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Drake looked at me with a book in his lap. “It’s only me. Come on. Sit. We need to be reading.”
I glared at him. “You could’ve told me you were here when I came in.” My heart was still in overdrive from the surprise.
Drake’s gaze shifted to steal a glance at the camera. Were we being watched? We had to assume every second was closely monitored. “Sit and read. Hurry.”
Collapsing into the chair, I opened the book and stared at the words but didn’t actually read anything. How could anyone focus enough in this place? We were living in some fucked up nightmare. Beside me, Drake was fully engrossed in his book. Even as terrifying and weird as all this was, I couldn’t help but notice again how gorgeous he looked. If we were anywhere else, I’d be hoping he’d buy me a drink and flirt with me. Here, I simply wondered if he could somehow help me survive.
“What are we—”
“Hush,” Drake hissed and then nodded to the camera.
“Fine,” I mumbled and went back to staring at the book as irritation prickled at the edge of my mind, for all his good looks, he’d obviously forgotten what it was to be new here.
The novel was old. I read the first line with a twinge of irony. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I sighed to myself. These were most definitely the worst of times, but I couldn’t think of anything in my life that had ever been the best, much less where I found myself at this moment.
The next twenty minutes were spent with me trying to concentrate on the book. It was Dickens, and allegedly a classic from what I remembered hearing in school, but nothing stuck. I reread the same paragraph four or five times and still couldn’t remember what it had been about. There was a possibility that I might have enjoyed it in any other situation, but not here. How in the hell were we supposed to concentrate when we’d all been kidnapped and were being held by some psychopath?
An hour went by like that. Pure silence. The only thing that broke the monotony was the crackle of the slowly dying fire and the flipping of Drake’s pages. A moment before I was ready to wail from frustration, the chime went off again.
Bong. “Dahlia and Drake. Please discuss what you’ve read.”
I slammed my book closed and looked over at Drake. He sat, book open and resting on his knee, looking at me. While his expression was neutral, his eyes were kind.
I wasn’t sure how to take kindness, given what was going on. Was it a trick?
After a moment, Drake asked, “Well?”
Glaring back at him, I said, “Well, what?”
“Sam said we need to discuss. Would you like to go first, or me?”
As he spoke, his voice had been calm and even-tempered, but his green eyes stayed fixed on mine. It was like he was trying to send me some sort of unspoken message.
I’d never even played charades, and now I was in a high-stakes version of it. Let him talk, see if I could figure out what he wanted me to know.
“Fine,” I muttered. “How’s your book?”
Drake cleared his throat. “It’s good. The Count of Monte Cristo. Ever read it?”
Jesus Christ, were we seriously doing this? I continued to glance back at the door. The dread and horror I’d experienced since waking in my room hadn’t left. A decorative clock on the wall ticked away monotonously. Fuck, it’d only been two hours ago? How was that possible? Surely some madman with a mask and chainsaw was about to burst in and hack us to death.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Not even in school?” He looked truly surprised.
“My childhood, well, let’s say school was one of the last things I worried about. I graduated, but mostly by begging for answers from other kids, and pity from teachers. Now what the hell is your book about?”
Drake gave one sidelong glance at the camera before speaking. “It’s a book about a guy who was falsely imprisoned.”
That struck a nerve. What were we if not a group of falsely imprisoned people? “Oh, yeah?”
Drake nodded. “Yes.” He gave another nervous look toward the camera. His furtive glances and hesitation meant he was about to do something he shouldn’t. My own nervousness escalated. The tension between us was almost thick enough to cut.
“His prison,” he went on, “is impossible to escape. He has to do everything that his guards tell him or there will be repercussions, as with any prison.”
He still held my gaze. I could almost feel him willing me to understand, and I did. He was using the book as a way to tell me about the house we were in.
“Okay,” I said. “What happens if he doesn’t do what they say? The guards, I mean?”
