Chapter 3

Milly groggily opened her eyes. Her whole body felt strange, not so much pain, but almost like the remnants of pain. She instantly felt the panic of waking and not recognizing where you were. This had happened to her before when she had slept over at a friend's house, and she waited for recognition to come to her, but it didn't. Not right away at least. It wasn't until she saw the snoozing man beside her that she remembered what had happened. She had been shot! The man who she was now laying in bed with had pulled a gun on her last night and shot her right in the chest.

Milly looked down to discover that she wasn't wearing a shirt. Her bra was still on, though, as was everything else, except her shoes. She looked down to examine her chest where she was sure she had been shot, but there was nothing there. She ran her fingers over the area, but couldn't detect any scar or anything. Then she saw something just as mysterious as her unblemished flesh. On her upper arm there was a dark blue mark, the perfect shape of a hand.

Milly couldn't remember anything after being shot, except for a hand squeezing her arm in the exact spot where the mark was now. It almost looked like a tattoo in a way. Milly touched it gently with the tip of her finger, and a gently vibration ran up her arm. Milly quickly pulled her finger away and stared down a the mark with shock and horror. What had this man done to her?

One thing was for certain, she wasn't going to sit around for him to wake up so she could ask. She as gently as she could slid out of the huge four-poster bed. There was no sign of her shirt anywhere, but her shoes were lying neatly at the foot of the bed. Milly grabbed them, but didn't bother wasting time putting them on. All she cold think about was getting away before he woke up. He must be a mad man.

He must have drugged her. She probably hallucinated the shooting, but even so, he kidnapped her out of Alex's apartment and drugged, which made him just as much a lunatic and just as dangerous as if he actually had shot her. She opened the dark mahogany door, praying it wouldn't squeak or anything. It was silent, but just in case, Milly only opened it a fraction, squeezing through the small hole.

She found her self in a sort of sitting room. This room was just as dark as the bedroom, with dark chocolate wood furniture and dark red and blue cushions. Milly only got cursory glance at the room, what she saw from her peripheral vision as she made a beeline for the first door she saw.

This door took her too a hallway. She knew that this was a rich, big house from the size and style of the two rooms she had just been in, but she hadn't thought much of it until she stepped into the hallway. The hallway was endlessly long, and filled with so many doors that looked exactly the same. This was definitely a house that one could get lost in, which wasn't good for Milly.

The hallway going either left or right looked the same, so Milly randomly turned right and hoped that it would lead her to an exit. At the end of the hall there were two turns, both again looking to be the same direction.

Milly started to panic. This was no ordinary house, she knew. She felt like she was in a horror movie, or an awful nightmare. It would be a never-ending escape attempt for her. She would keep turning and keep running, but all the halls would end up being the same.

Just as she was starting to panic, she made another turn and came upon a grand staircase. She felt silly for thinking that this was some cursed, never-ending house. It was just a regular house, and her kidnapper was just a regular man. She could escape, the door was right there in front of her.

The staircase was white and marble and huge. Milly started running down it, her socks making very little noise as she ran, her shoes still in her hand. The door was large and grand. She was so close. Once outside she could make a break for it. Surely there was a street around there somewhere.

"And what do we have here?" Milly screamed at the voice behind her. Her whole body jumped and she instinctively turned around to look at who had spoken to her. It was a man, but not the one she had expected. Not the one she had woken up in bed with this morning.

The man looked to be in his thirties. Though there was nothing outright scary about his appearance, the way he was lecherously looking at her chest gave him the look of an evil villain.

Milly glanced at the man and back at the door. She might just be able to make it to the door and get it open before he caught her, she thought. She made a break for it, but almost instantly his arms were around her stomach. How had he caught her so fast? She wondered, even as she screamed out and tried to elbow his stomach.

The man laughed, and Milly hated the feel of his arms touching the bare chest of her stomach. Her bra wasn't super skimpy, but she knew that her could see down the cups from the position he held her in from behind.

All of a sudden, the man was no longer touching her. Milly, mid-struggle, found herself suddenly kicking and elbowing nothing but air, and she fell uncoordinatedly to her butt.

"Get out of my house!" she heard a voice yell. Milly swiveled her head around to see who was talking and recognized her kidnapper. He was standing furiously over the man who had grabbed her, who was sprawled out on the floor.

The man quickly scrambled to his feet and stood cowering before her kidnapper's anger. "If you ever, lay a hand on her again, I will kill you," he said, sternly and finitely.

"I'm sorry," the man hurried to apologize, "I didn't realize—"

"Get out!" her kidnapper shouted pointing to the door, and the other man quickly obliged. Milly knew the reaction was completely unreasonable, but the way he stood up for her made her feel sort of gooey inside.

She and her kidnapper were then alone, and he turned to look at her, slowly stalking toward her. Milly quickly stood up before him, looking at his face uncertainly.

"Why did you leave my bedchamber, Alexandra?" he asked her.

His voice and stance and appearance were all very intimidating. He stood with his hands behind his back, with the confidence of the rich and powerful. His face was all hard planes, and he even had a roguishly handsome scar running from his ear to his jaw. His eyes were black, as were his neatly trimmed hair and straight eyebrows. His voice was deep and rich and self-assured. This was definitely a man who was used to giving orders and getting his way.

"What?" was all Milly was able to sputter out. She thought of her own appearance next to this man. She was tiny and much too skinny, absolutely no match for his hard, muscular strength. While he was perfectly dressed with his hair combed and everything in perfect order, she stood huddled before him with no shirt, her hair in messy disarray.

"I asked you why you left my room," though his voice was strong and masterful, Milly almost thought she detected a note of gentle indulgence in it.

"You called me Alexandra," she stammered out, confused. Was Alexandra in some sort of trouble? Did this man mistake her for her friend?

"Yes."

Milly shook her head. "You have the wrong person," she quickly explained. Perhaps he didn't want her after all, and would simply let her go once he realized the mistake. This had nothing to do with her. "I'm not Alexandra. You have the wrong person," she stated again.