Thorne tinkered with his portfolio online. He hadn't been paying as much attention to it lately, and it was showing in the way some of his investments had taken a hit. It wasn't normal for him not be to up-to-date with all the happenings on Wall Street, so he wasted almost a day catching up. When he was satisfied that things would soon be looking in his favor again, he headed to the gym. Thorne let off some steam running around the track, and then he decided to hit the weights. After working up a decent sweat, he headed for the locker room and subsequently the hot tub.

He had just relaxed and closed his eyes when a female voice interrupted his peace. "Looks nice in there."

Thorne nodded but kept his eyes closed.

"Mind if I join?" said the female voice.

Thorne finally opened his eyes to find a pair of red manicured toes standing near his head. He glanced upward and saw that the feet were connected to legs that went on for days. They ended only where a skimpy bikini began. A very attractive face smiled down at him, her lips as red as her toes. Thorne gave her another once over, then leaned his head back into the wall of the hot tub. "Sure."

There was some splashing as she got in, followed by silence. After a few minutes, she sighed loudly. He ignored her. She sighed again. He opened one eye. "Something bothering you?"

She pouted, her lips becoming full. "Just kinda lonely in here."

"Ah."

She scooted closer, still pouting. "Maybe we could keep each other company."

Thorne studied her. A few weeks ago, he would have taken the bait on that line in an instant. She was the perfect person with whom to have a few laughs and share a few stolen moments. She certainly had a lot of physical appeal. But the way she was blatantly hitting on him wasn't really doing it for him. Pouty Lips waited for him to answer her, eyes feigning innocence. He had plenty of eyes feigning innocence with Cress, anyway. Sure, Pouty Lips was sexy. Cress was sexy too, though. And not in the wonder-if-it's-fake type of sexy like the girl right in front of him. Besides, he wasn't a cheater.

The thought disturbed him. Would he be cheating if he made a move on this girl? It's not like Cress was his girlfriend. But he supposed they were sort of seeing each other. He was having a great time with her; he didn't want to hurt her.

Thorne made his face look neutral. "No thanks."

Pouty Lips frowned. It was an ugly look on her. "Okay, whatever."

He closed his eyes again, hoping she would leave the tub as quickly as she had arrived.

"Cress, stop fussing, it's just a cold," he wheezed.

"You've barely been able to get out of bed for two days. You probably have the flu."

"I'll be fine."

"I brought you some chicken soup. It's downstairs in the fridge in case you get hungry later."

The idea of eating anything at all nearly made his stomach turn. "I'm twenty-six, you know. That makes me an adult. I don't need chicken soup anymore."

She shushed him. "Who doesn't need chicken soup?"

He moaned into his pillow. "On second thought, do you see the bucket on the floor? Grab it. Now."

Cress put the bucket in front of him instantly. He tried desperately to keep everything down. Cress did not need to see him in this state. "Just…don't talk about food right now, okay? And you should go home. I'm fine."

"You're clearly not," she said. "You're all pale and clammy. I'm going to go downstairs and work a little, okay? Just call me if you need anything."

He nodded weakly and gripped the bucket tighter.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and frowned when he saw the caller. He silenced it and put it back in his pocket. Thirty seconds later, it began to vibrate again.

Cress looked at him over her plate of food. "Aren't you going to answer it? Maybe it's important."

"Nah, we're eating. It's rude."

"I don't mind."

"It's fine."

His phone kept vibrating. He finally pulled it out and turned it off, then slammed it almost ceremoniously on the table. "They won't be calling it again."

Cress frowned. "Is it Kai again?"

"Who cares?" he said.

"Sorry you're in a fight," she said. She took a sip of her drink and watched him.

"It's not a fight." He missed Kai a little, considering that he hadn't talked to him in over three weeks, but it wasn't worth discussing. Not as long as he was with Cress. "I don't really want to talk about it right now."

"Scarlet asked me what was going on between the two of you when we were at that salsa club with them last week," she said slowly, hesitantly.

"What did you tell her?" he asked a little too defensively.

"Nothing. It's not really any of my business."

"Oh," he said. "Thanks, Cress."

"How do you think it's going with Cinder and Kai? They only started dating recently, right?"

Thorne shrugged. "They're probably picking out furniture for their new home."

Cress squealed. "You think they'll get married?"

"Who knows. Kai would probably have her move in first. There's no point in not taking advantage of his penthouse."

"I thought you didn't like it."

"It's a bit over the top for me. I'm happy where I am now. Plus, I hate what that place represents for Kai. But most girls are really into that sort of thing. Are you?" he asked, eyeing her warily.

Cress thought about it while she ate. "I just want to be happy with the person I love. If I get that some day, I don't care where we live. Well, as long as it's not a confined space."

"You think you'll ever get over your claustrophia?"

"Do you think Rapunzel ever did?" she asked casually.

He frowned. "What?"

"Well, she was trapped in a tower for her whole life and then she got saved by the prince or the thief—depending on which story you're looking at—and they lived in a big castle. The storytellers kind of skipped over all the emotional scarring of being locked up for that long."

"I've honestly never really thought about it."

"Maybe they didn't need to address it because she found her true love, became a princess, and re-united with her parents. Plus, castles are big, so she'd never feel confined," she said, shrugging.

Thorne furrowed his brow. "I guess so. Are you saying you want a castle?"

She laughed and stabbed at her meat. "No, don't worry about it."

He dramatically wiped the back of his hand across his brow. "Phew."

Cress giggled. "You're a funny guy, you know."

"I know."

"Humble too."

"Always."

"Full of it as well."

He raised an eyebrow. "You better watch it, Cress."

She snorted but continued to eat. "Ooh, I'm scared. Big, bad Thorne. LOL."

"Did you just say LOL?"

"Yes."

"Nerd."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "What can I say, I spend most of my life on the internet. Besides, people like me are going to rule the future while you're still fumbling around with your smartphone in twenty years."

"I'll make sure to call you then," he said, but he couldn't help smiling.

"I may be busy," she said.

"Oh you'll be busy, will you?"

"Probably."

"Will you be busy, in say, one hour?"

She grinned a little devilishly. "I might be able to pencil you in."

Thorne grinned too.

They settled into a bit of a routine. At first they often stayed up too late, even on work days, until both of them could barely get out of bed the next day. Finally, when Cress showed up late to work two days in a row, they decided that perhaps they were hanging out together just a little too much, and maybe they should only sleep over on weekends. Thorne couldn't deny that it was nice to be back in his bed, since he usually stayed at Cress' house, but sometimes he had to admit that he missed having her next to him when he fell asleep.

One Friday night, Thorne surprised her by taking her to a fancy restaurant. His stocks had finally picked up again, and he accredited it to the fact that he was finally paying more attention to himself than he had when he initially started hanging out with Cress. They both ate way too much food. Thorne wasn't even sure how Cress could fit that much food into her little body. But she sighed contentedly as they left, and even convinced him to buy some chocolate-covered strawberries for them to take back to her place. He bought some champagne as well. He figured it was time to celebrate a fantastic date.

Yes, an actual date. Even he couldn't deny anymore that they were, in fact, dating. It was a hard concept to wrap his mind around. He still considered it pretty casual, but with all the time they spent together and the fact that he was still turning down other women, well, it was only logical to consider it so. He didn't verbalize his thoughts though, nor introduce her any differently. He didn't want to make it serious or formal. Those types of things were never any fun. Either way, he was ready to celebrate. He was just in a great mood.

Back at her apartment, they began on the champagne, which was gone almost instantly. After eating a few of the strawberries, Cress decided to shove one in his face. He blinked for a minute, wiped his mouth, and then lunged at her. She shrieked as he tickled her right at the spot he had learned was her weakness. Cress tried to fight him off but he growled at her playfully and pinned her down.

"Do you give?" he asked.

"Never!" she said, laughing.

"I thought you might say that."

He began tickling her again.

"I give! I give!"

"Well, in that case…"

He leaned down and began to kiss her. She made little happy noises that he had come to recognize and adore. They were reserved for him and him alone, and it made him feel like a king. Soon, her hands were running through his hair. He liked it when she did that. It was gentle but still full of passion. Not at all like the other girls he'd been with who just moaned all over him.

He threw her over his shoulder and carried her back to her bedroom. This was also becoming a bit of a ritual for them. She'd admitted that the way his arms flexed when he picked her up made her swoon a bit, and his ego had made him cave into doing it more often. He kind of figured that it was probably one of the things that her heroes did in all those stories she was obsessed with, so he was happy to compromise on this one small detail.

When they got into bed, though, Cress stopped him from kissing her any more. "Listen, I know you don't really like serious stuff, but there's something I want to talk to you about. Or, rather, something I want to share with you. It's related to our talk in the elevator. And it's important to me that you know." She bit her lip and watched him consider her.

Maybe it was because he felt especially connected to her that night, or maybe it was the champagne bringing down his inhibitions a little. Thorne decided to compromise on this too. He settled back into the headrest and held his arm out to her. "Sure," he said, "what's up?"

She took a deep breath. "Have you ever noticed sometimes that I'm not always consistent about everything?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, maybe sometimes I seem shy and sometimes I seem a bit aggressive?"

Thorne kissed the top of her head. "Of course. It's one of the things I like about you."

"Really?"

"Definitely."

"Oh, okay."

She fell silent, so Thorne sat up straight to look at her face. "Hey, what's wrong? That's a good thing."

"Sometimes I just don't know who I am," she said. "I struggle with myself a lot."

"Like…who you want to be?"

"Not exactly. Remember when we met and I said I like to act out on my fantasies and you were all creepy about it?"

Thorne laughed. "I think you said I was disgusting, actually."

She brightened. "You remember."

"It's not often I get called disgusting. It was hard to forget."

"Well do you remember how I said that I had a bit of a rough childhood?"

"Yes…"

"That was sort of the understatement of the year."

Kai's words ribbed at him, and he reconsidered the possibility of Cress being dangerous. Was this going to be her big confession? He'd decided several weeks ago to put his worries to rest. "We all have bullshit from our past, Cress. I don't care about any of that."

"I really want to tell you, though."

He sighed. "Alright, I'm listening."

Cress took another deep breath and surprised him with a quick hug. Then she settled back into the headrest herself and pulled the blankets up around her. "My mother was really abusive," she began. "Well, she was really my adoptive mother. Her name was Sybil. My real parents died when I was about six years old. I got put into the foster system. Sybil adopted me shortly after."

A combination of nervousness, anger, and sadness crept up on Thorne unexpectedly. He cleared his throat. "When you said in the elevator that you related to Rapunzel, what exactly did you mean, Cress?"

Cress hugged the blankets. He put his arm around her protectively, as if he could shield her from the pain of her past. He felt so stupid. "You don't have to answer that," he said.

"She locked me in my room almost constantly. She rarely let me out. It didn't matter what I did, Sybil always said that I was a bad child and deserved to be punished—deserved to be alone. At first, I was confused and kind of in shock. I'd just lost my parents and I was too little to really know what was going on. I always felt guilty and tried to please her to no avail. But as I got older, I started seeing her for what she was."

Thorne was starting to feel sick. "How could no one notice that you were being mistreated?"

"My mother—Sybil—played it off as home-schooling. That's how she got away with not sending me to school. When I was about ten years old, she finally let me go outside and play. I was so excited, you know? I met some of the neighbors. That's how I learned that my life was radically different from theirs. But when I tried to tell the other kids about it, they didn't believe me. They just thought I was weird. I didn't know how to interact with other people my age, you see.

"Sybil sometimes let me watch movies. Mostly Disney, as you can probably guess. I also got a book to read from time to time. After that I started pretending that I was a character in the stories I read or watched. When she would lock me away for a long period of time, I'd force myself to escape reality through make believe—hence the over-active imagination that I told you about. Like I said, I'm working on it in therapy."

It made sense now. Her being closed off. Acting like Rapunzel. Obsessing over fairy-tales. Getting claustrophobic. It even made sense as to why there was no door to her room. Thorne felt his worldview crumbling.

"I managed to call the police a few times. They came quickly, and so did Social Services. I thought I would get out but Sybil told them that I was so mentally unstable that she had to keep me away from other children and that my word wasn't to be trusted. I started talking to a social worker, who 'investigated' my case, but she forced me to go to a psychologist—Dr. Park. I don't have him anymore," she added. "I told him everything—how she locked me away, how she sometimes even locked me in closets for hours, how she yelled at me all the time, everything. But he just told everyone I was crazy too. I had to continue seeing him as part of my treatment. I've tried to figure out exactly what Sybil did to make him say that. I think she was sleeping with him. He came to our house sometimes."

Thorne swallowed. "So the only people you had contact with were your mom and an evil psychologist?"

"Pretty much. After the incidence with the police, the other moms in the neighborhood stopped wanting me to play with their kids."

"Aces, Cress." He dragged his hand down his face. "I'm so sorry."

"I have a criminal record," she said quietly. "I'm a bad person, Thorne."

Cress looked so fragile. But he knew she was also incredibly strong to have survived all that. He wished that he could make it all go away, but he knew he couldn't. "You're not a bad person at all, Cress."

"I am," she said. "I got revenge."

"Good. I hope you killed them both."

Her eyes widened. "Thorne!"

"What? They hurt you. I'm pissed."

"Thanks, but no, they are very much alive."

"Are they at least in jail?" he asked.

"No."

"No!"

"When I turned sixteen, I got fed up with waiting for someone to save me. So I started plotting my revenge. By that time, I'd gotten a computer and a TV in my room. I think Sybil suspected that if anyone came by, it wouldn't make sense if my room was completely bare. That's when I started learning how to hack. I had all the time in the world, and I discovered that I was really, really good at it."

"But why didn't you just use your hacking skills to contact people about your situation?"

"Oh, I did. I started a blog, even, documenting everything she did to me. But Sybil found out, of course, and people stop trying to help you when they find out you're crazy. Dr. Park threatened to put me in an insane asylum if I ever put a toe out of line again. It was bad in my room, but at least I wasn't wearing a straight-jacket. And like I said, I'd already tried calling the police several times by then. Every time I told someone about my situation, I just got punished even more. Usually Sybil would lock me in the closet for an even longer period of time than was normal. I'd go crazy in there." She shivered. "I just couldn't understand why no one would help me. Like, why wasn't I good enough to be saved?" A tear rolled down her cheek. Thorne brushed it away immediately.

"Listen to me. You were good enough. You were just surrounded by terrible people."

"I gave up initially," she continued. "I went into despair, thinking I'd never get away from her. I just wanted a normal life and I wasn't allowed to have it. But after I turned sixteen, well, I snapped out of it. And I finally got my revenge about a year and a half later."

"What did that entail?"

"I'd rather not go into it all. But it involved some fires, stealing a lot of money from bank accounts, and digging up dirty secrets about everyone who wouldn't help me."

Thorne stared. "Fires?"

Cress just shrugged.

"I stole a lot too," he admitted. "My parents usually bailed me out of trouble with their influence or money, but it shouldn't have been like that. I had help while you didn't, except you were the one who needed the help, not me. I just caused problems. I wish I could have helped you."

"I figured it out eventually," she said.

"By the way, how are you not in jail?"

"When I got caught, a judge actually took me seriously. He had me evaluated by several outside psychologists, who seemed disturbed by Sybil's behavior. In the end, they couldn't really prove what she'd done, but they couldn't prove that I was lying, either. I think he took pity on me. Plus, I was a juvenile. It didn't help me get away with everything, but instead of jail I got stuck with a billion hours of community service. And more therapy. I've paid my debt to society, so to speak, but I still go. It helps me process everything, even though I haven't seen Sybil in six years.

"I still think about all the stuff I did. I think about how I spent almost two years figuring out how to destroy Sybil's livelihood. I think it made me lose a part of my humanity. Just like my fantasies. They started out as this good thing to help me survive. But even now when I'm really upset sometimes, pretending to be someone like Rapunzel helps me cope. I know that's not normal or okay, but it helps me hide who I really am, and how much she just didn't love me."

"It's not your fault."

"I know," she said, leaning against him finally. "I just wanted to tell you I felt."

"I'm glad you did. Though I'm still really sorry that all this happened to you. I wish I had something better to say in return."

"I'm just glad you're here."

"Of course."

"Will you tell me something else about your past?" she asked, catching him off guard.

"Hmm, like what?"

"Like your gambling problem."

"Ohhh, you want to know about my dirty past."

"Of course."

"You gonna use it against me?" he teased.

"I am pretty good at blackmail," she said, but she was smiling again, and that was all that mattered to him.

"Well, Miss Darnel, it all starts with a pretty cocky eleven-year-old boy who wanted to make a fortune…"

She snuggled against him as he began his dramatic tale of all the trouble that he often got himself into as a child—and how often Kai had helped him out.

When Cress was sleeping soundly, he pulled out his phone and finally responded to the thirty-some texts Kai had left him in the last few weeks:

Why don't you double-check your facts before you open your mouth next time. Cress is amazing and you're an ass.