Page 14 of Obey

A shiver ran down my back at the thought. He’d been beating me every night when I escaped him, and letting his crew use me however they wanted to.

I didn’t know how much worse it could get than that, but if anyone was going to do more to a woman, it was Devil.

I didn’t answer, knowing that anything I said would get me into more trouble. I’d learned quickly with Devil that he could use anything you said against you, twist it so it meant something you’d never meant, turn it so he could take it as an insult. Any reason to hit you.

Any reason to punish you for something you hadn’t actually done.

He grinned slyly at my silence, taking it for agreement rather than the fear it actually was. “That’s what I thought. You don’t argue because you know I’m right, don’t you? You know you’re finally home and that this is where you always belonged.”

He leaned closer to me, my skin crawling and adrenaline rushing through my body at his proximity. I couldn’t stand this. I felt like I was going to burst into flames at his proximity, and not in a good way. There was a time when I’d hated him but tolerated him because he’d convinced me that I didn’t deserve anything more than what he was giving me. I’d thought for sure that I’d never find anything better than what I had with him.

But that was before Knight. It was before I knew what real love could feel like, and before I knew that I did deserve more.

I bit the inside of my cheek, held onto a picture of Knight in my head, and kept my mouth shut, already planning how I was going to get out of this.

“Tell you what I’m going to do,” Devil growled. “I’m going to forgive you for that shit with Knight. I’m sure you slept with him, little slut that you are, but I’m willing to look past it. Not the first time I’ve had to share you with someone else.”

The leer he sent me made me want to throw up. I forced the bile back down, though, and tried very, very hard to keep my face neutral.

“We’re going to tell everyone that you went to Knight to try to get information on his club, and that you’re back now with that information. Now that you’re home, we’ll be able to end Knight and his little club once and for all, and I won’t have to worry about you getting caught in the crossfire.”

He reached out and caressed my cheek softly, like he’d actually been worried about me, this man whose fists I’d felt time and again, and I looked away from him, unable to keep my eyes on him without gagging.

And there in the doorway stood Sioux, her bottom lip in her teeth and her eyes wide and frightened. She looked terrified and also... strangely energized. She was nodding at me, like she approved of how I was playing the whole thing, or perhaps that was just encouragement. Was she trying to tell me something? Trying to remind me that she’d said she might be able to help me escape if I calmed down and kept my head on straight?

I glanced down at her wrist and saw that she was rubbing at the tattoo, there. The tattoo that matched the one Tinker’d had. And suddenly I knew. She was remembering Tinker and what Devil had done to him. Remembering how Devil had kidnapped her in the first place and then forced her to stay.

Sioux hadn’t chosen the Steed. She’d been tricked into coming here, and then kept in a cage, the same way I had. She just hadn’t had a Knight to rescue her.

But as long as she was willing to help me escape...

If she wanted out, I thought, I was going to bring her with me.

Though I was going to have to walk a very fine line with Devil until I could make that happen.

I turned my eyes back to him, tried to hide everything I’d been thinking, and tried not to think about the fact that he would probably kill me at any moment. I tried to look like I believed his words, rather than knowing that everything he said was a lie and that the moment he thought I was no longer useful, he’d go right back to his old behavior.

I tried really, really hard to look like I thought he might have changed his stripes—or that I’d forgotten what he’d put me through. Because if this was going to work, and if I was going to stay alive to see Knight again, I needed to make Devil believe I was actually on his side.

I needed to manipulate him the way he’d once manipulated me.

“You’re right,” I said softly. “It was all a mistake. But I’m home, now.”

CHAPTER 7

KNIGHT

I WANTED HER HOME.

I wanted her home so badly I could taste it. Feel it under my skin like something that had been injected right into me and was slowly replacing my blood. My organs weren’t working right, my heart had somehow forgotten how to beat correctly, and I felt like I couldn’t see straight without her here.

How the hell had one tiny girl become such an important part of my life in the space of a fucking week? I’d never been this attached to anyone before. Even my closest friends knew that if they walked out of my life, I’d mourn them for a second and then go right back to the daily grind.

But this girl, this tiny, fiery thing, had become so important to everything that I felt like I couldn’t breathe without her here.

And being such a sap about it was really, really pissing me off.

I looked down at my phone again and decided to let myself be a sap for just a little bit longer. I hadn’t even known the picture was here, to be honest. It was on my phone, yeah, but I’d been asleep when Saraya took it, my face turned slightly to the side and nuzzled into her wild black hair. Saraya was, of course, awake, holding the phone above us as we lay in bed and laughing as she took the shot. Her eyes were crinkled at the corner and full of mischief, her mouth open wide in what had to be a silent laugh.