Page 68 of Into Pitch

“If it has no end, then it’s a cage with a scenic view.”

He smirks, tugging once on my hair before releasing it and stepping back. He doesn’t spew more psychological bullshit, he merely gives me that single quirk of his lips and peels from the room. Taking some of the air with him as I collapse back into the wall, groaning as I close my eyes for just a second.

I don’t by a long shot feel safe here, but I don’t exactly feel erased either.

And that is a problem.

Dinner smells normal, and it’s a tad unsettling considering the felony I’m currently living within.

Though, it’s certainly not what places the little spark in my nerves.

It’s the normalcy of eating across the table from a man who once stood behind me in a mirror and decided whether I lived or died based on a series of simple questions.

The stew is thick and warm and the bread is even steaming as he breaks it. Firelight flickers low against the walls, throwing soft shadows instead of sharp ones. For a moment—just a moment—it could pass for an ordinary night. Just two people who have sat down to enjoy a meal in the secluded romance of a cabin. A date even, if you could get past the fact that one half of the party isn’t here entirely of their own making.

I don’t trust it.

We eat without speaking for the majority of the meal. The silence oddly isn’t strained, but it’s not comfortable either. It feels observant. Like we’re both cataloguing what the other does when there’s nothing pressing to react to.

Soon, that silence becomes a little too much for me though. I need something to fill all these open ended questions that linger in my mind, and it’s not like I’ve got much else to do in this place. So might as well break out the guns.

“Pitch,” I start softly.

He pauses, his spoon still hovering mid-bowl. I watch him think on that word for a single moment before he sits the spoon back into his bowl, pushing it aside so that he can give me his undivided attention.

“What about it?” He asks.

“I want to understand it,” I start carefully. “Not the rumors or the mythology people build around it. I want to understand it and why you are a part of it.”

“Ask what you want to ask then.” He states simply.

“How did you end up there?”

The question hangs between us, heavier than I expected. And I almost think he won’t answer it all. Then he leans back slightly in his chair and lets go of a deep breath.

“I was recruited.”

“Recruited?” I frown.

“Yes.”

I wait, because surely there is more to it than that. Surely he can’t think that is suffice for all the hell I’ve been put through because of one damn event.

“They look for certain profiles,” he continues when he spies my irritation. “People who don’t respond to threat the way they should or who ask questions when others might freeze.”

“Or who like to murder people,” I deadpan.

“That too,” He murmurs.

I swallow at how easily that answer whips off of his tongue. It isn’t a leap to assume he is part of the people who like to hack people apart or nail them to walls like the wolf-man had in that hallway. Not when so many that night were shocked I had made my way out. And it isn’t too far to assume the man who kidnaps someone to rearrange their environment to his liking might also like the feeling of blood beneath his nails.

“And you fit that?” I whisper.

“I exceeded it.”

The words are calm, almost clinical, and it causes my stomach to roll in on itself. I can’t focus on it or I’ll let fear eat me alive, so I push forward. “They just—what? Found you? Walked up and offered you a role in an underground murder ring?”

His gaze sharpens, just a fraction. “They offered me autonomy.”