around his wrists, knotted tight, then wound up around his arms and shoulders, like a live vine, a man eating snake, tight like a cobra.

His skin rubbed and pinched when he drew air. He worked to keep his breaths shallow as he tried to bend numb fingers up to feel the knots.

His legs weren't tied at all and he heeled his shoe against the base of the chair, trying to see if the wood would wobble any. It creaked as he kicked but didn't bend. He kicked again and felt his head turn cloudy, a thin line of pain running from his eye to his neck. Sucking a reflexive breath, he felt the ropes tighten, constricting dangerously across his chest, burning against the expanse of his lungs. He clenched his teeth together and hissed air carefully, again, then again, and again, until his breathing steadied to a shallow pace, and the fog misted down from his eyes.

The room was empty. Drab brown walls. Unfinished power sockets with wires hanging out. A wood floor and a solid oak door with double bolts. One light bulb, stained with flecked paint, glowed down from a high ceiling.

No window.

It was hot.

Sweat trickled through the putty latex edge of his mask, seeping to the surface.

Seconds later, a groaning creek sounded. He jerked his head left and watched the double bolts on the door slide backwards with a snick. The door swung wide. Cade Wesson strode through, a smirk on his lips. Behind him, nothing but the blank wall of a dark corridor—no help in telling Nicholas where he was or why.

Wesson tracked his gaze and smiled. He let go of the doorknob and gestured back. "Looking for a way out?" he asked. "Door's open. Be my guest."

Nicholas hissed another shallow breath, but kept his mouth closed.

"What, no questions? No demands for explanations? No insults?" Wesson strode closer, tisking his head side to side until he stood just inches from Nicholas's knees. "How un-Heming-like of you."

The backhand was swift, hard—it snapped Nicholas's head back, made his teeth tingle and drew deeper the jolting line between his eye and his neck. It was rough enough to tear a corner off his mask, and was followed swiftly by another and then another.

He tasted blood, stark on his tongue as the light in the room dimmed and spun. Through the kaleidoscope of fog, he heard Wesson laughing—deep, sharp, with no sign of the rasp in his voice that'd been there earlier. Too hollow. Too smooth.

Nicholas coughed, gasping. Cold fingers touched his sagging forehead, then gripped his chin up, digging under the remainder of his mask to claw it away.

"You were the first one I found, you know," Wesson said next, leaning down, inches from Nicholas's face. A hand snaked up the back of Nicholas's head, fisted into his hair and pulled, straining his neck—the sharp recoil cinching the ropes tighter around his chest. "On a flyer for a prep school play of all places. Professor Nicholas Black. Professor. I didn't expect that. I went to the play twice just to make sure it was you. You have no idea how long I'd been looking." The fingers braided tighter, pulling harder. "Tell me, does the school know how you spend your free time?"

Nicholas couldn't feel his fingers. His arms tingled like they were on fire. He struggled to swallow, to breathe, fought the dark and the nausea and widened his eyes, catching the curls of saggy skin below the man's ear, just slightly off color from his neck. "You're not Cade Wesson," he whispered. "Who are you?"

The man laughed again, low and vicious. "Someone who doesn't like to lose," he grit.

Abruptly Nicholas's hair was released.

The following backhand sent him and the chair both clattering sideways, smashing jarringly into the hard wooden floor, darkness crashing down on top.


tbc

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