Thirty minutes later, she was out of wine and staring at the blank wall on one side of the room. She sifted through the clothes in the suitcase and hung a few of them in the closet. Opening the dresser to put her undergarments in, she was surprised to find a book of puzzles and an ink pen inside. She looked at it for a moment and then removed it, taking it over to the bed. Most of the puzzles had been completed, but there were a few left, so she settled into them to occupy her time until she began to get sleepy and nodded off.
When she awoke, there was a wicker tray that had been brought in and sat on the dresser. The puzzle book was still there beside her on the bed, but the pen was gone, now replaced with a large purple crayon. She picked it up and looked at it sourly. Bastard was afraid she’d stab him with a ballpoint pen. At least he’d left her a crayon rather than a puzzle book with no means to fill it in.
She climbed out of bed and walked to the dresser. It contained a bucket of ice holding a small bottle of orange juice and a bottle of water. There were also a couple of bagels with cream cheese and fresh strawberries. There was no knife, but there was a small plastic spoon. On top was a note. She opened it to see that he was gone.
“Left early to pick up food and supplies. Be back soon. Eat your breakfast,” it read.
She picked up the orange juice and walked back to the bed with it, sipping it and looking at the puzzle. Contrary to what he must be thinking, she hadn’t had sex with him just because she thought he would stop locking her in the room, but she was surprised that he had no problem just locking her in and leaving her whenever it suited him. He really was an ogre, and she wasn’t sure how she let herself keep forgetting that.
Ciaron might be a monster, but this guy was no better. He talked about getting women away from bad men and harmful drugs off the street, but the truth was that it was bad for his business. It wasn’t about people; it was about profit. That was always the way with men like him, and she wasn’t falling for any bullshit he wanted to spew that said otherwise.
What she needed to do was get out. With him gone, she didn’t have to be concerned about noise, so she began searching through the dresser for anything that might help her pick a lock. The pen might have been a possibility if she removed the inside vial of ink and used it to wiggle the pins inside the doorknob, but that option was shot.
She returned to the tray and picked up the spoon. Could she possibly work that down into something she could use? It was pretty flimsy, but if she could get her hands on a lighter or something, she might be able to push it into a form she could use. A search of the closet and lying on the floor to look under all the furniture turned up nothing either. It struck her how laughable it was being forced to make a “prison tool” in an attempt to escape captivity.
“Fuck,” she muttered to herself, giving in and swathing one of the pre-cut bagels with the cream cheese and stuffing it into her mouth. It was rather good, though obviously store-bought and not fresh from any bakery. She used the spoon to put cream cheese on the other half and sat down on the bed to eat it before licking the spoon clean and tucking it between the mattress.
A thought struck her, and she jumped back up off the bed, pulling the mattress upward to look beneath it. Disappointment. There was nothing helpful there either. Why was this place so damned clean? Frustrated, she finished the orange juice and threw the empty plastic bottle at the locked door before going to the bathroom to get a shower and brush her teeth.
By the time he returned, she was showered and in clean clothes like a good little prisoner. She had finished off the strawberries he had left and returned to the bed to work on her puzzles. The sound of the front door opening caught her attention, but she just kept working on the puzzle in front of her. He tapped on her door and asked if she was decent, as if he hadn’t been balls deep in her naked body just yesterday.
“Yep,” she said in a sullen tone.
The door swung open, pushing the plastic bottle so that it scraped and bounced across the wooden floor. Fergus bent and picked it up, looking at it curiously before putting it back on the tray. He probably thought it fell, which made her smile to herself, keeping her head tilted down toward the book in her lap as if she didn’t see him.