CHAPTER 1
Annabelle
Every time my lungs expand to draw in air, it feels like too much movement. Too much noise.
L ogically, I know I can’t keep hiding indefinitely. If I stay here, someone will find me. But I’m not ruled by logic. I’m compelled by fear. So I crouch down on Beast’s bathroom floor until my knee caps ache and my back knots, and my fingernails are sore from picking at the grout between the small, gray tiles.
They just…took him.
How could they just take him that way?
Did he really kill that guy? The Aryan?
Where is he now?
Too many questions banging around my head, so I stand up. Blood rushes into my legs, making them tingle, then ache.
I slide my phone out of my pocket and scroll to Holt’s name. If only I could call him—but I don’t have service in the prison.
Clinton. I turn toward the mirror mounted over the sink and inhale slowly. If I’m going to leave this bathroom, the first person I should look for is Clinton.
I can do that. Surely I can find Clinton before the men who took Beast find me, too.
But what if I don’t?
I imagine myself in a small, empty room. Water dripping down the walls, leaving slimy mold trails. Rusted bars through which hazy sunlight floats. Nothing in the world but me and the dust particles drifting through the gross, stale air.
They couldn’t do that to me, right? I’m not a prisoner.
Beast is.
Shit, I’ve got to help him. I won’t leave her e until I find out what the hell is going on.
I blink int o the mirror one more time, then slide my phone back into my pocket. Step slowly into his room. His room. This is his room . That bed there—that rumpled bed, with its soft, black duvet—is where I lay with him and felt the hard warmth of his abs; his scratchy face; the softness of his lips pressed hard against mine. I sucked the head of his cock into my cheeks and tasted the slick saltiness of him. Just a little while ago, his tongue flicked between the swollen lips of my pussy.
He told me he remembered me.
He said he practically stalked me.
It’s so hard to believe.
It’s like a dream.
Like a fairy tale.
A twisted fairy tale, because my prince is stuck in prison and as soon as he told me he remembered me, I lost him.
Tears fill my eyes as I stand there in the bathroom doorway, and in the blur of them, I notice the bookshelf that runs along the wall out in front of me. Somehow—I guess because my eyes went straight to him—I didn’t notice it when Clinton first brought me here.
I know I need to get the hell out of dodge, but I can’t stop my renegade feet from carrying me over, or my eyes from skimming the spines of the books he chooses to keep here in his room with him.
Beloved . I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings . The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time . A Clockwork Orange . Fight Club . The Bible . The Koran . Peace is Every Step. The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank.
I wonder if these books were donated. I pull out The Diary of A Young Girl: Anne Frank and skim through the pages. I only have to flip a few before I find highlighted text.
“ It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
My eyes widen. Okay, well I think that confirms it: These books were definitely donated.
I flip a few more pages and see boxy, all-caps handwriting. ‘THE WEAK DIE OUT BUT THE STRONG SURVIVE.’
Well, hot damn. That’s his writing. I’m almost sure I remember the tabloids reporting that he wrote in all caps. It was one of those mundane articles I remember only because I used to read so many of them in my star-struck, younger years.
I pull out Peace is Every Step , because I want to know what a man like Beast thinks is important about peace. After only a few pages, I start finding passages highlighted.
“ When you love someone, the best thing you can
Annabelle
Every time my lungs expand to draw in air, it feels like too much movement. Too much noise.
L ogically, I know I can’t keep hiding indefinitely. If I stay here, someone will find me. But I’m not ruled by logic. I’m compelled by fear. So I crouch down on Beast’s bathroom floor until my knee caps ache and my back knots, and my fingernails are sore from picking at the grout between the small, gray tiles.
They just…took him.
How could they just take him that way?
Did he really kill that guy? The Aryan?
Where is he now?
Too many questions banging around my head, so I stand up. Blood rushes into my legs, making them tingle, then ache.
I slide my phone out of my pocket and scroll to Holt’s name. If only I could call him—but I don’t have service in the prison.
Clinton. I turn toward the mirror mounted over the sink and inhale slowly. If I’m going to leave this bathroom, the first person I should look for is Clinton.
I can do that. Surely I can find Clinton before the men who took Beast find me, too.
But what if I don’t?
I imagine myself in a small, empty room. Water dripping down the walls, leaving slimy mold trails. Rusted bars through which hazy sunlight floats. Nothing in the world but me and the dust particles drifting through the gross, stale air.
They couldn’t do that to me, right? I’m not a prisoner.
Beast is.
Shit, I’ve got to help him. I won’t leave her e until I find out what the hell is going on.
I blink int o the mirror one more time, then slide my phone back into my pocket. Step slowly into his room. His room. This is his room . That bed there—that rumpled bed, with its soft, black duvet—is where I lay with him and felt the hard warmth of his abs; his scratchy face; the softness of his lips pressed hard against mine. I sucked the head of his cock into my cheeks and tasted the slick saltiness of him. Just a little while ago, his tongue flicked between the swollen lips of my pussy.
He told me he remembered me.
He said he practically stalked me.
It’s so hard to believe.
It’s like a dream.
Like a fairy tale.
A twisted fairy tale, because my prince is stuck in prison and as soon as he told me he remembered me, I lost him.
Tears fill my eyes as I stand there in the bathroom doorway, and in the blur of them, I notice the bookshelf that runs along the wall out in front of me. Somehow—I guess because my eyes went straight to him—I didn’t notice it when Clinton first brought me here.
I know I need to get the hell out of dodge, but I can’t stop my renegade feet from carrying me over, or my eyes from skimming the spines of the books he chooses to keep here in his room with him.
Beloved . I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings . The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time . A Clockwork Orange . Fight Club . The Bible . The Koran . Peace is Every Step. The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank.
I wonder if these books were donated. I pull out The Diary of A Young Girl: Anne Frank and skim through the pages. I only have to flip a few before I find highlighted text.
“ It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
My eyes widen. Okay, well I think that confirms it: These books were definitely donated.
I flip a few more pages and see boxy, all-caps handwriting. ‘THE WEAK DIE OUT BUT THE STRONG SURVIVE.’
Well, hot damn. That’s his writing. I’m almost sure I remember the tabloids reporting that he wrote in all caps. It was one of those mundane articles I remember only because I used to read so many of them in my star-struck, younger years.
I pull out Peace is Every Step , because I want to know what a man like Beast thinks is important about peace. After only a few pages, I start finding passages highlighted.
“ When you love someone, the best thing you can
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