The boy must be having an especially difficult time relinquishing control. Life was typically quite easy and very good for boys like him. How many allowances had already been made for the kid? Ones he didn’t deserve and hadn’t earned? Many, the Collector surmised. Perhaps far too many. It tended to be a disservice when tragedy struck. And tragedy had definitely struck this particular golden boy, currently sitting in a metal cage like a dog.
Perhaps he should dislike the boy, considering that . . . good breeding. And yet, he rather found that, instead of feeling any loathing, he . . . related to him. In some ways, at least.
His gaze moved to the right, where the girl had sunk down and turned to the side so she was now sitting on her hip, her knees still bent, long legs drawn up, cheek resting on what had to be cold steel. Slender. Fine boned. Straight, dark hair. Pretty in a plain-Jane sort of way. In a cheesy made-for-TV movie, she’d be the girl her friends would perform a makeover on because they could see the potential lying just beneath the surface. That only happened in movies, however. In real life, teenage girls were typically too jealous to purposely create a swan when having an ugly duckling beside you made you the pretty one.
Women. What petty creatures they could be. So ruled by emotion.
It could be their strength, too, of course. But most often, it controlled them, rather than the other way around. Pity.
He reeled in his thoughts. He didn’t want to make too many assumptions and miss something that might tell him otherwise. Watch. Listen. Learn. It was what he did best.
A light in the room flashed, and both the boy and the girl made sounds of surprised fear, moving backward to the corners of their respective cells, away from the bulb. The girl brought her arm over her eyes, her face screwed up in pain. The light must be torturous after so long in the dark. The boy sat still, though his face was contorted similarly, one arm held out in front of him like he expected an attack. He couldn’t do much about it, but he wanted to feel it coming. His left eye was swollen shut, but he blinked the other repeatedly, trying desperately to see.
“What’s happening?” she asked, voice breathless and filled with fear.
“I don’t know,” he answered, his arm moving one way and then the other, warding off whatever invisible threat his mind was conjuring. There was nothing in front of him, though. Only light had entered his cage.
The Collector watched, waiting along with the captives to see what would happen next. His eyes slid to his cell phone on the desk next to him. One of his options was to call the authorities. But he didn’t think that was the best choice. At least not yet.
He had ended up here, this voyeur, through a series of well-strategized liaisons but also a twist of auspicious events. When he’d realized what this was, he hadn’t anticipated having any interest in watching. He would play, yes, but he’d intended to skate the perimeter. After all, he had a different form of winning in mind. But now, he couldn’t look away. People thought they watched reality TV, but there was very little reality to it. It was scripted and edited to lead the watcher toward predetermined conclusions. This, though—it was riveting. He understood the draw.
God help him, he did.
CHAPTER THREE
Evan flinched, trying to see but helpless against the painful pinpricks of sudden light that jabbed his eyes. Blindly, he swept his arm from side to side. If he was attacked before he managed to crack his lids—or lid, rather—open, he wanted to feel it coming. Not like the first time when he’d been roughly woken from sleep and hauled from the first cage he’d been kept in for what felt like weeks. He’d been taken off guard then, but he wouldn’t let it happen again. At least not while he was awake.
He took in flashes of the room through the slit of his eye, holding it open for a millisecond at a time.
His own splayed hand held out in front of him.
Gray metal bars.
A hazy counter-like structure beyond his cage.
He heard Noelle gasp, heard her movement, and turned his head in her direction. He saw her blur as she crawled to the front of her own cage, situated several feet away from his own.
Concrete floor between them.
“What do you see?” he asked, as she’d obviously managed to open her eyes before him. Likely because she was working with two.
“There’s a table. Or a counter,” she said, and he lowered his hand. He could see enough now to know he was the only one in his cage. He moved forward, too, crawling toward the front of his enclosure. There was a door on the front of his tiny cell, and when he tilted his head, he could see a black keypad lock toward the top holding it closed. He’d look at that more closely in a minute.