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“Yeah, well. Let me know.”
“I’m going to suffocate to death in here.”
Another laugh and I find myself being lifted and carried from the sweltering hot tomb. When Ben tosses me on the bed a moment later, I’m amazed to see that I’m almost completely dry, other than my hair.
“I was dreaming of wrapping up in that fuzzy blanket earlier, but now I’m too hot.”
“Allow me.” He pulls open the window over the bed a large crack and cool air rushes in, sending goosebumps over my body.
My nap overtakes me before he even gets the fuzzy throw tucked in around us. I dream of being a queen and wake still feeling like one.
Is this really my life now?
We spend the rest of the afternoon in bed. I admit a few of my deepest darkest secrets, and in return, Ben entertains me with stories about growing up in a palace like this with his three best friends, thick as thieves.
Reality is starting to tap at the window of my mind, and I can’t help but wonder if I should be doing something useful right now. Getting my stuff from my apartment, working out, figuring something out. It seems like my whole world has just been flipped on its head, and though it’s exactly what I wanted, I’m a bit disoriented.
Ben’s solution is a plush robe and a tour of the estate. I follow him through room after room as he points out paintings that he likes or hates, places where he got in trouble or got hurt as a child. I find one room in the south hallway that’s decorated almost exactly like a room in a dream I had once. I make a mental note to come back soon and claim it for my own.
Once we’re back in the main foyer, I’m starting to get my bearings. Ben leads me straight down a hallway to a dim room filled with leather and books, and into a wide, comfy chair in front of three floor-to-ceiling windows looking out into seemingly never-ending evergreens. I watch as he works the latch on one of the windows and swings it open, creating a doorway that leads out onto an open porch with a few steps leading down to a path into the forest.
I walk outside and stand at the top of the steps, sinking into his body as he embraces me from behind.
With the trees looming tall and ancient before us, I finally feel strong enough to believe that this is all true. I feel free enough to take my first deep breath in what feels like hours.
“This is amazing,” I say, the words swallowed up by the magnificence of the forest.
I feel him murmur his agreement into my neck where his face is tucked. “Seven acres of forest and trails. All ours.”
I look back toward him without pulling away. “No one else is out there?”
“They better not be.”
Something in his tone, and the words themselves, send a shiver down my spine. I must shiver a bit in his embrace because he rubs his hands briskly up and down my arms for a moment.
And then pulls my robe off and tosses it onto the deck, leaving me in just my panties and a thin tank, wide eyed and aghast in the cold twilight.
“What are you?—”
I don’t get the words out before he has me turned around and marching down the stairs, toward the tree line, arms held tightly behind my back.
The cold, damp earth squishes softly beneath my toes.
Once we reach the edge of the forest, Ben stops and lets me go so suddenly I almost fall forward onto the trail.
“Now we’re playing a game,” he says darkly.
My breath catches in my chest as I consider the winding path before me that leads into the trees.
I glance back at Ben and find him watching me. Waiting.
I bite my lip and narrow my eyes at the rapidly dimming sky. The forest is almost completely dark.
“W-what kind of game?”
He leans down and whispers the words right into my ear. “One where you run.”
Epilogue
