In The Darkness (Project Artemis #1)(8)

He set the chair down in front of her and with one hand untied the gag from behind her head, letting it fall away to the floor. As he sat down, Persephone stretched her mouth and closed her eyes to revel in the brief respite from that terrible pain the gag inflicted on her jaw.

“Are you hungry?” the man asked in a low voice barely above a whisper.

She opened her eyes and stared at him in amazement. No one had spoken to her like that in the thirteen days she’d been their hostage. In fact, no one had asked her a single question since they brought her there. Her comfort or anything about her didn’t interest them in the least.

As she looked at him, she couldn’t help but notice how different he seemed from the other men she’d met from the group. His dark brown eyes held no true anger toward her, and nothing in his expression said he wanted to kill her.

But she knew how quickly that could change with these men, and she had no reason to doubt he wasn’t just like them.

Cruel. Vicious. Deadly.

And no matter how gentle his eyes appeared now, when he held his gun to her head and threatened to pull the trigger because she’d upset him by doing something insignificant, he’d be as terrifying as the others.

“Well, hungry or not, I have to feed you, so open up your mouth,” he said in a tone that sounded almost amused.

What could be funny to him she had no idea.

He lifted the spoon from what looked like a grey version of oatmeal and brought it to her mouth, but she closed her lips tightly and shook her head. Whatever that shit in the bowl was, she didn’t want any. She suspected they were drugging her food to make her more compliant anyway. She didn’t feel like helping them with that since being on her toes might be the only way to escape this place and them.

The man watched her as she refused the food he offered and smiled. “Neither of us really has a choice here, so why not make it easy on both of us and eat?”

What the hell was he smiling for?

Enraged at his cavalier attitude toward her as she sat tied to a chair with her hands bound behind her back, she snapped, “Stop smiling! I’m a prisoner here. See the ropes around my hands? There’s nothing funny about that. And I’m not going to make anything easy on you just so you or one of your thug friends can kill me a day or two from now.”

Immediately, she regretted her outburst and waited for the inevitable pain that would come when he smacked her across the face as the man who fed her the first night did when she protested. She hadn’t made that mistake again, but something about this one’s stupid smiling had pushed her past the point of reason.

Looking away, she braced herself and waited with dread for the painful sting of being hit, but instead, he quietly said, “I’m sorry. I forgot myself for a minute there. It happens sometimes when you’re playing a part. I’m not going to punish you for what you said, but I do have to feed you.”

Persephone listened to him speak like a normal, completely not psychotic person and turned to face him again. “Who are you? Why are you being so nice to me?”

His dark gaze slid over her, down from her eyes to her lips and then her neck where she knew there were bruises from when one of their hands had painfully pushed against her tender skin and left it purple and ugly. A feeling of shame washed over her as he stared for too long at the evidence that she’d been attacked by one of the men, and she turned away again to avoid his knowing glance when he lifted his eyes to look into hers.

“I’m sorry they did that to you,” he said quietly.

Even more stunned from this second apology than she’d been at the first, she looked at him and shook her head in disbelief. “What’s your game? I know you’re no different than any of the others, so are you trying to lure me into a feeling of false security so when you hit me you get some kind of bigger rush? Just do it because I’m not falling for this nice guy thing you’re trying to do.”

The man said nothing for a long moment, making Persephone sure that at any second the swift retribution for what she dared say would come down on her. No matter what he wanted her to believe, she knew better.

He may have looked kinder, but no decent man would be anywhere near the men holding her hostage. No, this man was just as dangerous as any of the others.

“My name is Nick. I can’t say much more without putting both of us in danger, but you can trust me. I won’t let them hurt you, Persephone.”

This man—this Nick—spoke as if he knew her and cared about her. But how could that be? He was one of them. She wouldn’t be fooled by his gentle words and kind eyes.

No matter how desperate she was deep in her soul to believe everything he offered in those words and eyes.

“I don’t know who you are or who you think you’re fooling, Nick, but if you think for a second I’m falling for this act of yours, forget it. If any good resided inside you, then you wouldn’t be within a mile of these guys.”

Her indictment of him didn’t seem to faze the man one bit, though. He simply nodded and smiled again, like any of what was going on between them or around them was anything to crack a smile about.

“Do you enjoy my pain, Nick? Is that why you keep smiling?” Persephone asked, her anger with his amusement at the situation once again making her braver than she should have been.

And yet, once again, he didn’t hit her. He didn’t do anything, except for take that infuriating smile off his face.