Breathless by Emily Snow, Heidi McLaughlin, Aleatha Romig, Tijan, Jessica Wood, Ilsa Madden-Mills, Skyla Madi, J.S. Cooper, Crystal Spears, K.A. Robinson, Kahlen Aymes, Sarah Dosher Read Free Book Online

be so solemn, don’t analyze everything until it barely exists. Just live,” you whispered in my ear, your breath warming the frost that was trying to form.
    We walked back through the living room; my eyes had darted in every direction as I searched for something. I didn’t know what I had hoped to find, but I’d know it when I found it. You pulled me back down the hall. I stopped at the first door and you allowed me to pause. My hand ran slowly down the smooth wooden door.
    “My room,” you said, and pushed the door open easily.
    Inside, my eyes had seen a simple cot and nothing else. No dresser to keep clothes, no night stand beside to hold your personal things – just a simple cot with a simple white blanket on it. Yet again, a simple wood-burning stove was all that was used for warmth and that realization that there had probably been no other heat source in the whole house sent shivers down my spine.
    The door closed and you pulled me to the next door. You paused, your eyes scanned my face looking for a sign of something I wasn’t sure you saw.
    “We’ll wait on the tour of this room.” You spoke lightly.
    You tried to walk again but I pulled against your grip and refused to move until you stopped hiding things from me.
    “I’m not a child, I’m not so easily broken. If you want me to trust you then you have to start being honest with me, tell me things.”
    You nodded and pulled a key from your pocket to unlock the door. It was another bedroom, but this one was more filled – more real. The bed was directly across from the door and had large posts on each corner that curved up to meet directly in the middle. A large dresser and even a rug decorating the floor had also caught my eye.
    “Go ahead,” you said as I started to take a step into the room but paused.
    I moved to the dresser and slowly opened the top drawer. Inside were white cotton panties, the same as what I’d been wearing. I frantically closed the drawer and opened the next, more clothes – the same pants that time. The next held men’s clothes, exactly like you’d been wearing – jeans, white shirts, boxers.
    Looking back at you, I could see the concern on your face. You opened your mouth to speak but closed it back without uttering a word. I moved toward the bed, everything looked new, fresh. No one had slept on this bed, I knew it, deep in my bones knew it had been unmarred.
    “One day this will be our room, when you are ready and not a minute before.”
    I shook my head. “No!” I yelled at you.
    You didn’t say anything, you simply dipped your head and stared at the soft rug that took up the space between us.
    “My parents will look for me.”
    You nodded.
    “They have money, they know people. They won’t give up until they find me.”
    You nodded again, still not looking up to meet my eyes.
    “No matter how careful you were someone had to see you, I saw you every day, always near me at work, someone else had to see you, too.”
    “Yes, I’m sure they did.”
    “Someone had to think it was strange, they’ll tell the police when they know I’m gone, they’ll link it back to you.”
    “I’m no one, Annabel, there is nothing for them to find. I do not exist; I never have.”
    “What do you mean?” I asked, but you didn’t hear me, your thoughts were a constant stream and I saw them swirl behind your eyes.
    “I’ve never lived anywhere but this house and that mall. They can look, but they will never find anything, there is no one to find. Here I’m Cage, and there I was no one. I had one task, to find you and bring you home. I did that and we’ll never need to leave home again.”
    “No matter who you are, someone had to see you forcing me to go with you. My parents will be on TV talking to anyone who will listen, someone saw you and they will find me,” I demanded, as the realization that you’d always intended this to be my world came crashing down around me. This house, you, me – you’d had it all planned