Hooked (Never After, #1)(46)

Being in a panic won’t help.

What happened?

My birthday.

Then James.

Hook.

The memory comes rushing through like a stampede, flooding over the mental barrier of my drowsiness and cracking my chest in two.

A click sounds from the opposite side of the room, and my head turns toward the noise, my eyes squeezing when a door opens and light floods in from a hallway.

“Good. You’re awake.”

My body trembles as I watch Curly step into the room. He shuts the door, leaving it wedged open a crack to allow the brightness to filter through.

“Wh—” I wince, the scratch in my throat making talking difficult.

His steps are audible on the floor as he comes near, and I attempt to curl in on myself, to hide from this man as much as possible, even though there’s nowhere for me to go.

Curly stops in front of me, the right side of his lips pulling up. “Hiya, sunshine.”

I stare at him for long seconds, disgust weaving through my insides and rolling around in my gut. He was always so sweet. I actually thought maybe we could become friends, but here he is, looking at me chained to a wall and smirking.

“Fuck.” My voice catches, but I swallow around the sting and continue. “You.”

He crouches down in front of me, a plastic plate in his hands. “Now, that’s not very nice. It’s not like I put you down here.”

Anger simmers deep in my gut.

“I brought you some food.” He reaches over, picking up a piece of what looks like bread. “Open up.”

I press my lips together, turning my head.

He sighs. “Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be.”

Something inside of me snaps, and my eyes narrow, my face whipping back toward him. A small amount of saliva pools in my mouth as I take in the smell of the bread being held in front of me. I collect it at the tip of my tongue, and spit in his face.

The sound of the plate clattering to the floor is the only noise in the room other than the beats of my heart and the sound of our breathing.

His grin drops, his warm eyes icing over as he wipes the wetness from his cheek. “Fine.” He leans in. “You can fucking starve.”

He grabs the plate from the floor and walks away. The door clicks open and closed, and I’m alone again in the dark.

My stomach cramps, a ball of something heavy and sharp expanding in my middle, tearing through my calm until I’m gasping for air, my heart beating so fast I think I may have a heart attack.





Time moves differently when you’re chained in an empty room. My mind is still woozy and my body trembles with a shiver so deep I feel it in my bones. I go in and out of restless sleep no matter how much I try to stay awake—to formulate some type of plan.

My eyes peel open after another bout of losing consciousness. I had to have been drugged.

I’m not sure how many hours it’s been, or maybe it’s been days, but my vision has long since adjusted to the darkness, and I’m able to clearly make out a long table pushed against the far edge of the room, a small mound of what looks like packaged powder stacked at one end.

I squint my eyes, trying to see clearer, to figure out if it’s something I can somehow get to and use to my advantage.

But I know it’s fruitless. There’s nothing I can do. No weapons at my disposal, not that I’d know how to use them even if there were. No chance of getting to them even if I did, what with me being stuck to a wall.

All I have now is my faith.

Trust.

“Pixie dust.”

My heart stutters at the silky accent, my stomach rising and falling like a roller coaster. My head snaps to the right, noticing for the first time since waking that there’s a chair only a few feet away. And James is sitting in it, legs spread wide as he watches me, his gloved hands relaxing comfortably with a knife in his lap.

He tilts his head toward the table I was staring at. “What you’re looking at. It’s pixie dust.”

My stomach cramps as he stands up and walks toward me, his beauty making my nerves light up. Nausea follows close behind at the way my body reacts to him. At the way I gave him everything only for him to be the villain in disguise.

The clack of his steps bounce off the walls, the vibration splitting open my chest, my blood pumping heartache on the floor. He stops in front of me, his perfectly polished black shoes resting at the tips of my bare feet.

I grind my teeth, a sharp stab of pain vibrating up my jaw.

“You should eat.”

“Get fucked,” I spit out.

He tsks. “What did I tell you about that filthy mouth?”

My head tilts as I glare up at him. “You’ve said a lot of things, Hook. Turns out I really, really don’t give a damn about a single one.” The curse words feel strange as they fall from my lips, but right now, they’re all I have. I know they bother him, and since I can’t break free and scratch his eyes out with my nails, I have to settle for what I’ve got.

His lips curve into a thin smile. It sends shivers down my spine. He points at me with his knife. “I’m not the liar here, darling. Let’s not cast stones from glass houses.”

“I don’t even know what’s going on!” My body jerks as I pull at the chains, my hands smacking uselessly against the floor.