Page 34 of Captive Promise

I shrug. “You’re not.”

She stares at me in shock and I fight the smile.

“This isn’t about trust, Katerina. You don’t owe me any of that. You’ve got twenty-six days left here. However they go, that little girl goes home when they’re over, and you’ll have the rest of your life to figure out what you think of me. I’m not asking you to believe a word I say. I’m telling you the truth because I’d rather you have it than not.”

I stand. I’ve given her more tonight than I planned to, and there’s a real risk in staying in this room with her while she’s still flushed from the run, hair a mess, looking at me like she’s trying to figure out what I actually am.

“Are you going to hurt her?” Her voice catches me at the door. “Tell me the truth.”

I look back at her. “No.”

I mean that too.

7

KATERINA

I can’t sleep, but then again, that’s the story of my life, right?

I lie on my back with the covers kicked halfway off and the video playing on a loop behind my eyes, over and over, like if I watch it enough times I can climb through the screen and just bring her back myself.

Seraphina in her purple unicorn shirt.

The scream.

The pounding fists.

The way she stopped mid-tantrum and just moved on, like a switch flipped, because she’s two and two year olds do that, and she’s fine, she’s fine, and the relief of knowing that is so enormous I don’t have room for anything else in my body.

Except I do and that’s the problem.

I have room for other things too, and they will not shut up.

He’s holding her over my head.

He gave me proof of life like he was doing me a kindness, and then he told me that the next one only comes if I earn it.

Every three days.

I gnash my teeth together in irritation.

Like she’s a treat and I’m the animal, and the second I stop being a good enough animal for him he takes her back into the dark where I can’t see her.

Fucking asshole.

I want to hate him.

I want that so badly it’s a physical need.

And I do!

God, I do—I hate him with every single cell in my body for what he’s doing to Emma and Leo.

For what he’s doing to me, for the way he can talk about manipulation like it’s a weather report and expect me to still trust the pieces of it he claims are true.

Then my brain, my absolute little shit of a brain, hands me the other video.

The one I didn’t ask for.