Page 110 of Vows of Silence

That thought was what was bugging me the most.

He hadn’t been worried when I ran through the house the first time. He hadn’t been worried when I tried to fight him. He hadn’t even seemed particularly concerned when he’d left me alone with more freedom than any kidnapper with sense should have allowed. He left me here for days alone at a time, and never once thought to be slightly concerned about that.

And now here I was, racing through the forest, and he didn’t seem at all worried.

Isabelle: Where do I go next? Please, Luca.

Luca: You turn around and go back.

Isabelle: I can’t do that. Please. You don’t understand. You have no idea what it’s like.

Luca: I can imagine.

Isabelle: He’s getting closer! Fuck! Please. Please Luca. If you felt anything at all for me, please help me.

He didn’t reply. The typing bubble didn’t appear for even one split second. I stopped running for a second, resting my back against a thick tree trunk, and took a moment to catch my breath.

I could hear Silas whistling nearby, but I was too scared to peek around the tree and have a look to see how close he was.

Isabelle: How does he always know where I am? There can’t be that many cameras in the fucking forest!

The typing bubble appeared, vanished, then appeared again.

Luca:Think about the car.

I frowned so hard my head hurt.

The car? What fucking car?

I scanned the forest, as though miraculously an escape car would appear.

I had no clue what Luca meant. My thoughts were too panicked. Then, slowly, unwillingly, a memory began to surface.

The car!

The night Silas took me.

My hand flew up before I could stop it.

He had done something to me. At the time, I thought he had injected me with a sedative. The world had been hazy, and once that sharp prick in my neck disappeared, everything was black.

But what if it wasn’t the sedative?

I remembered my neck hurting a lot when I woke up—far more than a simple injection should have. I’d assumed it was whiplash. And I remembered how Silas always scanned my wounds, particularly my neck.

My breathing came hard and fast as my fingers pressed against the side of my throat, searching the skin there as though I might be able to feel the answer beneath my fingertips. I remembered his gloved hand brushing that exact spot. I remembered him tilting my head, studying the healing mark from the injection with far more interest than it deserved. I remembered thinking it was strange, thinking he was strange, and then dismissing it because everything about Silas had been strange from the beginning.

But why would he keep checking it?

Why would he need to?

My fingers pushed harder against my skin, but there was nothing obvious there. No raised scar or lump. No proof that anything had been placed beneath the surface. And yet somehow the lack of proof didn’t reassure me at all. Because Luca wouldn’t have told me to remember the car for no reason. And Silas was obsessed with keeping tabs on me.

Silas had put something in me.

A tracker.

The realisation should have made me scream. It should have sent me sprinting harder through the trees, should have flooded me with fresh panic and outrage. Instead, for one dreadful second, I simply stood there, staring at nothing, feeling the full weight of my own stupidity settle over me.