**Trigger Warning: Violence against animals, blood, psychological & physical violence**

***

Eve sensed the change in the air. In the blink of an eye, the temperature seemed to drop several degrees, and the only thing missing was her breath forming clouds in front of her lips – that's how freezing it suddenly felt.

Jonathan stopped immediately, and his icy gaze turned back to her. His hand shot forward so fast that she flinched only when he had already grabbed her jaw, and his fingers painfully dug into her cheeks.

"When I say come... you follow."

Her heart was beating so hard against her chest that she feared it would jump out and try to escape without her. He stared at her for a few of those frantic, stumbling drumbeats, and though it was only a few, it felt excruciatingly long to her.

"J-Jonathan..." Eve gasped, her voice rough as if it had been clumsily worked over with sandpaper.

His hand released her chin, sliding down her cheek into her straw-like hair and to the nape of her neck, where he seized her like a misbehaving puppy.

A painful moan escaped her lips immediately.

"Darling," he corrected quietly, but with a hiss like a snake ready to bite at any moment.

'Sick asshole... go to hell,' she thought. Nausea constricted her throat, and Eve wanted to spit in his face. She knew such games, though not quite in this form. For many years, she had smiled when she felt like crying. She had kept her eyes down and said nothing, silently bearing everything. Not too long ago, Eve believed she had overcome this cowardly trait in herself...

'You're not a coward. Not only is your life at stake, but Liam's as well,' she thought, clenching her fists. The damn ring pressed into the palm of her hand as she tried to remain calm.

"Darling," she whispered as if a noose were tightening around her neck.

"All right. Come on, it's time for dinner, " he said, releasing his grip on her neck but only to grab her upper arm and direct her back to the dining room.

The chair welcomed her body like a comforting embrace. Eve felt torn between the crushing exhaustion in her body and the panic-stricken pounding in her chest.

"Mammy..." she heard a thin voice say beside her. Immediately, her eyes fell on Liam, and her hand reached for her son's little fingers to clasp them reassuringly.

"It's all right, my darling." Eve tried to sound calm. Were her words even clear? Or was she mumbling? God, Liam must be so confused...

Suddenly, a thought flashed through her mind: How did this madman get hold of her son in the first place? Did he watch Liam hiding in the shed and threat him to make him come out?

Endless questions – and no answers in sight.

The doctor sank into one of the chairs, and Eve now also understood why there was stew and nothing else - there were no forks or knives on the table with which she could have defended herself or her son, let alone attacked her kidnapper.

"Well," he began, scooping a ladleful of stew onto Eve's plate, "I've already explained the rules of this house to our son. But I'll be happy to repeat them for you." He reached for the bread and took a bite, chewing and leaning against the backrest while his gaze wandered like ice from Eve to Liam and back again. "This is your home." He said it harshly as if he wanted to carve a fact into stone. "It's dangerous out there. That's why you will not leave this house. NEVER."

He lifted the spoon and put it in his mouth while Eve understood precisely what he wanted to tell them between the lines: This was their prison now. If they tried to escape, something could easily happen to them.

So he wanted to hold them captive here.

Eve stroked her son's hand, then she reached for the carafe on the table with trembling hands and poured herself another glass of water. The young woman gulped down the contents and poured more immediately.

She was still terribly thirsty. Whatever he had injected into her, she felt feverishly weak and freezing cold at the same time.

"We're never allowed out? Not even into the garden?" Liam asked, and Eve heard the tears in his childish voice.

The doctor looked up, and her son flinched as if he had hit him. Immediately, her pulse quickened, and her hand flew back to Liam's, grasping it.

"Never," Jonathan repeated, his voice even darker this time. "Or do you want me to teach you the same lesson as the damn dog?"

Eve looked up at Jonathan. Her mouth was dry again as if she had been walking through a desert. She hardly dared ask...

"What do you mean... like the dog?"

A smile played around Jonathan's lips but didn't reach his eyes. Eve watched as he took his hand off the table, and hers disappeared into his jacket pocket. He threw something on the table before him when he raised it again. It was a handkerchief full of red stains.

"What...?" she gasped.

"Open it," he ordered.

No! She didn't want to.

His fist crashed down on the table so suddenly that they both winced.

"Open it," he repeated sharply.

Eve had to force herself. Inside, she tried to brace herself against all the horrors that shot into her mind. Nevertheless, she mechanically stretched out her hand to unfold the handkerchief.

It took Eve a few seconds to realize what she was staring at; then, she pulled her hand back as if she had been burned. There, in the handkerchief, was a severed dog's ear. The fur was smeared with blood, but she still recognized the familiar colour of the loyal protector they had all been desperately searching for.

Hot tears stung her eyes, and Eve blinked several times to avoid bursting into sobs immediately. It felt as if a blade was piercing her chest and squeezing the air out of her lungs. The young woman felt nauseous; her ears started to ring again, and she froze, unable to take her eyes off the blood-smeared horror.

Then she heard Liam whimpering and sobbing next to her. She immediately jumped up, pulled her son's face to her and covered his eyes with one hand. Liam came towards her and immediately buried his tiny hands in her clothes.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she blurted out while she held the trembling boy close. "How can you do such a thing to an innocent animal?"

Fear was in the air. Pure, naked, ice-cold fear. It spread like ice and winter cold in people's blood. Eve could see and feel how it paralyzed Liam. Her boy hunched his shoulders and snuggled against the fabric of her belly, sobbing.

On the other hand, she felt a tingling current shoot through her muscles. A deeply rooted maternal instinct made the ice melt like a blazing fire. Mothers had always protected their young, regardless of their own lives—with all their strength and sometimes far beyond their limits. She wanted to pounce on this man, like a lioness in the savannah or a she-bear in the forest.

"Sit down." His words cut through the oppressive silence like a sharp knife. With an unmistakable gesture, he pointed to Eve and Liam's chairs without taking his eyes off the two of them. "I'm only going to warn you once. I won't repeat myself."

This was not the same man who had sat in their living room and tended to her wound.

Eve swallowed hard but couldn't banish the nauseating, much-too-tight feeling in her throat. "Please..." Eve tried to say, now pleading, while she stroked her son's head. "I... I'm the one you want. Let Liam go and..." she faltered. "...and I'll stay with you. I'll be obedient..."

"What do you think is this?" The man's fist crashed on the table so unexpectedly that Eve and Liam flinched. Glasses clinked, and the ladle slipped, spilling some of the stew on the smooth wood of the table. "Do you think this is a joke? Or a Game?"

"No!" Eve blurted out quickly, reaching out a hand as if she could placate him with it.

"I only brought you here because you'd be safe," Jonathan continued, his lips forming a discontented line that made his face look even harder.

"Safe?" Eve asked, trying not to provoke him further. What did he mean by that? Did he think he would somehow protect her by harming their dog?

"Yes!" He rose from his seat, the legs of the chair scraping unpleasantly across the floor. Some instinct in her wanted to make her back away and leap away like a deer, aware of the presence of a predator. But she wasn't a deer. She had to keep reminding herself of that. She MUSTN'T be a deer - because a deer couldn't save Liam and her own life. And that's what this was about... life and death.

So she forced herself to stand still when that creep raised his hand.

"It's only for your good. You must understand that."

A nauseating shiver ran down her from chin to neck as he stroked her cheek almost tenderly, brushing a strand of hair away from the burn scar on her face.

"Look at what he did to you," he purred, but to Eve's ears, it sounded like the warning buzz of a hornet's nest. Once again, she realised that even the most attractive men could have a frightening and disgusting aura, no matter how beautiful her face might be. "I'll make sure that nothing like that ever happens again. Your husband will never find you here. We're a family now. The way it's supposed to be."

'The way it's supposed to be. That's what he wants. That we play his family. As long as we do that, he won't hurt us,' Eve put together the pieces that made sense, at least for the moment. They had to keep playing. And she had to take control and... find out as much as possible to weigh her chances of escape.

"But I'm afraid," she lied, trying not to sound too contrived. "You don't know what he's like..."

He took her face between his hands, and something flashed in his cold eyes that Eve thought was satisfaction. It was as if a switch had flipped because immediately Jonathan smiled again. He reminded her of one of those bizarre carnival masks from Venice. "There's no need to be afraid, my dear," he whispered, stroking her cheek.

At some point in the past, this gesture might have been tender or consoling for the stranger. Now, it seemed false and hypocritical, like words learned by memory and echoes of old gestures that had long since lost their soul, now searching for meaning like ghosts in an empty house.

"What if he finds us? How will you protect us?" With trembling hands, she placed her fingers on her captor's chest to add a little more conviction to their game.

"He won't," he assured her again, and now his hand fell on her shoulder. "The hut is remote, much too far from the nearest road. Not even the fishermen from the village come this far," he assured her emphatically. "And just in case someone does stray into the area, I've taken precautions."

'We are still somewhere near the lake,' Eve thought. That meant they might be able to walk along the lake to find their way to Silvershore. Perhaps there was even a boat...

"W-What precautions?" she asked, perhaps a little too quickly.