I only care about making sure it won’t happen again. My mind is screaming at me—But it did happen again! Yeah, I can’t control what this freak does. I can only control how I react to it. And I refuse to let him make me panic. Because I’ve been preparing for this. I’ve been mentally and physically preparing myself for round two since the day I realized I was brainwashed six years ago. So my heart calms while his beats faster. “What kind of tests?”

He leans down in my personal space, his grip on my upper arm punishingly tight. “A pregnancy test, for one.”

“I’m not pregnant.”

“How do you know?” He cocks his head at me. “Asher never used a condom.”

I reel backwards. “What?”

“You think I don’t know what kind of man Vaughn Asher is? Did he use one? Say yes and we skip the test. But I might have to medicate you and that could harm your baby. So isn’t it better to know for sure?”

Hurt my baby? No!

Jesus, Grace! Stop. You’re on the pill! Don’t let him get to you! That’s your only power right now.

But he’s blackmailing me with a baby that doesn’t exist and I’m falling for it.

He points to the bathroom. “I’ll untie you. You go in, leaving the door open. Follow the directions on the package, and bring it back to me. We can watch for the results together.”

“No.”

He smacks me across the face. “That word is not in your vocabulary.”

The blood is back in my mouth and I spit on the floor.

“While we’re waiting, you can clean your bloody mess. There’s a spot in the kitchen as well. I don’t like an untidy home.”

The chills run up my spine. He’s a psycho. He tried to brainwash me into believing I was his wife back when I was thirteen. And it worked. I cooked and cleaned for him like I was his goddamned life partner. Like we were in this shit together. I asked him how his day was when he came home from work every day and unchained me from the closet. And by the end, I even participated in the demented dream of his. I shake my head, unwilling to even admit that part of the ordeal to myself.

Instead, I extend my shaking hand out for the box he’s holding in front of me, and he places it in my palm.

“I’ll wait in the living room and give you some privacy.” He grips my arm again. “But leave the door open.”

I walk into the tiny bathroom. It too has been remodeled. It seems like everything in this house has been remodeled except for my closet prison cell. I open the box and take out the test. Rip open the package with my teeth, then check the hallway to make sure he’s really in the living room.

He waves to me from the couch. “Hurry.”

I retreat back into the bathroom and unbutton my shorts. My hand shakes severely as I squat and hold the test under my stream. I place it on the wrapper on the counter, wipe quickly, and pull my pants back up.

I stare at the little window where the results will appear, my heart suddenly burdened with fear.

What if I’m pregnant?

“Is it done?” he asks from the door.

I nod and hand the test over. He can sit and watch it all he wants. I have no intention of waiting for that result with him by my side.

“I’ll clean the mess,” I say meekly with my head down.

“Yes.” He strokes my hair and I do my best not to flinch, but don’t entirely succeed. “You remember your place now, don’t you?”

I force myself to look up at him and nod. “I remember.”

My feet are moving, and I’ve never been so glad to walk away from someone in my whole life. But I do remember. And then a smile comes forth for a flash of a second. I remember what I needed to do back then to walk freely around the house.

Obey.

I cannot even count the number of nights I stayed up thinking up all the ways in which I could trick him after I was let go. I replayed every day in my mind. I imagined how it was to wake up and realize I was a prisoner. I imagined what I’d do different. I imagined I was smart enough to figure out what made him happy and what pissed him off so I could fool him into thinking I was agreeable.

In my new reality, the one I dreamed about, I wasn’t brainwashed into liking the man with the mask. In my new reality, I was the smart one and he was the victim. I imagined myself one step ahead. I played all those bad things in my mind again and again. It was like a simulator for me. I planned for this. Because that’s what I do. I’m a planner.

In the kitchen the layout is the same even though the cabinets and stuff are all different. So I know where he keeps the mop and bucket. In the tall slender cupboard next to the refrigerator.

I also know where to fill the bucket up. In the laundry room off to the side of the kitchen. I look at the back door for a moment, then over my shoulder. He’s watching me.

“Try the handle, Daisy. Do you think I’d leave it unlocked?”

“No,” I answer, then lower my head and turn the spigot on. I wait for the bucket to fill and when I turn he’s still watching me.

“In my mind you’re still a girl, but you’re not, are you?”

Oh, shit. “I am,” I insist. “I’m still a girl.” He never molested me but he talked about it endlessly. He said he had to wait until I was eighteen. That was the law.

I always wanted to ask him why kidnapping was OK but sex with a minor wasn’t. But I had enough sense to shut the hell up.

My hand reaches for the floor cleaner like this is my own home, and I hear him chuckle a little behind me. Just play along, Grace. Don’t feel what he wants you to feel.

I take the bucket and mop over to the bloodstain on the floor and quickly wipe it up. This must pacify him, because he retreats to the couch once again. I steal a look as I walk past to clean up the blood in the bathroom, and he’s staring at the pee stick.

I stop in my tracks when he holds up the test stick, his gaze never wandering from the results before him.

When he finally looks up, I know what that that test says. Maybe that’s why I got nauseous and threw up on the plane to Vegas. Maybe that’s why when I put that dress on for Kristi’s rehearsal dinner it was snug. Maybe that’s why the exhaustion overtook me at Kristi’s parents’ resort and I fell asleep, dead-assed tired.

I am pregnant.

I am pregnant with Vaughn Asher’s baby and there’s no way this psycho freak is going to let it live.