Sara had a habit of biting into pillows. Or so she'd been told. There was a lot of her addict days she had to be told. Once she woke up in a bed with a couple of strangers and blinked, confused, thinking that they were covered in snow. An avalanche, soft as sugar, floated off her naked body as she got up. Those feathers streaming out of the gutted pillows was actually one of the few beautiful things Sara remembered from being twenty-one.

"You shouldn't bite that," Lance said. His breath minty on her face, the meat of his body all too real behind her. "I mean, for your own sake. Our accommodation choices were limited, I'm afraid. Motel rooms are a particular hell, aren't they? Given the state of the lobby, I'm not sure how often they change those pillowcases. If you want, I can get you a clean shirt to bite into."

Sara stared dully at the flowery pattern on the pillow.

She wasn't aware she'd been biting it.

True, lying on her stomach, hands tied above her head, she had limited options to smother the noises that Lance drew out of her, peeling the shirt that had clung to the burns in her back.

For a second, she was back there.

That avalanche of feathers. Early twenties, when the deepest trouble she could get into was homemade.

Why did I love it so much? Digging, down and down, all the way to rock bottom?

"Sara?"

She bit down her lip. Participation.

"No, thank you."

"You're sure?"

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I don't want to bite into one of your shirts.

She kept a stolid silence.

"Well," he said, "I'm almost done."

The pain hadn't abated since he burned her.

Funny, Sara thought. Right now, to her father and the people he'd hired, even to Lance, The Torture was over. It had lasted only as long as the knife melted her flesh. As long as she screamed. But pain doesn't relent. Burns, especially. There'd been lapses of unconsciousness, in the car. The burns were the last thing she felt, the last thing she thought of, before she closed her eyes. A lullaby of suffering. When she opened her eyes, they were the first thing she became aware of.

Lance had made her ride in the trunk. "I'm sorry about that," he'd said, and it sounded genuine enough. An employer, asking his secretary to get to work half an hour early on the next day. It's a lot to ask, but I'd appreciate it.

As he tied her legs, gagged her, and closed the trunk, Sara was plunged in midnight-darkness. If there was ever a time to feel like the kidnapped daughter she was, now was probably it. Yet it wouldn't come. All she could focus on was the pain, the torture, which was still happening, to her if no one else.

She dreamed fire ants devoured the flesh off her back. Dreamed an evil witch was putting her in an oven, an old, recurring dream she hadn't had since she was a girl.

When Lance popped the trunk open, a thought flashed through her mind, so lucid and calm that it frightened her somewhat.

A desire to hurt him. Not in self defense.

She saw him on her operating table, scalpels gleaming under the surgical lights.

So unlike herself, and everything she stood for, it was a moment before she heard what he was saying.

"—both our best interests we don't get noticed, right, Sara? You don't want to make me kill you, and I don't want to lose my leverage."

She nodded, not sure what he was asking for exactly.

When he lay her down on the bed of the motel room, on her stomach, and kneeled above her, it occurred to her to fear rape. The pain in her back eating at her, eating through her, was too intense for her to really give a damn.

As if he read her mind, Lance cleared his throat. "Earlier, when I told your father things could get worse for you?" Silence. That old game, tossing the ball at her, waiting for her to toss it back. She got a strange kick out of letting it fall into the void. "I was only trying to scare him. I hope you know no matter how bad this gets, I'll never lay a finger on you."

An uneasy pause puffed up between them, tangible with every breath.

"I mean, not in that way."

He waited for her to acknowledge this, and she tried to come up with an answer. Any answer.

Thank you?

Go to hell?

No, Lance, of course you wouldn't, I can tell you're a gentleman.

She managed, "Okay."

"I'm going to have to take your shirt off, so I can do something about those burns."

Out a corner of her eye, she watched him lick his lips. Sara wondered, suddenly, if she still believed in God. At the great tribunal where human souls were divided between heaven and hell, would it count for something that Lance—whatever his name was—had been genuinely bothered about the nudity that kidnapping and torturing a woman entailed?

Click.

Lance put down a plastic container on the bedside table. Pills rustled inside. "Here," he pulled out two tablets, and Sara jerked her face away from his hand. Reflex. When you've been hooked on morphine so bad that it filled up your whole life, everything you were, like a white glare, blinding you to all the rest—you shrink from pills as you would from hairy spider legs.

Lance gave her a look, like she was his four-year-old daughter who wouldn't eat her vegetables. "They're painkillers."

"I know what they are."

"And you know what I'm about to do is going to be painful. Hence, the painkillers."

It marveled her, how clearly she could picture herself digging her nails into his eyes. As if he had to explain pain to her. As if the burns in her back were not all she could think about, with their acid, smiling bite.

Bad enough that she was tempted?

Of course, she was tempted. To swallow those pills, to feel that oh-so-familiar buzz hit her bloodstream. Sara did not believe in love at first sight, but morphine had been a love at first kiss. The minute those toxins glided down the needle, into her veins, she knew.

Where have you been all my life?

One kiss would be enough to spiral Sara back into that toxic love affair.

To numb the pain of the burns, maybe even numb the rest of the whole kidnapping—tempting. Very tempting. Lance might do the killing, in the end, but if he kept slipping her those pills, that old flame of hers, the drugs, the addiction, would do the murdering.

Sara closed her eyes.

Relapse. And then what?

Die.

That was the only answer. The only reason why she would take those drugs. She had climbed out of that hole once, but if she let herself fall, now, there was no coming back. It was tantamount to giving up.

"I'd rather not," she said.

Lance sighed. "Right. Look, I'm familiar with your history. But it's not like I'm offering you heroin."

"Morphine," she said. For some reason. Planted her eyes into his detestable friendly face. "It was morphine I liked."

Pain greased the wheels toward disinhibition. She'd worked in a hospital too long not to know that.

Lance offered a smile. "Be that as it may. You should take the pills, Sara. This is really going to hurt." She stared into the pillow. He put the pills back into the box. "Suit yourself."

As he peeled the shredded shirt that had melted into her skin, she wished she could say that she didn't regret refusing the pills. Only she did. In the few minutes that it lasted, she regretted it a hundred times.

"Just one more," he said.

Her face buried into the pillow, to drown a moan. She hadn't thought about biting it, yet she needed to think, actively, not to.

Rip.

The last fragment of her shredded shirt peeled off her back—but in her mind's eye, it was skin that Lance was tearing off her.

When he was finished, he remained kneeling above her, one leg on each side of her, digging into the mattress. A bead of sweat rolled down Sara's eyebrow. She didn't move. Partly because the pain in her back made moving unthinkable. Partly because she was shirt-less, and bra-less, and lying on her stomach was one way to hide her breasts from sight. And she'd rather not test the limits of Lance's gentlemanliness.

"You're going to feel my touch on the burns now," he said, not unkindly.

She gasped at the slimy texture, rubbing into the wounds. "What is that?"

"Vaseline. It's all I had at home."

Sara tried not to linger on this. Lying half naked, tied to the bedpost, with a man straddling her and a jar of Vaseline on the table.

Lance chuckled, and she really hoped that mental picture hadn't spread from her mind to his. "Kind of strange," he said. "Swapping roles like this. Playing doctor with you, when you're the surgeon."

"If you want to put on handcuffs, I'll play the kidnapper."

The words came out without her mind registering them.

Disinhibition.

Careful now. Don't open the door to intimacy.

Talking back might give her an illusion of control, but that's all it was—an illusion. Lance had the power here.

She caught his grin with a corner of her eye, biting her tongue. "You'd like that, Sara?"

Blood filled her mouth, still she kept silent. Retreat.

He sighed. "Well, as much as it chagrins me to say so, I'm not in the habit of letting anyone put handcuffs on me. Even a beautiful woman."

If she waited long enough, the reality of these words would melt into nothingness. Beautiful woman. She could pretend it hadn't happened.

Shivers of repulsion crawled down her spine, at the feel of Lance's hands on her. But the ointment was so soothing on the burns that, shamefully, Sara soon stopped caring who was touching her. Finally, a bit of ash on those embers, balm on the pain that propelled her body into hellfire.

A moan escaped her and she felt her face flush, bright as cranberries. Though she didn't turn her face to look, she heard the smile in Lance's voice.

"Sure you don't want the painkillers?"

She swallowed. "I'm sure."

"All right. I'm going to dress the wounds now. We're almost done."

He spread large strips of gauze over the burns, and rolled off the bed. The mattress squealed. With him on his feet, Sara felt more aware of her nudity, the shape of her breasts only partly concealed.

He isn't looking.

He wouldn't look.

But that didn't distract from the fact that he could.

"I brought you a spare shirt," he said. "It's one of mine, so I'm afraid the fit will be approximative."

"That's all right."

Let them return to that veneer of politeness, let violence become a threat again instead of a reality.

She was willing to play that game, to forget the horror of the past few hours, for a moment of reprieve. Even with the ghost of torture clinging to her skin.

A rustle, as Lance fished through the bag he'd brought from his apartment. He fished out a clean white shirt, then the pillars of his legs dug into the mattress again. She felt the blade of a knife, pressing into her wrists, and the zip ties sliced off with a click.

Sara remained motionless for a while, not wanting to straighten her position, naked from the waist up.

"Put it on," he dropped the shirt next to her.

She licked her lips. Her best option was still to play the card of modesty. "In front of you?"

"I'm afraid so. Trust me, I wish it didn't have to be this way. If your father hadn't tried to screw with me, you'd still have a bedroom to yourself. But desperate times—you know the saying."

Sara didn't move. Could make out his face, a blurred, soft expression. It took effort not to look back at him.

"Like I said. You have nothing of that sort to fear from me, Sara. I'm a professional."

A professional killer, she thought.

But what good would it do to try his patience?

A wince crept to her face as she hoisted herself to her knees. The burns crackled, blazing beneath the dressing. She avoided looking at her breasts, exposed under the greenish motel room lights, as if that would stop Lance from looking. The shirt felt about ten sizes too big. It smelled of Lance's aftershave, a woody citrus smell, but she ignored it, buttoned it up, as fast as her numb fingers could manage.

"You know, it doesn't look half as bad on you as one of your shirts would look on me."

Her eyes drilled into him before she could help it. That he would think of humor right now made her hand burn, crave to claw at his eyes.

"Ah," he said, watching her face. Like he'd just found something he had been waiting for. "I'm getting used to that look, you know."

She clamped her jaws, tight. "What look?"

He tilted his head to the side. "I think I'll call them your 'I'll kill you' eyes."

A shudder ran down her spine. She tightened her fists. Stopped the images from flashing into her mind—Lance's blood, running down her hands. Pressing that pillow to his face, still wet with her saliva, and choking him dead.

Stop it.

Stop it, or he'll know. Somehow.

Right at this second, without a wink of sleep in over twenty-four hours, Sara was a whisper away from believing this man could read her mind.

"You ever wanted to kill someone, Sara?"

You.

She shut down the thought.

You, you, you.

"I'm a doctor," she said. "Killing's not exactly in my wheelhouse."

"Uh-huh," he nodded, not sounding fooled for a second. "But us humans, we act out of character all the time. See, I'm a trained assassin. And still, I don't want to have to kill you, Sara." He shrugged, pressed his lips tight together, as if to say, What can you do? "I really don't. That's out of character, for me. Not because I like killing people, but because—well, that's the one and only thing I have in common with that brute from Gone With the Wind. Frankly, I don't give a damn." His gaze went over her, appraising her. "Usually."

She swallowed.

"So," he said, "if I have out of character moments, like this one—maybe you have some. About killing. Breaking out of that doctor training."

"I don't."

He tsk-tsked. "Sara, Sara, Sara." Shaking his head. The sound of her name in his mouth sickly sweet, and thick, like sap. "I thought we covered that, earlier. How important it was for you to respect my intelligence."

The throb in her heart, adrenaline shooting up and down her stomach. Her hands were untied. This wasn't like Lance's soundproof apartment, an environment he controlled completely. If she bolted away from the bed, right now, she could make it to the door and run. If she screamed, and someone heard her, she could be free within five minutes. She could escape him.

Which is precisely why he untied you, you idiot.

To test you.

Sara quelled every instinct in her body, telling her to run.

Her eyes studied Lance minutely.

Just how fast is he, do you think?

If she opened her mouth, to so much as draw breath for a scream—his hand would be on her in a second. Half a second, maybe.

If she threw herself toward the door, he would catch her.

Pass the test, Sara.

You can't outrun him. You can't overpower him.

But she might still outsmart him, if she played her cards right.

Lance feigned a look of reproach. "You don't need me to reinforce how crucial respect is to our relationship, do you, Sara?"

"No."

"Then play straight with me. I know you want to hurt me. You wanted to hurt me enough that you would use your bra as a weapon, and that was before I hurt you myself. Right?"

"Right."

He nodded. "So. Back to your 'I'll kill you' eyes."

A taste of bile swam up her mouth, more bitter than if she'd chewed down those painkillers without water.

"It's natural you feel an urge to get back at me. Don't deny it. Just human nature. People aren't like dogs, Sara. You hurt a dog, most of them will stay loyal to you, and still drag you out of a house on fire if it kills them. But humans? We have more dignity than that. Well, most of us do. If you're half as proud as your old man, then you're one of the good ones—you have dignity. I can tell, just looking at you. And I mean that as a compliment."

Sara stared into his eyes. Could sense it was important to establish trust again. Show openness. "Maybe I do. Want to hurt you."

He smiled.

Each pump of her heart brimmed with possibilities.

Run for the door. Scream for help. Anything.

But he was watching her, closely, waiting for her to try something desperate.

She licked her lips. "You know what I want more than that?"

"Tell me."

Like they were school girls, about to trade secrets only confessed to their diaries.

"To go home and never see your face again in my life."

He chuckled. Didn't break eye-contact.

He was still testing her, and she must pass, had to pass somehow.

"So," he said, "we're still allies, Sara? Still on the same side?"

"For now."

The bulk of his shoulders relaxed, ever so slightly. Behind the drapes, which Lance had pulled shut the moment they walked in here, a glare was starting to brighten the room. Outside, dawn was breaking.

Through the ordeal of the night, Sara hadn't had time to think of the opportunities that it would bring.

Maybe, though she now carried a pyre on the skin of her back—maybe there had been victories, too. After all, she and Lance were in a motel room. Not a locked apartment. He'd had to improvise, taking her here. And this whole talk, about her wanting to kill him—this was a desperate measure, too. Trying to scare her into submission.

Because he knows he's lost control, needs my cooperation more than ever.

He heaved himself off the bed, his weight releasing from the mattress with a squeak. "Good. I'm not going to tie you up again. Not just now. I'll be awake, anyway, so you can try to catch some sleep. Make yourself comfortable. I'll leave you the bed," he added. Ever the gentleman.

"Thank you."

He brushed away her thanks, but she'd spent enough time with Lance to know he appreciated appreciation. Like a killer, who murders you with a pillow instead of a knife, and expects you'll be grateful for that thoughtful intention.

Sara rolled on her side, to face the wall. To conceal her face from Lance's eyes. It felt about as comfortable as turning your back on a grinning shark.

But at least, she could think, and make sure Lance was not reading the thoughts straight from her face.

She closed her eyes.

Sleep?

Hardly an option, with her back still blazing from his knife. That was all right. For the best, maybe. Instead of sleeping, she could think of what her next move would be.

To keep her here, in a motel room, away from his soundproof bubble—that had to drive the perfectionist in him half-mad.

He's desperate now. As desperate as I am.

Sara only had to wait for the right time.

Then, you bastard, we'll see what you think of my I'll-kill-you eyes.

...

AN: Please share your thoughts in the comment section!