What the hell was that?

"I wouldn't turn around if I were you," he said.

Interesting. He didn't want me to see his face. If he planned to kill me, why would he care? It would only matter if he didn't want me to be able to identify him.

I spun around. The world went all dizzy and blurry, but I spun around. Maybe I was a crazy-ass bitch, but I wanted to see his face. I wanted to memorize every last detail so I could nail the bastard if it ever came down to it. And if he killed me, so be it. At least we would be more even.

I saw your face: Bang Bang.

Rather than I-Have-No-Clue-What-I-Did-To-Deserve This: Bang Bang.

He didn't react to my defiance, not the slightest hint of a response. He just sat there, dipped his fingers in the paper cone he was holding and tossed something in his mouth.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

His eyes were shielded by a baseball cap, but I knew he was watching me. I shuddered when I realized he was taking his time, weighing my punishment like he weighed whatever he was eating, before chomping it down with his teeth.

I didn't know what I was expecting. I already knew I hated him, but now I hated him even more. In my mind, I had pictured someone completely different, someone as mean and ugly on the outside as he was on the inside. That made sense to me. Not this. Not someone so ordinary, you could walk right by him on the street and never realize you'd just brushed past pure evil.

Damian was younger than I'd anticipated-older than me, but not the grizzly, hardened thug I'd assumed he'd be. He might have had an average build and height, but he was strong as hell. I knew because I had kicked and punched and fought him like a wildcat in that parking lot. Every inch of him was cold, hard steel. I wondered if it was a requirement in his line of work: abduction, mock executions, smuggling girls across the border.

He hooked his foot around the stool and pulled it towards him. The glossy, custom shoes were gone. He was wearing ugly, generic boat shoes with ugly, generic sweat pants and an ugly, generic t-shirt. His lips curled mockingly, as if he was fully aware of my disdainful appraisal and was enjoying it. The asshole was enjoying it.

He tore the bread in half, dipped it in the stew, letting it soak up the thick, brown gravy, and bit into it. Then he sank back, chewing it slowly, while I watched. It was sourdough bread. I could smell it. I could almost taste the crispy crust, followed by the soft tang of the dough melting in my mouth. The steam rising from the stew filled my stomach with the promise of carrots and onions and pieces of soft, tender meat-a promise that Damian had no intention of keeping. I knew that now. I knew this was my punishment for turning around when he told me not to. I knew he was going to make me watch as he finished every last bit of the food that was meant for me.

The kicker was that he didn't even want it. He looked like he was so full, he had to force every delicious fucking bite into his mouth while my stomach clamored, and I went dizzy with raw, gnawing hunger. My mouth puckered each time he swirled the bread in the stew, picking up chunks of slowly simmered vegetables and gravy. I watched him finish the bowl, unable to look away, like a starving dog ready to pounce on a stray morsel, but there was nothing left. Damian wiped every drool-inducing bit of it clean with the last piece of bread. Then he stood and uncapped the bottle of water, holding it over me.

Oh God. Yes. Yes.

I held out my hands as he started pouring, my dry, cracked lips anticipating that first thirst-quenching drop of water.

The water came. It did. But Damian held his dirty hand over me, the one he'd used to eat with, so that the water passed through his soiled fingers before it got to me. I had a choice. Accept his degradation or go thirsty.

I closed my eyes and drank. I drank because I couldn't have stopped myself even if I wanted to. I drank because I was a ravenous, rattle-boned animal. But most of all I drank because some stupid, irrational part of me that sang stupid, irrational lullabies, still held hope. I drank till the water slowed down to a trickle. And when Damian flung the empty, plastic bottle across the room, I watched it roll around on the floor, hoping he would leave so I could stick my tongue inside and lick the last few drops out of it.

I thought back to the Swarovski studded bottle of Bling H20 that Nick and I had barely touched on our last date. He had just made assistant to the district attorney and his first official case was the next morning. It was a celebration that called for something harmless, but with the fizz and pop of a freshly opened bottle of champagne. I should have finished that beautiful, frosted bottle of sparkling water, and gone home with Nick. I should never have headed into the parking lot alone.

I looked up at my captor. He was wiping his hands on his sweatpants. I used the opportunity to take stock of my surroundings. It was a small stateroom with a queen-sized berth. The walls were dark wood cabinets. I guessed they doubled as storage space. There was one window (not big enough to crawl out of), an overhead latch that let through plenty of light (but was bolted down with a chain), and a door. Even if I got out, we were on a damn boat, in the middle of the ocean. There was no place to run and hide.

My eyes came back to Damian. He was watching me from under his baseball cap. It was navy blue with the initials 'SD' embroidered in white, the official insignia for the San Diego Padres. Apparently, he was into baseball. Or maybe he wore it because it summed him up perfectly: Sadistic Douchebag Also, if he really was a Padres fan, then Stupid Dreamer, because San Diego was the largest U.S. city to have never won a World Series, Super Bowl, Stanley Cup, NBA Finals or any other major league sports championship. It was a curse we suffered from, though my father remained hopeful at the start of every season: Good luck, San Diego Padres. Break a leg!

"Try anything stupid and I'll break your legs." Damian picked up the empty bowl he'd just finished and headed for the door.

I should've bashed him over the head with the stool.

I should've tackled him so the bowl would slip and break, and then stabbed him with the broken glass.

"Please," I said instead, "I need to use the bathroom."

I couldn't think beyond emptying my bladder. I was reduced to nothing but hunger and thirst and bodily functions. And I was totally dependent on him. 'Please' and 'thank you' come automatically when you are at someone's mercy. Even if you hate their guts.

He motioned for me to get up. My legs were wobbly and I had to hold on to him. I was wearing the same clothes-a cream, silk-georgette top and cropped cigarette pants, but they were barely recognizable. Isabel Marant's Parisian chic looked like it had spent the night rolling around with Rob Zombie.

Damian led me through a narrow hallway. On the right was a small bathroom, with a compact shower stall, a vanity, and a toilet. I turned to shut the door, but Damian stuck his foot out.

"I can't pee if you're watching."

"No?" He started pulling me back into the room.

"Wait." God, I hated him. I hated him more than I thought I could ever hate another human being.

He waited by the door, not bothering to turn away. He wanted to make sure I understood the situation-that I didn't count, that I didn't have a say, that I wasn't going to be afforded any privacy or mercy or grace or consideration. I was his prisoner, subject to his every whim.

I scooted over to the toilet seat, thankful that I was somewhat shielded from Damian's view by the vanity. I unzipped my pants, noticing the scratches for the first time. My skin must have scraped against the sides of the crate he'd locked me up in. I touched the back of my head and felt an egg-sized lump that hadn't stopped throbbing since I'd come around. My legs protested as I sat down, and there were deep, purple bruises on my knees from rattling around in that wooden crate for who knows how long. Worse, my pee would not come, and when it did, it burned like hot acid. There wasn't much, probably because I was so dehydrated, but I kept sitting, taking a few deep breaths before standing to wipe myself. I pulled my pants back on and was about to wash my hands when I caught my reflection.

"What the hell?" I turned to him. "What the hell did you do to me?"

He continued staring at me impassively, like he didn't hear me, like I wasn't worth answering.

My eyes swung back to the mirror. He'd hacked off my long blond hair and dyed it jet black: butchered it with a blunt pair of scissors and poured some caustic store-bought color over it. Bits of blond hair still stuck out under the dark pieces, making it look like I was wearing a cheap, goth wig. My gray eyes, that had always called attention to my face, faded against the harsh dye job. Combined with my pale eyelashes and brows, I looked like a living ghost.

My nose was scratched, my cheeks were scratched. Dried up rivulets of blood were caked over my ears from where he'd ripped my hair out. Deep, blue hollows ringed my eye sockets and my lips looked as painful and cracked as they felt.

My eyes stung with unshed tears. I couldn't reconcile this person with the girl I was a few days ago, the girl who was going to turn heads on her twenty-fourth birthday. My father had to know by now that I was missing. I would never have skipped out on the birthday bash he was throwing me. He must have talked to Nick, the last person I'd been with. I didn't know how many days had passed, but I knew my father had to be looking for me. He would hire the best and he wouldn't stop until he found me. If he'd tracked my car down to the quay, he would already have considered the possibility that I was on a boat. The thought comforted me. Maybe he was close. Maybe all I needed to do was buy some time so he could catch up.

I felt under my blouse and sighed with relief. It was still there-the necklace my father had given my mother when I was born. It had been passed on to me after her death and I'd worn it ever since. It was a simple gold chain with a round locket. The locket had a transparent glass window that opened like a book. Inside were two rare gemstones-alexandrites-and a pink conch pearl.

"Here," I unclasped it and dangled it before Damian.

It wasn't like I could trade it in for my freedom, since he could easily just take it from me, but if I could lure him with the promise of more, if I could whet his appetite with monetary compensation, maybe I could buy some time and stall whatever he had planned for me.

"This is worth a lot of money," I said.

He didn't seem to care. Then the indifference left him. His whole body stiffened and he took his cap off. It was an odd gesture, the kind of thing a man does when he's informed of someone's death. Or maybe he did it out of reverence, like when you're standing in front of something big and beautiful and holy. Either way, he reached for it, very slowly, until it was swinging from his hand.

He held it up to the light and for the first time, I saw his eyes. They were dark. Black. But the kind of black that I'd never seen before. Black was One. There were no shades to black. Black was absolute, impenetrable. Black absorbed all the colors. If you fell into black, it swallowed you whole. Yet here was a different kind of black. It was black ice and burning coal. It was well-water and desert night. It was dark tempest and glassy calm. It was Black battling Black, opposite and polar, and yet still . . . all black.

I could see my mother's necklace suspended in Damian's eyes. It reminded me of what it's like to stand between two mirrors, staring at the seemingly endless line of images fading into the distance. There was something in his eyes, in his face that I couldn't place. He seemed mesmerized by the locket, like he'd fallen into some kind of a daze.

He had a chink in his armor after all.

"There's more where that came from," I said.

He tore his eyes away from the necklace and looked at me. Then he grabbed me by the arm, dragged me through the galley, up a short set of stairs, and onto the deck. I stumbled after him, my legs still wobbly and weak.

"You see this?" He gestured around us.

We were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles and miles of dark, rolling water.

"This," he continued, pointing at the ocean, "doesn't give a fuck about this." He shook the necklace in front of my face. Your gems are nothing but washed up grit to me. "Pity," he said more softly, holding the locket up to the sun. "Such a pretty little thing."

My father couldn't decide what color of stone to get my mother. He told me he had chosen alexandrites because they were like the rainbow. They went through dramatic shifts in color depending on the light. Indoors, they looked reddish purple, but here in the sun, they sparkled with a bright, greenish hue. Their light glinted off Damian's face.

"Such a pretty little thing," he repeated quietly, almost sadly.

"The stones are very rare. The pearl too. You'd never want for anything. You could go anywhere. Disappear. Do whatever you like. And if you want more-"

"How much do you think your life is worth, Skye Sedgewick?"

He knew my name. Of course he knew my name. He'd probably ransacked my handbag. That, or he'd been stalking me, in which case this was a deliberate act, not some random abduction.

"How much do think my life is worth," he asked, holding up the locket again. "The length of this chain? The pearl? These two rare stones?" He looked at me, but I had no answer.

"Have you ever held a life in your hands?" He dropped the locket in my hand and closed my fingers around it. "Here, feel it."

He was nuts. Stark-raving nuts.

"Do you know how easy it is to destroy a life?" He took the necklace from me and slowly, deliberately, dropped it.

It fell by his feet. He played with it for a while, sliding it back and forth over the smooth deck, with the toe of his shoe.

"It's really, ridiculously easy." He stepped on the necklace and ground down with his heel, all the while looking at me.

The glass started cracking under his weight.

"Don't," I said. "It's the only thing that's left of my mother."

"It was," he replied, not letting up until the locket shattered.

The way he said 'was' creeped me out.

It was.

I was.

Things that came on board.

Things that never left intact.

He picked up the broken keepsake and examined it.

I felt a rush of triumph because the stones and pearl remained unscathed. Of course they did. It must have shown on my face because he grabbed my neck and squeezed so hard, I was gasping for air.

"Did you love your mother?" he asked, finally letting go.

I bent over, trying to catch my breath. "I never got to know her."

Damian walked to the railing and held the necklace over the water. I watched, still on my knees, as it floated in the wind. I knew what he was going to do, but I couldn't look away.

"Ashes to ashes . . . ," he said, as he dropped it into the ocean.

I felt like he'd thrown a piece of me overboard, like he'd dishonored the love my parents had shared, the memories they'd made-the two rainbow alexandrites, and me, their pink pearl. Damian Caballero had destroyed what was left of our pretty, glass world.

I couldn't cry. I was too exhausted. My spirit was crawling through tunnels of sandpaper, being skinned alive. Scrape off my freedom. Scrape off my hair. Scrape off my dignity and my self-worth and everything I possess, and cherish, and hold dear. I lay there looking up at the sky, looking up at the sun that I'd been yearning for, and I didn't care.

I didn't care when Damian forced me to get up and shoved me back downstairs. I didn't care about counting windows or marking the exits. I didn't care when he locked me up or when the engine picked up, taking us farther away from my home, my father, my life.

All I knew as I lay in bed, watching fluffy white clouds morph into strange, hideous forms through the overhead latch, was that if I ever got the chance, I wouldn't hesitate a single second before killing Damian Caballero.

IT WAS DARK WHEN DAMIAN came in again.

I was dreaming of pink-frosted cake and pinatas and Esteban.

Touch her again and I'll see you in hell, he said, as they dragged him away.

He'd been my self-appointed protector, but there was no protecting me from the man who stood in the doorway now.

The light from the hallway outlined his form, casting a sinister shadow over my bed. I wanted to hide somewhere it couldn't reach me.

Damian placed a tray on the bed and pulled up a chair. He left the lights off, but I smelled food. He'd brought me food.

I approached the tray cautiously, keeping my eyes averted. I remembered what had happened the last time I'd defied him, and I was going to be a good girl. I was going to be a good, conditioned girl. I could barely contain the hunger pangs that were rolling through my stomach in short, tight contractions, but I forced myself to slow down, to behave, to be civil and not bury my face in the plate like I wanted to.

It was some kind of fish, simply grilled, with rice on the side. God, it smelled good. There was no cutlery, which was fine, because all I wanted to do was rip into it, but I knew he was watching, so I pinched off a piece with my fingers, and the oil and cooking juices mingled with the rice.

"Not so fast" he said.

Oh God, not again. Please just let me eat.

I wondered what he'd do if I licked my fingers.

I could taste the fish so bad.

"Stand up," he instructed.

I swallowed the dry lump in my throat, the one that wanted to scream and cry and whimper and beg. I swallowed the tasteless, fishless lump and stood.

"Take your clothes off," he said from the shadows.

I had been expecting it. Sooner or later, one way or another, it always came down to their dick. Suck it, lick it, stroke it, fuck it.

Because my mother didn't love me.

Because my father hit me.

Because my teacher fondled me.

Because I was bullied.