Free The Glass Man by Jocelyn Adams

awake.
    Two small blue lamps pitched wedges of light up to the ceiling in the otherwise dark room. I rolled over and found Liam sitting on the edge of the bed facing the door with his elbows on his knees. He wore dark dress pants and a light blue collared shirt. Without turning, he held out a sports drink. His stash of groceries in the basement must have been bigger than he’d let on. I grabbed it and gulped it down.
    Memories of his touch flooded my thoughts. An echo of pleasure drew a sigh to my lips. I sat up. “Why are you wearing that?” My brow crinkled up as I thought of the light and voices. Did I imagine that? A dream, maybe?
    “You need to get dressed.” He stared at the door, his posture rigid. “There isn’t much time.”
    A black sickness filled my stomach. I bolted out of bed, dragging the quilt with me. “What’s going on? Where are my clothes?” I looked out the window. Darkness had fallen. Alarms went off in my head. “What time is it?”
    “You’ve been asleep for a day and a half.” He pointed to the white dresser. “Your clothes are there.”
    Liam stood and went to the door.
    “Wait—what happened to your accent?” It came out as a whisper.
    He didn’t answer.
    The room swayed as the realization hit home. “You tell me what’s going on, Liam Conner, or I swear I will bring this house down around you!”
    “No you won’t … Lila.”
    I gasped. He knew it all along.
    Liam turned to look at me with eyes like mine—sapphire blue, with yellow swirling around the pupil. “I’ve blocked your energy. Now put on the dress, or I’ll put it on you.”
    “No!” I stumbled back until I slammed into the wall. “The whole time—you’ve been trying to keep me here.” I turned and kicked the wall so hard the drywall crumpled. Pain surged through my bare foot. How could I have been so stupid? So many signs. The energy. His ability to sneak up on me so easily. The creeps in the shed. They had to be in on it, too. I overlooked it all, but why? I don’t have time for this!
    I closed my eyes and searched for that well of energy I’d found not long after I hit puberty. It was there, but an invisible barrier kept me from reaching it. The more I pushed against it, the more resistance I met, like leaning against a coiled spring.
    “What did you do to me?” I searched the room for another way out but only found the window. I didn’t have time to heal a broken leg from a two-story drop. “Tell me you aren’t working for the Glass Man.”
    Liam closed his eyes, and a veil lifted between my mind and the earth. Sound and sensation overwhelmed my senses, staggering me. The crickets screamed in the distance, and wolves howled outside the window. My body seized up when the Glass Man’s presence squeezed my mind, covered my thoughts in shadow.
    “I’m sorry,” Liam said.
    Numbness swept through me. I scrambled across the bed to the dresser and yanked a few drawers open but found them all empty. The closet too. I pulled on the racy red panties and a matching bra he’d laid out, then pulled the low cut blue dress over my head. When I bent forward, I noticed my hair had gone back to blonde. Without my energy, I couldn’t change my appearance.
    With my fists curled, I stopped in front of Liam, panting through the rage. “You lousy, lying shit! God! Who are you?”
    “I had no choice.” He wouldn’t look at me.
    “There’s always a choice.”
    “You can’t tell him what we did, or about the voices and the light. If you do—he’ll kill us all tonight.”
    So that did happen. “What did we do? I felt your mind from the inside.”
    He shook his head, grimacing as if he’d swallowed something sharp.
    “And that whole charade with Clancy in the shed, and then outside. You let him shoot you on purpose?”
    “I wanted you to feel safe so we wouldn’t have to hurt you. My master told me what you’re like. That’s why Garret’s here, because I knew you’d want to protect him. If the men