Page 146 of Devious Obsession
I get most of my features from him. My eyes, my dark hair. My complexion, even. My sisters are blessed to share more of my mother’s physicality. Her blonde hair and golden skin, always sun-kissed even in the dead of winter.
“You’ve grown up into a stunning young woman,” he says.
I wet my lips. I don’t trust myself to talk, or… try to bargain for my freedom. I look around more. The room really is simple. I’m not tied to a chair or bed, not like I originally expected when my limbs were too tingly or numb to get a lock on. Instead, I’m positioned in an armchair like I had fallen asleep watching television, or something equally…normal. My legs are pulled up under me, my arms at my sides. I think my head was left to rest against the back cushion.
“Come with me,” Dad says, offering his hand.
I stare at him without comprehending.
Where we are, how I got here.WhyI’m here. And the man on the floor—
“Don’t look at him, babydoll.” Dad jars my thoughts. He takes my feet and puts them on the floor, then picks up my hands. He tugs me upright, holding my arms as I wobble. “You’re like a kid learning to walk again.”
My stomach twists. I know all about how he treats kids.Meas a kid. His grip on me is firm and unrelenting, and he leads me through the doorway, into a kitchen and dining room area.
Actually…
I squint at it, then glance back over my shoulder. If there wasn’t a wall dividing the two, it would be an exact replica of my apartment. And the hallway is positioned in the same spot, too.
“Go on.” Dad suddenly releases me.
“Wh—” I clear my throat. “Where?”
He gives me an odd look. “To your room.”
Um…
He shakes his head and points. “The door on the left.”
“Okay,” I whisper. I walk on unsteady legs down the hall, running my hand along the wall. There are picture frames that I refuse to look at, although I catch a passing glimpse of one: my parents and me when I was barely three months old. All smiling.
That was before, of course. Before my father fell in with the wrong people, then turned further into the world of child pornography. That has to be it, right? That explains the camera flashes in my memory.
The more I don’t want to think about it, the more my brain wants to suck me back there.
The door on the left is painted eggshell blue. I touch it, running my fingernails down one of the grooves, then grasp the handle. Turn the knob, open the door.
Should be just that easy, but I can’t do it. My limbs get stuck.
There’s something bad on the other side of this door.
Something I don’t want to know.
I glance back down the hall, to where my father stands. His arms are by his sides, loose, relaxed. That’s always the persona I knew him to exude.
My knees buckle, and my weight opens the door for me.
I practically fall inside. My knees hit the plush blue carpet first, and I can only stare at the familiar color. There was a rug like that in one of the apartments we lived in, in the room I shared with Dakota and Len when I was maybe nine or ten. We’d roll around on it, giggling about pretend, alien invaders trying to shoot us out of the sky. Because on it, we were fighter pilots. Civilization’s last hope.
My throat closes.
It’s the same layout as my apartment bedroom, but so,sodifferent.
There are three beds. A double bed against a window with an achingly familiar comforter, maybe torn right off my real bed, and a set of twin bunk beds opposite it. The closet doors are open, clothes from my apartment. The CPU hoodie I was missing, a few sweaters and t-shirts. I stagger toward it, rifling through the clothes.
There are smaller-sized items, too. Things that would fit my sisters.
I wheel around and go to the dresser, yanking it open.
