Page 24 of Rattle the Cage

“It’s like built-in safety shears.” Blade smirked as she remounted the sword on the wall.

As we exited the dungeon and crawled back into the light of day, my skin was still sensitive where the rope had touched me.

Blade was adept with her ties: nothing she did ever seriously hurt me, but it always left its mark. I rubbed the skin of my bicep, enjoying the way it tingled as we walked back to the apartment.

The path from Medieval Mayhem to Jungle Jolt was long, winding, and uncannily silent. Words had come easily when I was tied up at Blade’s whim, but now, they escaped me completely.

The game provided a structure, rules that told me exactly how to act. But in the light of day, nothing felt that clear.

There was no instruction manual for how to rebuild trust after your masked captor hurt your feelings.

Another fucking thing I’ll have to figure out on my own.

Though, as much as my mind liked to convince me otherwise, I wasn’t really alone. Blade was on this path with me, bumbling her way through one step at a time.

By the time we reached Prize Alley, the jungle was in sight, and the silence had grown unbearable.

“So…” Blade broke, eyes trained anywhere but my face. “What’d you get up to while you were staying with Lola?”

“You already know the answer to that one, no?”

“Right…” Blade smiled at the ground, rubbing a broad palm over the back of her neck. We hadn’t spoken much about it aloud, but it wasn’t exactly a secret that she’d been following me for weeks.

All of them had, it seemed.

“What about you guys?” I raised a brow. “Besides following me, I mean.”

“Missing you.” She didn’t hesitate. “Wishing you were here. Hoping you’d come back.”

“You really know how to flatter a girl, huh?”

“I wish it was just flattery,” she huffed before shaking her head. “I mean, not in a bad way. Just… it was weird with you gone. Things will be better now.”

For you.

I couldn’t help the bitter suspicion from popping up in the back of my mind.

She might have won, but that only meant I was further from my goals and my freedom.

It wasn’t that I thought her feelings for me were disingenuous, but her feelings hadn’t stopped the betrayal before. I cared about her, but I wasn’t sure that I could trust her.

Not when Lola’s counting on me to win.

I let her assertion lie as we finally made it back to the apartment: my prison for the next month. It would serve me well to remember that that was exactly what I was now — their prisoner.

As we strode into the apartment, I was struck by the familiarity of it all. The off-white couches. The warm crackle of the fireplace in the corner of the living room. The morning light streaming in through the massive windows. It was all too much.

Before my latest stint at Lola’s, this was probably the place I’d spent the most consecutive nights in a decade: the place I’d most come to think of as my home.

Just the thought made my stomach twist.

I can’t afford to think like that.

Blade seemed none the wiser to my growing disquiet. Setting the Twins down by the door, she headed into the kitchen and began scrubbing her hands in the sink. Meanwhile, I marched down the hall toward my room, desperate for a little room to breathe.

As I stormed off, Blade peeked her head into the hallway behind me, worry lacing her voice. “Are you hungry, Trinket? I can whip you up some food…”

I couldn’t muster a response though, letting the click of my door answer for me instead.