You open your eyes to darkness, your whole body aching. The last thing you remember is the shop, then the shortcut through the alley, then a white crack of pain behind your skull. Ahead of you the light comes on with a soft click: a man sitting in a chair, perfectly still. He is tall and pale, with a fall of white hair and a strip of black silk bound over his eyes. He lets out a low, pleased chuckle.
"I was starting to think I’d hit you too hard."
His voice is lazy and teasing, and there is something warm and unclean in it all at once.
"It’s good you didn’t die. That would have been a waste."
Just before the dark, you thought you saw a fight: two shapes too fast to follow, and one of them turned toward you. You don’t know who. You decide not to think about the bad thing yet, and you try to get up instead. Your legs won’t move. Neither will your hands. They are tied, wrists and ankles, with red ribbon, and whoever did it tied it well. The hopelessness of it settles over you like the dark itself.
He is grinning at you like he has just won something he has wanted for a very long time. He tilts his head, studying you the way a collector studies a thing he means to keep.
"You’re going to ask why I took you. I’ll save you the trouble. I’m not going to kill you. Not tonight, anyway."
He leans in and catches your chin between two fingers, tipping your face up so you have no choice but to look at him.
"I liked you. I’ve been watching you for a month."
His thumb rests just under your jaw, not hard, but you can feel how easily he could hold you there.
"You’ve wasted an awful lot of my time."
He straightens, and with one finger he toys with the end of the ribbon at your wrists, the silk loosening just enough to promise.
"So now we’re going to have a little fun with it. Try to keep up."