CHAPTER 7: THE PREPARED ROOM
1373 Words
Valentina
Mrs. Brennan led me out of Cillian's bedroom before I could decide whether saving him had been a good idea or just an expensive new way to ruin my life.
Luna's carrier bumped against her leg as we walked. My cat had stopped hissing, which did not mean she'd forgiven anyone. Luna believed in revenge. She just preferred to plan it properly.
"She needs food," I said.
"It's being brought up."
"And water. A litter tray."
"Yes."
I waited for her to look at me.
"I need a phone too. A real one."
Mrs. Brennan's hand tightened slightly around the carrier handle.
"I can't help you with that."
Not a joke. Not an apology either.
"Right."
My voice sounded flat even to me.
The upstairs hallway seemed twice as long now that I wasn't following Cillian's blood trail. Portraits covered both walls. Dead O'Malleys in dark clothes stared down at me like I'd wandered into the wrong funeral.
One little boy had Cillian's eyes and the same miserable expression.
Poor kid never stood a chance.
Mrs. Brennan stopped at a pale wooden door.
"This is where you'll sleep."
I looked at her. "Tonight?"
She didn't answer quickly enough.
My stomach tightened.
"Okay," I said, though nothing about it was okay.
She opened the door.
The room was beautiful.
Of course it was.
Nothing says kidnapping like a fireplace, cream walls, and sheets that probably cost more than my monthly rent.
A tray of food waited near the window. Tea. Fruit. Soup. Somebody had even put honey beside the cup because apparently the O'Malleys were monsters with excellent hospitality.
I walked in slowly.
Books filled two shelves. Hematology, transplant medicine, immunology. Two novels from my apartment. One I had saved on my phone months ago and never bought.
I stopped.
"Where did these come from?"
Mrs. Brennan set the carrier down.
"I was told what to put in the room."
"By him."
She looked toward the window instead of answering.
That meant yes.
A charger sat on the desk beside a new phone. I picked it up. No signal. No browser. No messages. Just a clock, calculator, and one number labelled HOUSE.
I pressed it.
A phone rang in Mrs. Brennan's cardigan pocket.
She silenced it.
I stared at her.
"That isn't funny."
"It wasn't intended to be."
I put the phone down before I threw it.
The wardrobe stood open.
Jeans. Sweaters. Scrubs in my size. Underwear folded into neat little rows. Bras that looked irritatingly correct. Three dresses, including a black one close enough to the dress from my apartment to make my skin crawl.
I pulled open the first drawer.
Lace.
Not cheap lace either.
My fingers went cold.
He had chosen the exact style I bought for myself when I wanted to feel desired. Soft black. Thin straps. The kind of underwear a man would take off with his teeth if he ever got the chance.
I knew because I had worn something almost identical the night he watched me through the camera.
My cunt clenched once, traitorous and hot, at the memory of his voice earlier: Your cunt. And you're going to beg me to take more.
"Take these out."
Mrs. Brennan came closer. "The size is wrong?"
"No." I shut the drawer. "That's the problem."
She followed my eyes to the black dress.
"Take all of it," I said. "The underwear. That dress. Anything he chose."
"You need something to wear."
"Then leave the trousers. The sweaters. I don't care. Just... not that."
The last word came out smaller than I wanted.
Mrs. Brennan nodded once.
Luna complained from the carrier.
I crouched and opened it. She stepped out with her tail low, sniffed the rug, then marched under the bed to inspect our prison.
"The bathroom is through there," Mrs. Brennan said. "You can lock it from inside."
I almost laughed.
It came out like a breath instead.
That was when I saw the camera.
Small black circle above the doorframe. Easy to miss unless you spent your life staring at hospital ceilings and wondering whether the smoke detector was about to start screaming.
I turned slowly.
Another camera faced the desk.
A third sat above the sitting area.
Then I looked at the smoke detector over the bed.
A tiny red light blinked once.
My skin prickled.
He had put cameras in the room he prepared for me the same way he had put them in my apartment. He wanted to watch me sleep. Watch me undress. Watch me touch myself again if I ever forgot I was being observed.
The idea should have made me sick.
It did.
It also made my n*****s tighten against the thin fabric of the shirt I was still wearing from the clinic, and I hated myself for the heat that followed.
"Mrs. Brennan."
She followed my eyes.
Her face changed.
Not surprise. Discomfort.
"Who watches them?"
"Miss Romano—"
"Who?"
She said nothing.
I grabbed the lamp beside the bed.
"Please put that down."
The first swing cracked the camera above the door.
Plastic hit the floor.
The sound made me jump even though I had caused it.
The second camera took two tries because the shade got in the way. I tore it off and hit the lens again.
"Stop," Mrs. Brennan said. "You'll cut yourself."
"Then get them out."
My hands were shaking now. Badly enough that the lamp base knocked against my wrist.
Luna shot from beneath the bed and vanished behind the curtains.
The camera over the sitting area was higher. I dragged the desk chair across the rug and climbed onto it.
My ankle gave a sharp warning.
A speaker clicked above me.
"Get down."
Cillian.
I froze.
His voice came from the ceiling as if the room itself belonged to him.
The same low voice that had pressed against my ear in the garage and told me he was going to take my cunt.
"Turn them off."
"Get off the chair."
"No."
The word cracked.
I swallowed and raised the lamp again.
"Valentina, your ankle—"
I hit the camera.
The plastic cover broke. The lens swung from two wires.
For a second, nobody said anything.
I climbed down too fast and had to catch the chair before it tipped.
Mrs. Brennan reached for me. I moved away.
"Don't."
She stopped.
The speaker clicked again.
"There are no cameras left in the room."
I looked at the smoke detector.
"I don't believe you."
"I know."
I hated how calm he sounded.
"Were there cameras in my apartment?"
Silence.
My grip tightened around the lamp.
"Answer me."
"Yes."
The room tilted slightly. I sat on the edge of the bed because my ankle hurt, not because my knees had gone weak.
That was what I told myself.
"For how long?"
He didn't answer.
"Cillian."
The speaker stayed quiet.
I looked at the books. The phone. The clothes arranged in my size. The honey beside the tea.
Everything in the room changed shape.
Nothing had been chosen for comfort.
It had been chosen because he knew.
He knew the exact size of my bra. The way the lace sat against my skin. The black dress that made men look twice. He had chosen these things the way a man chooses toys he plans to use later.
"Get out of the speaker," I said.
A pause.
Then the faint click of the line disconnecting.
Mrs. Brennan collected the broken pieces without speaking. When she reached the door, she stopped.
"I'll have the clothes removed."
I nodded.
After she left, I picked up the black dress from the wardrobe and held it against me.
It fit.
I hated that I checked.
The fabric was soft against my body. For one stupid second I imagined him standing behind me the way he had in the garage, hard c**k pressed to my ass, voice low in my ear telling me how he was going to strip this dress off me later.
My thighs pressed together hard.
Luna crawled out from behind the curtains, sniffed the dress, and sat on it.
"Good girl," I whispered.
She began washing one paw.
At least one of us had adjusted.
- Writer
