MANIPULATED Book A (Sequel to Tempted)

17. Turn Up The Heat

You wake up restrained. Your wrist wears a cuff with a chain that is bolted into a wall, and you're spread out on the floor of what you can assume is a bedroom. You're free to move around, but only in the limited space in which the chain gives slack.

You hear Dark's menacing voice echo from somewhere, but he's not in the room with you. "Now we just wait for your Prince Charming."

You pull on the chain to try to get it loose from the wall.

"I hope you find it comfortable here in the short time you will be staying... Oh, and just to keep things interesting, I've added a bed to your chamber. Just in case you and him wanted to continue your... 'showertime adventure.'"

You're body grows cold. How does he know?

You hear him chuckle, and he lights a candle in the corner of the dark room. "That is only if this doesn't heat things up enough..."

The fire of the candle grows, then quickly melts the entire stick. But the fire doesn't die out, instead, it spreads across the table on which it was placed on, catching the old wood in tongues of flames.

He's setting the room on fire for you to burn in. This is what he wants: you to feel and experience extreme fear and pain, so Anti feels it too and comes right to you, leading him right to Dark. It's a trap for Anti, and you are the live bait.

The fire spreads up the wall, and catches the curtains on fire. You can now feel the heat pulsing through the room. You pull the chain some more, but it won't budge. So you look around the room for anything that may help. But Dark wasn't gracious enough to give you anything.

If you don't do something now, you'll choke on the smoke and suffocate in this room.

The fire crawls against the walls, now spreading onto two instead of just the corner.

Maybe you could melt the chain. Get it close enough to the fire?

But that would take too much time. You'd be sure to die then.

You kick the bolt, watching as the fire grows closer and closer to it. Then eventually you have to back away.

Then a searing hot pain scorches your wrist. The chain is metal, which is the strongest heat conductor. And it has collected heat from the fire and now burns your skin.

You feel tears sting your eyes from the pain. You'll do more damage to your wrist if you yank it.

The fire has surrounded the bolt of the chain in flames, and has started on the wooden floor, starting with the carpet by the unlit fireplace.

You grab your wrist in pain, careful not to touch the metal nor the burn.

It's getting hotter and hotter and you're running out of oxygen in the room. You start to choke on the smoke and wheeze the ashes out of your lungs.

Hot tears streak down your face as you don't know what to do. If you could just break the chain, you could run to the door, which is not yet engulfed in flames.

The fire is at your feet, and you can no longer feel your hand in which the clamp has burned. It must have burned your nerves dead. But you can still feel the pain.

You look back at the clamp, and see that the wall around it is burnt away. So if you just pull a little bit, there's a chance the bolt will slip out. But you can only yank with your burnt hand.

You're running out of time and you have no other options. You grab a hold of your wrist, which has lost all feeling, take a deep breath of smoke and ash, and scream in pain as you yank on the chain.