Mafia Games by Vi Carter

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CLAIRE

 

The pillows behind my head are soft. I move my head to the left. My eyelids feel heavy, and I don’t open them straight away. My mind is muddled, and I’m waiting for it to clear. It’s the smell that has me cracking my eyes open. My body sinks further into the pillows like I might get away from him.

“You lost a lot of blood.” His tongue flicks out, and he licks his bottom lip like he’s tasting something.

My heart trips, slows down before going into a full gallop at his closeness.

“I knew you had the knife. I thought you would try to use it on me when I decided to give you the opportunity, that is.” His lip quivers, or maybe I imagine it.

I hear his words, but I can’t focus. He has changed his clothing. His black shirt sharpens his dark features. Features that when he’s angry become more defined, more ferocious. I can’t imagine what could possibly soften the sharp edges.

“Using it on yourself….” He trails off and steps even closer to the bed. “I didn’t see that coming. You caught me off guard.” He sounds almost proud of me.

He’s sick.

He’s twisted.

And he’s standing at the end of my bed. He’s way too close.

My heart thrashes painfully against my chest, and I want to reach up to keep it in my body, but I don’t dare move.

“It won’t happen again, Claire. A lapse in judgment on my part.” He turns away from me and glances around the space. “It’s not nice being on this side of the glass. Three years I spent behind a wall of glass.” He pivots back to me. “I didn’t have this kind of room. A single bed, a locker, and a toilet.”

Did he want me to think I was in luxury? No matter what size the box is, I am like a caged animal.

The silence drags out, and his sharp laughter twists my stomach. “I thought you would have lots of questions now that you have my attention. That is why you hurt yourself, isn’t it? To get my attention.” His words are more of an accusation.

“I don’t want your attention.”

He raises a dark brow, and I swear I see amusement in the depths of his eyes. “Don’t you, Claire?” His voice drops a few octaves.

A shiver races along my neck and brushes my arms. “Are you going to tell me why I’m here?”

“It depends.” He spins on his heel and walks over to the drawing on the floor that I had smudged out. “What were you drawing here that you tried so hard to cover up?”

“I don’t know. Scribbles.”

His smile is all teeth and no humor. He waggles his finger at me like I’m telling lies and really shouldn’t.

“You,” I say quickly. 

The light catches his gaze, and his eyes dance brightly, and for a moment, it lightens his eyes, and they appear brown. He blinks, and I see the soulless creature who has taken me.

He stares back at the ground and tilts his head, trying to make the distorted image out.

“I’ve never had anyone draw me before. Maybe you will do it again so I can see.” He doesn’t look at me as he speaks. His gaze transfixed on the floor.

He rolls his shoulders before glancing back at me. My wrist becomes his focus. It’s only now that I notice it's been bandaged.

I reach across and touch the bandage lightly. My fingers dance across the white material.

“It’s going to leave a scar.” His words confuse me. He sounds like he cares. But that can’t be true.

“It won’t be the first.” I find myself saying.

He turns fully, and my senses rise too quickly, making me dizzy. The feeling settles when he doesn’t advance any closer.

“The scar on your knee. I’d like you to tell me the story behind it.”

“I will,” I swallow a pool of saliva that keeps refilling in my mouth, “If you tell me why I’m here.”

He’s watching. He’s thinking. He’s moving towards me again, and I’m pushing myself up to try to increase the separation. No amount of distance from him would settle my racing heart.

He doesn’t speak. So I try again. “Are the puzzles a clue?”

“No.” His jaw clenches, the muscle working quickly like I’ve angered him. His gaze fixates on my wrist again.

“Now tell me about your scar.” He repeats.

I want to say no, that he has told me nothing, but under his heavy stare, I find myself giving in. “barbed wire when I was twelve.”

Silence. He’s waiting.

“My brother made a swing on one of the old oak trees that grew close to our house.” The memory rushes back, and I touch the bandage on my wrist and push a finger down. The pain burns my arm but forces the memory away so I can just speak without emotion. “He insisted I went first, so I did. When I was swinging, he hit me with barbed wire. It caught in my knee and held me in the air. It felt like an eternity.” I press down heavier on the bandage. “Until the skin snapped, and I was released.”

A flash of anger across his face has dread making me curl into the pillow.

“You’re bleeding.” The words are barely audible as he speaks through clenched teeth. He’s moving towards me again, and all I want to do is get away from him. He’s quick and takes my forearm; my skin reacts to his touch like flames on my flesh. I try to drag my arm back, but his grip is iron.

“Stay still.” His large fingers circle my arm as they move down, leaving a burning path behind them until the tip of his fingers touches the bandage that’s leaking blood. It must have started when I pressed down on it. He releases me, and I’m ready to pull my arm back, but he unravels the bandage at a speed that’s almost panicked. The stained bandage floats to the floor, and he touches my arm with a gentleness that runs as deep as the cut. His touch takes over my senses, and it’s all I feel.

“Who hurt you?” I ask.

His hand tightens briefly before his touch loosens, but he doesn’t let my arm go. He won’t look at me. His gaze is on my arm. I don’t care about my wrist, I care about getting out of this box, and he is the only way I’m getting out. “I’m sorry if someone hurt you.”

Dark eyes finally focus on me, and I hold still, even against my body’s instincts to sink away.

“You think someone hurt me?” His tone is mocking.

“Yes,” I answer honestly because no sane person would do this. He had spoken of time stolen. He had said he spent three years in a box like this. I have to use the small snippets of information I receive. I just hope I am going in the right direction with this.

He returns to my arm. “I need to re-bandage your wrist.” He releases my arm and gets up. I think he’s leaving, and I should feel relieved, but I don’t. A coldness seeps into my bones.

Running water has me looking at him as he dips a cloth under the stream. He returns to the bed, and I hold myself still and try not to flinch when he sits down and takes my arm with the same care he had moments ago.

“Please, let me go.”

“Stay still.” He dabs the cut, and I feel the burn along my wrist for the first time. My adrenaline is slowly receding, leaving a coldness in its wake. I face away from him as he continues to clean my wound and re-bandage my wrist. The bed dips as he gets up. “I can’t let you go.”

Regret.

I hear regret in his voice. “Can’t or won’t?”

I don’t know who senses the bald man first, my captor or me, but we both look toward the door at the same time.

No words are exchanged. My captor tightens his fists and storms off. I don’t look away as he meets up with the bald man. The door closes, and I’m alone again.

His words should drive fear into my heart. “I can’t let you go.” They don’t. They pump hope into my system, and I get out of the bed. I grip the edge of the mattress and wait for the dizziness to pass before picking up my discarded black colored pencil. I move to the center of the room and sit down and start to draw.

No matter how afraid I am, I had to try to win him over. He had said he couldn’t let me out. I had to give him a reason to free me. With that thought, I draw his face on the floor of my glass cage.