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“They’ll be coming for us.” He swung the door open, holding his hand out for me to go in. “Let’s play a little hide and seek!”
“No way.”
His lips pursed, betraying frustration under that maniacal mask, and he cocked his head as he took a deliberate breath in before answering me. “Ready. Set. Go!”
I stood frozen where I was.
I knew the last thing a woman in danger should do was step behind closed doors with a strange man. And by strange, I meant unhinged crazy. Even if he was also the sexiest-looking brute I’d ever laid eyes on. “Nah-uh. This game is a battle to the death. You think I’m stupid enough to follow you into a private room and close the door?”
“Sweetie, I could have killed you with a backhanded swat before you even noticed me.”
“Rude.”
He rolled his eyes. “Get in before I have to go all Matrix on the crowd. I’m trying to take it easy.” He brushed nonexistent fluff off his sleeves and beamed at me.
My heart pounded, and I was sure I would puke all over him if this lasted much longer. “No way.”
He curled his arm around my shoulders and shoved me into the room, sending me careening to the floor in front of a queen-sized bed draped with a luxurious, dark red velvet bedspread. The thick, rich fabric shimmered in the low light, contrasting sharply with thethreadbare, paisley-patterned carpet beneath me. The carpet, once opulent, was now worn thin around the bed, its colors faded and its fibers frayed.
Old Victorian dolls surrounded us.
The walls were lined with shelves filled with creepy, dirty dolls. Their lifeless eyes seemed to follow me, some cracked and milky, others missing entirely. Some had lost limbs, with empty sockets and jagged stumps where arms or legs should have been. Many had toppled over, lying haphazardly on the shelves or the floor, their once-perfect dresses now tattered and stained.
More crowded the bed, each more disturbing than the last. A bald doll with a cracked skull, a scarred doll with one eye permanently shut, and a clown-painted doll with a sinister grin stretched across its face. One doll seemed to be clawing its way to the edge of the bed, its tiny hand outstretched in a desperate bid for freedom. Behind it, another reached out as if to pull it back, its frozen expression one of twisted determination.
A shiver ran through me, the air stagnant with the odor of decay and the unsettling aura of countless glassy eyes watching my every move. The door slammed behind me with a resounding bang, and I spun around just in time to see him throw the lock closed with a metallic click that echoed through the desolate silence.
The room seemed to close in on me, the dolls’ vacant stares growing more intense, their shadows elongating and twisting. The heaviness of the atmosphere made it hard to breathe, and the reality of my situation settled heavily on my shoulders. Every creak of the floorboard, every quiver of the light, seemed amplified in the silence, and my heart pounded in my chest, each beat a reminder of the danger I was now in.
He rubbed his hands together and then reached out for me. “Cozy!”
I glared at him, knocking his hand away. “Stay away from me.” Scrambling to my feet, I rushed to the door, craving a safe space, alone, to regroup.
He chuckled. “Now who’s rude? You’re welcome... Uh, nope.” He grasped my top and yanked me back from the door, causing me to stumble and almost collapse to the floor again. But I caught myself and squared up to him, hands on my hips.
As if I could fight this titan.
“What the fuck, dude?”
Seizing both my arms, he spun me around until his back was to the door.
Guarding it, evidently.
Suddenly, he was very serious. “You won’t last two minutes out there, girl. What the fuck are you doing here?”
His tone seemed strangely protective. It threw me off at first, but I assumed I’d misunderstood because of the turmoil, and raised an eyebrow. “Same thing everyone else is doing.”
He crossed his arms, which only gave an even beefier appearance, but his eyes were clearing. “So… dying? Yeah, I can see that. Why?”
For a moment, I just stared at him, trying to tease out his point. Was he just trying to disorient me so he could catch me off guard and break my neck? It didn’t seem that way. I let my arms down but didn’t take my eyes off him. “Why are you here?”
His expression remained impassive. Inscrutable, like he didn’t give a shit about anything, but here he was, acting like my own father never bothered to when I was in danger. “That’s my own business.”
“Oh is that right?” I didn’t need that kind of misogynist attention from anyone. I was here to end my oppression with Ivan, and that was it.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Right. Because you’re aman.”
