Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
My, but you bastards enjoy your entertainment.
One of the boy’s eyes was swollen, and he had what looked like caked blood on his lip. He kept bringing his fingers to his cheek and pressing, his expression contorting each time as though if he did it enough, he’d soon encounter a different result. Despite the injuries to his face, it was obvious that he was an extremely good-looking kid. Tall. Muscular. A square jawline and even features. An all-American golden boy. Good breeding, one might say. The thought made him chuckle. But it was a laugh laced with acid.
The boy must be having an especially difficult time relinquishing control. Life was typically quite easy and very good for boys like him. How many allowances had already been made for the kid? Ones he didn’t deserve and hadn’t earned? Many, the Collector surmised. Perhaps far too many. It tended to be a disservice when tragedy struck. And tragedy had definitely struck this particular golden boy, currently sitting in a metal cage like a dog.
Perhaps he should dislike the boy, considering that . . . good breeding. And yet, he rather found that, instead of feeling any loathing, he . . . related to him. In some ways, at least.
His gaze moved to the right, where the girl had sunk down and turned to the side so she was now sitting on her hip, her knees still bent, long legs drawn up, cheek resting on what had to be cold steel. Slender. Fine boned. Straight, dark hair. Pretty in a plain-Jane sort of way. In a cheesy made-for-TV movie, she’d be the girl her friends would perform a makeover on because they could see the potential lying just beneath the surface. That only happened in movies, however. In real life, teenage girls were typically too jealous to purposely create a swan when having an ugly duckling beside you made you the pretty one.
Women. What petty creatures they could be. So ruled by emotion.
It could be their strength, too, of course. But most often, it controlled them, rather than the other way around. Pity.
He reeled in his thoughts. He didn’t want to make too many assumptions and miss something that might tell him otherwise. Watch. Listen. Learn. It was what he did best.
A light in the room flashed, and both the boy and the girl made sounds of surprised fear, moving backward to the corners of their respective cells, away from the bulb. The girl brought her arm over her eyes, her face screwed up in pain. The light must be torturous after so long in the dark. The boy sat still, though his face was contorted similarly, one arm held out in front of him like he expected an attack. He couldn’t do much about it, but he wanted to feel it coming. His left eye was swollen shut, but he blinked the other repeatedly, trying desperately to see.
“What’s happening?” she asked, voice breathless and filled with fear.
“I don’t know,” he answered, his arm moving one way and then the other, warding off whatever invisible threat his mind was conjuring. There was nothing in front of him, though. Only light had entered his cage.
The Collector watched, waiting along with the captives to see what would happen next. His eyes slid to his cell phone on the desk next to him. One of his options was to call the authorities. But he didn’t think that was the best choice. At least not yet.
He had ended up here, this voyeur, through a series of well-strategized liaisons but also a twist of auspicious events. When he’d realized what this was, he hadn’t anticipated having any interest in watching. He would play, yes, but he’d intended to skate the perimeter. After all, he had a different form of winning in mind. But now, he couldn’t look away. People thought they watched reality TV, but there was very little reality to it. It was scripted and edited to lead the watcher toward predetermined conclusions. This, though—it was riveting. He understood the draw.
God help him, he did.
CHAPTER THREE
Evan flinched, trying to see but helpless against the painful pinpricks of sudden light that jabbed his eyes. Blindly, he swept his arm from side to side. If he was attacked before he managed to crack his lids—or lid, rather—open, he wanted to feel it coming. Not like the first time when he’d been roughly woken from sleep and hauled from the first cage he’d been kept in for what felt like weeks. He’d been taken off guard then, but he wouldn’t let it happen again. At least not while he was awake.
He took in flashes of the room through the slit of his eye, holding it open for a millisecond at a time.
His own splayed hand held out in front of him.