Just looking at the stuff and breathing in its woody scent made my mouth water. I could still remember the welcome relief wine gave me in the months following Mum and Dad’s accident, the blissful numbing.
‘You shouldn’t be serving me alcohol. I’m not even legal yet,’ I said, spite lacing my voice. ‘The police will come soon, and you’ll be arrested for this.’
Something, maybe hurt, or anger, flashed in Sylvia’s eyes, followed by a look of utter horror washing over her smooth, ivory face.
‘What did you say?’As stealthily as a panther she advanced on me, her green eyes so wide they looked as though they were about to fly from their sockets and pummel into my brain. ‘Repeat what…you…just…said.’ Her voice was low, smooth and dangerous.
‘The police will come,’ I said, my voice catching in my throat.
She rested her hands on my pillow, on either side of my head, and leaned forward, her face inches from mine, her hair draped around me like thick satin curtains.
‘No! I meant the bit about your age.’
She stomped her well-heeled foot against the stone floor when I hesitated to speak and leaned even closer, her heavily spiced perfume clouding my head.
‘I—I’m only…n—nearly seventeen,’ I stammered. This woman, who was clearly a psycho, had me shaking all over.
Sylvia pulled back and raked her long, blood-red fingernails across her forehead.
‘Robbie!’ she shouted, like a damsel in distress, and the lock turned. He rushed in and glanced from Sylvia to me. He blinked several times before rubbing at his eyes, as though he’d been sleeping behind the door and couldn’t remember who we were.
‘How old is this girl?’ Sylvia asked, clicking her fingers at him.
‘She’s at least eighteen.’ He narrowed his gaze. ‘I heard her say it before I took her.’ His eyes scanned my face as if for some glaring evidence of my age.
He must have heard the conversation Lauren and I had shared in the water, about me nearly being legal—he must have thought I was Lauren.
‘I’m not eighteen. This is a mistake. My seventeenth birthday is the thirteenth of January—this month,’ I added, even though saying the date out loud caused me to wince and think of my parents pinned inside the mangled body of their car.
After a moment of silence, Robbie swore and shook his head.
Sylvia gnawed at her bottom lip and stared, as if appraising me, like I was a piece of furniture she had just purchased on a whim from IKEA but hadn’t yet decided which room to keep in.
Fresh blood seeped from the cuts on my hands, which I wrung together.
‘Well, it’s done now, and she’s still valuable.’ Her cat eyes travelled to my navel and back up again. ‘Marko will just have to learn the art of patience.’
An icy shiver crept down my back. Suddenly I knew. I knew what they were talking about, and it knotted my insides like a tight fist.
‘You don’t understand. My grandparents are too old to suffer any more grief. You need to take me back. Please,’ I begged.
Sylvia ignored me, but Robbie offered a brief, sympathetic glance before turning his attentions back to Sylvia.
‘I’ll inform Marko,’ Robbie said, starting for the door. But Sylvia snapped her hand around his wrist like a bracelet and drew him back.
I squirmed uneasily beneath the sheets while I watched the woman press her voluptuous lips against Robbie’s cheek and rake her fingernails through his light-brown hair.
From the way his body stiffened up, I could tell I wasn’t the only one feeling uncomfortable.
‘No, I’ll tell him. I can handle his rages,’ she said, trailing her fingers along his tight jaw line. ‘And don’t worry. He won’t be mad at you,’ she continued, ‘Marko can never be mad at you for long.’
Robbie shrugged Sylvia away and stared across the room. He was about to turn for the door when something caught his attention and made his head whip back in the direction of the missing painting.
I drew a deep breath and waited for the accusations; but, as it was, he said nothing. I felt his eyes flicker over me for a second before he faced Sylvia again.
She stood at the door and nodded her beautiful head in my direction, her long, shiny hair spilling across her bare shoulder. Then she scowled and addressed Robbie.
‘Until my brother decides what to do, she’s your problem. Stay at her bedside until the drugs are out of her system, after which you can keep guard from outside.’ She drew in a deep breath, gave me a pointed look and exhaled slowly while drumming the surface of the metal door with her long, elegant fingers. ‘Just keep her safe, Robbie. Marin’s future, our future, depends on it.’
I breathed a small sigh of relief, thinking she was gone, when suddenly she swung her head back round the door.
‘Oh, and remember—nobody touches her, including you, Robbie.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘You know how Marko hates it when his things get touched.’
CHAPTER FIVE
ROBBIE MESSED with the lock until a depressingly loud click reverberated up the walls. Outside the door, Sylvia’s heels clacked noisily against the stone floor before fading into a distant tap-tap sound, making me wonder about the size of the building. My guess was an old, abandoned warehouse. But the location had me stumped, because for miles and miles on either side of Bob’s Bay lay flat, untouched coastland and not a building in sight. Maybe, and my stomach churned at the thought, we weren’t by the sea at all.
My fingers sought my mouth and I chewed my pinkie nail down while I mulled this over. If it was true that I’d been out of it for almost a week, then I could be anywhere. Over east, even. The pungent scent of sea and salt—in the air, the bedcovers and even the fabric of the dress—assured me, though, that I wasn’t too far from Bob’s Bay.
My brained throbbed against my skull. There were so many unanswered questions: Was my kidnapping premeditated? Had they planned on taking me or just any girl? And who the hell was this king Marko?
After gnawing away the nails on my left hand, I started working on my right.
Perhaps these people belonged to a bikie group called The Kings. Sylvia definitely had enough tattoos to be a biker chick. If they were bikies then that meant I’d be harder to track down. They could drag me from state to state for years before the police would find me, and by then I might forget who I was. But what kind of bikies kidnapped girls from the sea? It didn’t make sense.
Marko hates it when his things get touched…
A shudder travelled down to my toes. Assessing my situation like this was only making me feel worse, bleaker than I already felt. I needed to think positive thoughts. Put it out there to the universe like all the self-help books and health magazines were always instructing their readers to do.
I dropped my head into my hands and made circles against my temples with my fingertips.
I’ll be home soon. I’ll be home soon. I’ll be home soon…
Robbie’s footsteps broke my thoughts. He stopped at the side of my bed and, through the brown veil of my hair, I watched as he sighed and held an open palm out.
‘Give it here.’
If he was here to check my pulse again I was going to scratch his face off.
I raised my head and brushed my hair behind my ears before inching the top sheet up to my chin. The blade of my glass weapon prodded my calf muscle, and then it dawned on me. He didn’t want to check on my health; he wanted my weapon.
‘Hand it over.’ He thrust his extended palm out further. ‘Now.’
I swallowed thickly and shook my head.
‘Hand it over or I’ll come under there and get it myself.’ One look at his determined face told me he meant every word.
With a groan of hopelessness I surrendered the makeshift knife, careful not to butcher my fingers any further. He noticed the cuts then and whistled through his teeth, setting the piece of glass down on the mattress before taking my hands into his, wincing as he carefully raised each of my fingers to survey the damage.
‘What did you do, juggle it?’ he said, making a tsk-ing noise with his mouth.
I snatched my hands back and tucked them under my legs.
‘It’s nothing,’ I muttered. ‘I’ll fix them up when I get home.’
Robbie left the room for a few minutes and returned with a handful of cotton wool balls and a small bottle of antiseptic that looked and smelled like vinegar, which he set upon my bedside table. Since it was there, I dabbed some onto my cuts, which made them sting all over again.
‘I’m the closest thing to a doctor in here, so if they become infected…’ he fixed his brown eyes on mine and softened his face into something that resembled sympathy. ‘Make sure you let me know so that I can treat them.’
An image of my family doctor, Dr Knoll, who was in his seventies and looked like Colonel Sanders, brought me a sudden wave of comfort. He’d delivered both Lauren and me, and had also attended our parents’ funeral.
‘I don’t need you. I already have a doctor.’
Robbie sighed, long and slow. He shook his head and glanced over at the far wall.
‘So, where’s the rest of the painting?’
I fidgeted with the stitching on the sheets before I dropped my eyes and gestured with my head to the far right-hand corner of the room. ‘It’s down that hole in the corner.’ When he didn’t respond, I snuck a sideways glance and found him staring at me with the strangest expression on his face, sort of wide-eyed with surprise, as though impressed with my weapon-making skills.
He crossed the room and peered down the hole, then stood before the empty space where the painting had once lived.
‘I always hated that painting,’ he murmured, and then added, ‘don’t put anything else down the air vent. If you block it up you could die in here.’
His words had me stumped. What sort of place needed air vents to breath? Were we in some kind of bunker?
After a quick room inspection, Robbie reclaimed his position in the shadowy corner. Collapsing into the chair, he leaned forward so that his fringe hung over his eyes. He spun my crude weapon between his fingers, looking like he wasn’t about to move from the chair any time soon.
After a measure of time had passed—it was impossible to tell exactly how long—cabin fever kicked in, along with the urge to lose my head and scream.
I wanted to bash the door down. I wanted to—
There was a sudden clang in the distance, followed by a series of loud crashes, as though things were being thrown around. Somewhere in the same building, in another far off room, somebody was hurling abuse.
Marko…
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I strained my ears and stopped breathing to hear better, but the voices died away and the clanging stopped with a razor-sharp abruptness. Complete silence followed for a couple of minutes before a clamour of heavy footsteps started somewhere in the distance and grew louder.
Robbie stood to attention, scraping his chair back.
I hurled the covers up and over my head.
‘Open!’ A male voice demanded.
Robbie crossed the room. The lock jangled then clicked before the door swung open with a loud scrape of metal against stone.
‘Where is she?’ a smooth, deep voice demanded.
‘She’s resting—’ Robbie began, before Sylvia cut in.
‘Oh, please, she was awake only a moment ago.’ Her tone was catty. She was close.
Suddenly the bedcovers were ripped away, exposing me to everybody in the room.
‘Get away from me!’
I clutched the pillow protectively against my chest. Sylvia tried to take it but I held on with a death grip until she sighed dramatically and gave up.
‘She’s shy,’ Sylvia snorted before turning to face a dark-haired guy who stood at the door, looking arrogant and, with his arms folded across his chest, not happy to be here. He wore a long-sleeved black shirt, the top two buttons undone, fitted black pants and the same boots as Robbie, with daggers strapped to the inside. He was dressed to kill— literally. With his full lips, almond-shaped eyes and an air of confidence to his broad shoulders, it was clear that this was Sylvia’s brother, Marko—the king.
His eyes swept over my face and down the length of my pillow-shielded body before he raised his brows at Robbie. Robbie held Marko’s gaze but kept his face expressionless.
‘Marko,’ said Sylvia in a stern voice, her eyes widening at him for emphasis. ‘Come forward and meet Miranda. She’s been waiting to meet you.’
‘I have not!’
Sylvia glared at me. ‘How dare you challenge—’
Marko raised a palm, and Sylvia, after a snort of indignation, closed her mouth.
There was an awkward silence until Marko strode forward, stopping at the foot of my bed, his hands resting against the dark wood. Up this close, I could see he was much younger than Sylvia and not much older than Robbie.
He was physically attractive, like his sister, but the cold hostility in his steely blue eyes stripped all that beauty away.
‘Hello, Miranda,’ he said, staring down at me through a fringe of thick, black lashes. His voice was formal and without warmth.
I remained silent and rigid, hardly breathing.
‘Are you comfortable? Is there anything you need?’
Yeah. I need to get the hell out of here…I need to sort things out with my sister…I need to sort my entire shitty life out.
When I didn’t answer, Marko sighed angrily and whipped around to face Robbie.
‘Can she talk?’
‘She’s frightened,’ said Robbie.
Marko turned back to me, his frosty blue eyes thawing a little.
‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to lay a single hand on you.’
Relief hissed through my teeth.
‘I’m glad,’ I muttered, before averting my gaze to the nearest bed post and concentrating on the intricate mermaid and merman carvings, hoping he’d just go away.
Marko laughed bitterly, shocking me. ‘No more than I am, believe me,’ he said, before pushing himself away from the bed.
His response didn’t make sense. If he, the king—not that I believed he was a real one—didn’t want me here, then who did? Why was I here at all?
‘She’s not my type,’ he muttered to Robbie before marching out the door.
Heat flooded my face.
Sylvia hurried after her brother, jabbering on about my ‘pretty eyes’ and my—gag!—‘good, sturdy frame’ until her voice and their footsteps died away.
I shuddered. She was trying to convince Marko to like me, selling me as though I were a car in a sales yard. What kind of kidnapping was this when the guy in charge didn’t appear to want me here at all?
Butterfly wings kissed my insides. Maybe Marko would send me back, like I had some kind of defect. Maybe, for once, my appearance had served a good purpose.
Robbie retreated to his corner while I stuffed my face into my pillow and prayed Marko would set me free soon. A minute later, a sound, something soft and darkly beautiful drifted into the room through the cracks beneath the door.
Music, classical music. Someone was playing the piano—a haunting, melancholy piece.
I closed my eyes.
Chopin’s Marche funèbre.
I recognised the tune because it was the very piece that Mum, budding screenwriter that she was, blared from her stereo whenever she received a rejection in the mail for one of her manuscripts. The sad, beautiful notes drew me a vision of Mum, bent over her laptop at the kitchen table. A sight I’d give anything to see again.
Tears bit the backs of my eyes, threatening to spill, but I willed myself to focus on the music instead, allowing its sombre tones to engulf me, like the velvet-black wings of a crow, and transport my soul out of the room.
And for a brief, blissful moment, I was free.
* * *
I woke, perhaps hours later, to find myself huddled on the floor with my now-numb ear resting against the metal door. I must h
ave gotten up at some stage and moved closer to the music.
I glanced around, rubbed my face and saw Robbie still in the chair, his dark eyes fixed on me, his expression one of angst. When I coughed, he shook himself out of his worried trance and straightened his back.
Slowly, I stood up and brushed my palms against the fabric of my dress to smooth it.
‘I need to use a bathroom.’
Robbie frowned and indicated the ensuite with a nod of his head.
‘No. It’s too cramped and…the basin’s too tiny. I need to wash my face properly.’ I rubbed at my eyes again for emphasis.
Without a word he stood to attention, unlocked the door and held it open for me. If I’d had known getting out of the room was this easy, I would have done it sooner.
As soon as I stepped out into the cold, stone-bricked passageway, the musty scent of the sea hit my nostrils and cool, damp air whispered over what bare skin of mine wasn’t covered by the tiny dress. The grey ceiling was so high, it appeared almost black, and the dark, narrow corridor stretched endlessly both ways, the walls studded every metre or so by what appeared to be the same glowing crystals as the one in my room.
I was absolutely stumped. There was no place along the west coast of this magnitude; a place that had the ancient-looking innards of a castle.
Robbie gripped my arm and steered me left. I stumbled along, wincing at the cold shooting up my feet as I padded the icy floor. I wished now that I’d slipped on the golden sandals that Sylvia had given me earlier.
As we moved towards a cross-section, distant noises grew louder and sharper, echoing from around the corner. Pots and pans clanged and cutlery clanked against plates while people talked and laughed. They sounded like normal people—people who might help me.
‘If you haven’t already guessed, the kitchen is down there,’ Robbie said, gesturing with a flick of his head as we passed. I didn’t say a word. I was too busy scheming up an escape plan.
As though he had ESP, Robbie’s fingers tightened around my arm and he drew me in closer; so close our sides touched.
I jerked away, but he didn’t release me until we arrived at a metal door that made an almost human-like shriek when he opened it. Without hesitation, I ran inside and closed the door behind me.
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