Page 36 of Roped

My chest is heaving. “I’m… They put me in your room?”

“Told them to.”

I prod his neck with the blade again. “You told them to put me in your room. Why?”

“’Cause it’s blue.”

“It’s… What?”

His eyes flick back and forth between mine. “Ain’t that your favorite color?”

I blink. And then I blink a couple more times. When I have my thoughts, my words straight, I ask, “Are you saying that you kidnapped me and then put me in a room with my favorite color?”

Because he is right. That room is blue. Everything in that room is different shades of blue, from walls to bedsheets to drapes. And like an idiot, I didn’t even question it. I thought it was a coincidence.

When he doesn’t respond, I ask, my voice rising, “Is it like the breakfast thing again? Where you tie me to a tree and then cook me eggs exactly how I like them?”

“You needed to eat,” he explains. “I knew how you like your eggs. Why wouldn’t I cook ’em the way you like ’em?”

“Why wouldn’t you…” I stare at him in disbelief for a few moments before practically screaming, “Do you realize how crazy you sound right now? How psychotic. You kidnapped me, asshole, and you’re being considerate about my breakfast and the color of my bedsheets.”

He shakes his head once. “Already got you where I want you. Ain’t no reason to make this more uncomfortable for you than it already is.”

I glare at him some more before snapping, “And to put cameras in my room and watch me and—”

“Watched you for six months, three weeks, six days, seven hours, and forty-four minutes, give or take,” he cuts me off. “That ain’t new.”

My belly whooshes at his count but I ignore it. Because something else occurs to me. “Did you… did you have a camera in my other room too? Back in the city.”

He doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t have to.

My heart drops. “Where?”

“On your bookshelf.”

“H-how?”

“Broke into your room one day,” he says. “When you were gone. Put it on your shelf.” Then, “Wanted to look around, but I…”

He trails off and shakes his head, telling me he didn’t. Because if he had, he would’ve found out that I was the real Peyton. He would’ve known, right away, that I was the Turner Princess, not Reverie. And maybe my best friend wouldn’t be in this mess. Although, from what I saw of her with Arsen, it didn’t look like a mess, or rather, that she appeared to kind of like the mess she’s in.

In any case, I decide to focus on the present and thrust aside all the other crazy things he just revealed. “I could stab you in the neck right now.”

“Wouldn’t give you what you want.”

“Oh yeah?” I poke it harder, almost cutting through the skin. “I told you I’d kill you, didn’t I?”

“You also said you wanted to dance on my grave,” he adds.

“Well, tonight’s the night then.”

His eyes flash. “Can’t deny I wanna see that. You movin’ your hot little body over my bleedin’ one.”

I blush furiously. “You—”

“But that’s not what you want.”

“Okay, asshole, if you know what I want, why don’t you tell me?”