AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ash’s blonde and pink hair fell over her shoulders as she glared at me. A bit upset at this whole thing, but not freaking out like any other person would. I was right to choose her. She wasn’t normal. She played the same game I did, the game of life, of acting just like everybody else when in fact she couldn’t have been more different.
“Sawyer,” she eventually said. “This is all about Sawyer, isn’t it? Our date last night?” Ash hit the nail directly on its head, and all I could do was nod. Her lips broke out into a smile. A full-blown, gleeful smile, and she laughed. She laughed so hard, as if she thought this was the funniest thing she’d ever witnessed or been a part of.
This was not a time for amusement. This was serious. I took my punishments seriously.
Maybe she did need a bit of pain to go along with it.
Chapter Twenty-Three – Ash
I couldn’t fucking believe it. None of it. Travis had me in chains in his room, on the floor near his bed. He’d taken my phone, my bag, practically my dignity, but what was I doing? Something I shouldn’t be doing, of course: I was laughing, and I just couldn’t stop. Most people would be freaked out if they were caught in chains, if they had someone staring at them the way Travis watched me, but I found it so fucking ironic.
It was funny because I knew it. I’d known it from the very beginning. My crazy radar had flown off the handle when I was around Travis…so why the hell didn’t I steer clear of him? Why did I go with him willingly to a second location, one which I didn’t tell Declan about? If he kept me here for a long time, no one would know.
Travis didn’t appreciate my laughter. His jaw clenched, a vein in his forehead popping. “Why are you laughing?” His fingers stopped fiddling with my phone, and I knew I had him pegged right away.
“I’m not laughing at you,” I said, sitting back, leaning the back of my head on the side of his mattress. From what little I could see, the chains were attached to his bed, which was too heavy for me to lift anyway. My backpack and the key to the two locks holding my hands down sat on his desk, too far out of reach. “I’m laughing at myself.”
His black-haired head tilted. “Why?” Travis sounded sincere; and that’s what alarmed me the most about this whole thing. He wasn’t freaking out, wasn’t acting out of character. He was utterly calm even though he had me chained up in his room.
This was normal to him, which meant he either didn’t care, or he had no empathy. Travis, the beautiful, tattooed man, was a bit of a sociopath…and I’d suspected it all along.
Yet here I was, in another situation like this.
“Because I knew it,” I finally spoke, breaking my silence. His blue eyes were dark sapphires, their focus on me and only me. I bet if a parade of naked women strolled into the room, he’d still only have eyes for me. I guess there was just something about me that drew people like him in. “I knew you were different than Sawyer from the beginning.”
Travis frowned, itching the arm with the dragon tattoo on it. His other arm held an intricate tribal design. He set my phone aside, leaning his elbows on his knees as he studied me. “Yet you still went on a date with Sawyer. You still…” Whatever he was about to say next, he couldn’t, and I wondered if Sawyer told him everything that had happened on the date.
The kisses. The hand job under the table. Was that the reason for all of this? Travis was jealous and wanted me for himself? Travis wanted to make me see the error of my ways? It was a little sweet, in a sociopathic way.
“Travis,” I said, choosing my words extra carefully. With people like him, you never knew what could set them off. “I know you don’t think I should be with Sawyer, and I don’t want to, either. But I’m my own person, and I’m going to choose what I do and with whom I do it. If you have a problem with that…” I trailed off, my heart constricting in my chest in anticipation for what I was about to say. “You better end this now.”
Kill me. In other words, I was asking him to kill me. Not something I said in everyday conversation, but here, it had to be said. I wasn’t going to live the rest of my life under someone else’s thumb. If that was what Travis wanted, he’d have a hell of a time with me.
I would not break.
A slow grin spread across his face, and I could tell he was itching to fall to his knees and crawl to me, maybe kiss me, but he held back. This was some twisted form of a punishment for what I did, and he would not reward me with a kiss.
It was sad that I was so young and I knew how minds like his worked. I had more experience with them than I wanted to admit.
“I’m so glad I met you, Ash,” Travis spoke, his teeth perfectly straight and a flawless, sparkling white. He had a killer smile, and a killer body, with those tattoos. “I’m so glad you’re here. You were such a wonderful surprise.” He shook his head once, reminiscing, “You were only supposed to be a tool for Sawyer. He was going to use you against Declan, turn you against your own roommate—”
Not news to me. I cut in, “How?”
“Make Declan fall in love with you and have you break his heart. It’s no secret that Declan hasn’t been doing too well after what happened with Sabrina. Do you think he could take another broken heart? Do you think he wouldn’t blame himself?” Travis ran a tattooed hand through his black hair. “Sawyer wanted him to kill himself.”
Well, I was very glad that particular plan did not come to fruition. “And you?”
“And me,” Travis went on. “I was just along for the ride, until I met you. When I met you, everything changed.” The words would’ve been sweet if I wasn’t chained up in his room, cold metal hard on my wrists.
“And here we are,” I said. “But I did mean what I said before. You can keep me here for as long as you want, you can do whatever the hell you want to me, but you won’t mold me to be what you want me to be. I am my own person. I don’t belong to you, to Sawyer, to Declan, to anyone.”
A small crease formed between Travis’s brows. “I suppose you’re right. You’re stronger than I thought you were.”
Not sure if I should take it as a compliment or not, considering who it was from. “Are you going to let me go?” I asked, hedging, trying to get out of here nicely, with everything intact. It was a foolish hope; though Travis and I had a bit of a heart-to-heart just now, he wasn’t going to release me.
No, he’d do what he had to do, and I had to suck it up and take it.
Travis only gave me a smile. It was a warm smile, a smile I’d fallen for. This sick, twisted man, I’d fallen for him just like I had his rich friend. My heart was tugging at itself, pulling in three different directions, because who could forget about Declan? Poor Declan, caught in a web of deceit. Poor me, actually, because I was in the center of the web. Right now the spider was Travis, and he wasn’t going to let me go.
