Sire Read Online Free PDF Page B

empty. There was no furniture and nothing hung on the walls, just faded outlines and fittings where decorations had once hung. A doorway with no door led to a large bathroom that would have been lavish if it hadn't been covered in dust. There was a fireplace, still littered with cold ashes. The windows were huge and covered in metal filigree. Moonlight streamed in.
    The door was made of ancient oak, the kind of door you'd expect to find in a very old, stately house, and of course it was locked tight. She tried the handle, which didn't even hint at moving, then shook it a bit harder, then slammed her hand against it. She let out a frustrated scream and punched the stubborn thing, but only succeeded in splitting her knuckles open. She leaned against the wall, unsurprised but still defeated, and fought back tears.
    She went to the windows next, and was surprised when they swung open easily. Her heart leapt a little at the thought of climbing to safety or calling for help, but that was crazy. She was on the third floor of a giant house—a mansion, really—and trying to jump would gain her nothing but a broken leg. And she was in the middle of nowhere; trees stretched out as far as she could see, and there wasn't a house or road in sight. She pulled her head back inside, walked to the corner, and sank to the floor.
    She sat there for half an hour. She distracted herself by counting the tiles on the floor and tracing the patterns in the marble, and by daydreaming of heroic rescues, the police crashing through the door and rushing in to rescue her, leading Liam, whatever he was, off in chains, his evil eyes and snarling fangs nowhere to be seen.
    And then she started to cry.
    She cried because no one knew where she was, because no one even knew she was missing. Because no one was coming to rescue her. Because she was trapped in a real-life horror movie, locked in a mansion in the middle of nowhere, waiting for a monster in leather pants to come and turn her into a snack. Because she had no idea how she was going to make it out alive.
    So she cried great, heaving sobs, the kind of tears you cry when everything is hopeless and tears are the only thing you have left. She had cried like that twice before: once, when she was three and her puppy Rascal had been hit by a car, and again two summers ago, when her grandmother had passed away.
    She cried and cried, tears blurring her vision, snot running down her nose, throat closed off, but no one heard and no one came. Eventually, she cried herself to sleep.
    She didn't know how long she lay there, but the moon was still high in the sky when she woke up, so it couldn't have been that long. She used the bathroom and wiped her hands on her pants because there were no towels, then sat back down in her corner. Her stomach growled, and she realized that it had been a very long time since she'd eaten. She tried to push the thought away, because it didn't seem likely that she'd be able to do anything about it any time soon.
    Eventually, when she just couldn't sit still anymore, she got up and started pacing around the room. She tried the door again, just in case it had unlocked itself, and leaned out the window, just in case someone was outside. Then she started walking back and forth across the cold marble floor.
    She had to get out. Had to. She still wasn't entirely sure what Liam was, or at least wasn't ready to admit it to herself, but she was certain that she didn't want to be here when he came back.
    She leaned out the window again, and looked around. There was a vine-covered trellis about a dozen feet away, stretching all the way to the ground, and it looked like it could possibly support her weight. And there was a ledge running around the house, maybe three inches wide, that she could possibly stand on. If she could balance on the ledge and make her way to the trellis, maybe she could climb down and get away ...
    There was a whole lot of "possibly" and maybe" in that plan. It was insane.