Chapter 12
Kittie
D orian doesn’t even lift his head as Raney pulls out my chair and helps me sit. It’s tempting to start pleading again, but I end up shrinking against the orange-tinted cushions of the wooden chair instead. Logic is telling me to play it cool—I’m in no condition to fight back—but my spirit urges me to start kicking and scratching.
Ultimately, I stare blankly at the man on the other side of the table.A man who used to send my heart into overdrive.
“Good morning, Kittie,” he says, half-distracted, marking something on his page with a pen.
I withdraw slightly, pressing firmly against the back of the chair. Dorian’s voice hasn’t changed, but it no longer feels familiar or comforting.
Raney pats my shoulder. “I’ll bring out some food. I have some eggs I can make. Or, there’s some oatmeal I can whip up. What do you think?”
Raney’s voice is only infinitesimally comforting, but I hold onto it. I don’t want to assume that she’s already my ally, but I can only hope to plant the seeds. I force a smile in her direction, and it feels wrong.
“Oatmeal sounds good.”
Raney flashes me a genuine grin in exchange. “I’m going to make myself some coffee. Do you two want any?”
Dorian doesn’t respond.
I don’t trust my voice, but I squeeze out the words, “Yes, please.”
Raney beams at me, showing off a set of dimples. I anchor myself to her friendliness, like hooking myself to a buoy at sea.
“Cream? Sugar?”
“Black, please.”
This catches Dorian’s attention. With the pen still on the page, he lifts his eyes and interrupts. “Just water, Raney. Caffeine makes her jittery.”
My mouth falls open. How the heck does he know that? Even if I off-handedly mentioned it—or maybe my mom had—I still wince against an icy prick of shock. Will every aspect of my life be controlled from here on in?
Raney hesitates for a second before nodding and hurrying into the kitchen.
Dorian unceremoniously returns to his papers.
I force myself to watch him for a few minutes, feeling my limbs tremble. I dare to keep my eyes on him as if he’ll vanish and reappear somewhere else if I look away.
I have to do something. I have to try. Sitting still while dreading each coming second is driving me insane; my body demands me to act. Silence thickens my dread, and even the soft bangs and creaking footsteps in the other room don’t alleviate it.
“D–Dorian,” I stammer, unsure of the direction of my thoughts.
Finally, he lifts his head. His eyes are just as chilling as last night, and my stomach churns. Why did I open my mouth?
Dorian waits for me to continue, watching me stoically, coldly.
I should try to manipulate or trick him in some way. Yet, the words leave me, even as I try to wrangle them in. My voice breaks. “Are you going to hurt me?”
The stone facade shatters. His mouth tips to a frown, forehead wrinkling.
My body relaxes slightly out of sheer relief. Perhaps this is the real him; whoever I met last night was the mask.
Dorian gets to his feet. “Is that what you’ve been thinking?”
The movement is too quick for me, and I jolt in my chair.
Whatever expression I’m wearing stops him halfway from rounding the table. Sorrowful eyes meet mine beyond the blur of my sudden tears. “I could never hurt you.”
“Then…then—” I suck in a breath. I can’t give in to hysterics. “What…are we going to do?”
I hope the inclusion of we seems less accusatory.
Dorian lingers by the table. He wraps his knuckles against the wooden surface, thinking about how to reply. He pauses for a few seconds before saying, “ You won’t do anything, Kittie. I’ll take care of everything.”
“Am I…in danger or something? Is something going on?”
All my question does is make him set his mouth in a line. “You’re not in danger.”
“Why me?” I demand, frantic now. “What’s so special about me? Is this all because I saved you? It wasn’t personal! You could have been anybody. Please let me go because all that’s going to happen is that I’ll hate you, and they’ll throw you in jail when they catch you.”
I expect an argument. Instead, a chill washes over me like ice water when the stony, serious mask snaps back onto his face.
Dorian’s cold gaze hardens. “I’m fine with you hating me. I love you enough that I can tolerate it to keep you safe.”
Love. The confession should have happened over a candlelight dinner a year from now, six months maybe. I curse myself because even when I’m sure I should detest him, a tiny thrill forms in my stomach on the heels of those words.
He loves me.
“You don’t love me,” I snap. “You want to own me.”
“I scarcely see the difference.”
“What if I’m not someone lovable?” My anger pivots hard into desperation. I reach for anything, any metric to sway him. “You don’t really know me. I’m not that great of a person. You…you only love the person you’ve built up in your head.”
“That isn’t true. We both know it isn’t.”
“I hate you!” I shout. It’s not true, I know that— painfully know it—but I’ve become a fox in a snare. I’ll say anything. If this love is why he brought me here, I hope to sully it, ruin it in some way so that he’ll abandon it and let me go.
My shouting doesn’t faze him. “And I adore you.”
I go rigid. My mouth pops open, but my reply withers away.
Dorian’s insane. How could I not feel it beneath the surface?
Just as an uncomfortable silence weighs like a lead blanket over us, Raney mercifully enters the dining room again. There’s tension on her face, a tightness around her forced smile that tells me she heard everything and has come to try and diffuse the situation.
“ Bon appétit! ” she announces awkwardly, setting a bowl and a glass of water in front of me. I peer down, steam wafting up from the gray pile of oats. My stomach growls, but I have no energy or desire to eat.
In the time it takes Raney to rush back into the kitchen and return with her own plate of toast and a mug, Dorian takes his seat.
I want to scream, but I only sit limply in my chair, watching Raney stuff her breakfast into her mouth and Dorian return to his work. This normalcy is maddening, like I’m simply an elephant in the room that they choose to ignore.
“Oh, Kittie,” Raney’s voice makes me jump. I don’t know how much time that’s passed until I notice her plate’s empty, and I haven’t touched my spoon. “You should really eat—”
“Raney,” Dorian speaks sternly, scribbling with his pen. “She’s not a child. For now, if she refuses to eat, that’s her right. Let’s you and I worry about it when it becomes a problem.”
“Alright,” she mutters reluctantly.
A clock ticks somewhere, ever so faintly. Given that the only items in the dining room were the long table, chairs, overhead chandelier, and the long, wall-length China cabinet filled with awards and photographs, I can only assume the offending clock is nearby. I want to shut the noise out.
Eventually, my anger boils over when the room’s stillness becomes too much. I gesture toward the table. “So…is this how it’s going to be? Just…this? Forever?”
Raney lowers her mug from her lips. Her eyes bounce back and forth between us while her shoulders tense up.
When I catch the attention of Dorian’s stormy eyes, I almost lose my nerve. They’re dark and steely again; the sweet version of him— my version—is long gone.
“Is it finally sinking in for you?” he says, and I flinch at the edge of near cruelty in his words.
I dig my fingernails into the seat cushion under me. “Whatever this is…it’s not sustainable. Have you thought this through? Or do you think you’ll just keep me here until I’m fifty?”
Dorian’s unbothered by my line of questioning. “I hope that after thirty years, you’ll have learned to accept this, and we won’t have to go to such extreme measures. If not, I have other ideas; I hope it never has to come to that.”
I blink at him, and I suddenly feel faint. Thirty years? I had been shocked before, terrified of what was happening, wondering how I failed to sense the darkness below the surface, yet I hadn’t processed the implication. Forever is nebulous. It doesn’t feel absolute. But the prospect of being here for thirty years? For the rest of my life?
Dorian can’t love me for that long. Eventually, something will give.
I sink back in the chair from the shock to my system.
As if trying to take attention away from the horror of Dorian’s, Raney sets her mug on the table.
“It’s already September,” she chirps, pulling Dorian’s intense eyes away from me and in her direction. “The rose bushes will need cut in preparation for winter soon.”
I’m back to being the elephant in the room again.
Dorian nods once and returns to his work. “Cory’s the only one I trust with the trimmer. Get with him about it—I don’t want you losing fingers.”
“I’ll be careful,” Raney promises with a stiff laugh. “I’m so excited for October. Fall can’t get here soon enough.”
How can they be so casual? Does Dorian have a grim track record, and his family is so accustomed to worse that my presence here is hardly worth noting?
I’m not sure what snaps in me, but I find myself animated. I get to my feet, glass in hand, and throw my drink into his face.
Water goes everywhere. It soaks his dress shirt and hair, ruining his paperwork. He stares at me, the darkness intensifying with a growing anger on his face.
Raney clamps a hand over her mouth.
Droplets of water drip from Dorian’s face and patter onto the wet papers beneath him. The clock continues to tick.
When clarity returns to me, I lower the glass to the table. The room almost creaks beneath the heaviness of the silence between us.
Eventually, Dorian lifts his hand and runs it down his face, causing water to cascade down his chin and wrist. He gives it one hard shake, sending droplets flying.
Suddenly, my anger fizzles out.
“Would you excuse Katherine and me for a moment?” he asks, too calmly for the look in his eyes.
Although Raney climbs to her feet, she hesitates. “You sure?”
Dorian doesn’t even look at her; instead, he traps me under his gaze. “Don’t worry, we’re just going to talk.”
Whether or not she’s satisfied with the answer, she scurries out of the dining room, vanishing further into the estate. She leaves only the echo of her footsteps fading out until we’re alone.
Fear paralyzes me. Yes, he told me he had no intentions of hurting me, but was I successful in my attempt to shatter his illusion of me? Will he rescind that promise? He slowly rounds the table toward me, never breaking eye contact, and I clasp my hands into fists.
“Perhaps I didn’t take enough time to spell it out for you,” he begins, and he’s within arm’s reach by the end of his words. Bringing a hand to the back of my neck, he squeezes hard enough to send a jolt of panic through me.
Dorian pulls me toward him, and I stumble over my feet. He catches my waist with his free hand—both have an iron hold on me, steadying me.
“You will be here for the rest of your days,” he explains coolly. I see neither a pinch of reluctance nor guilt in his eyes. “There will never be another second in your life that I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing. If it makes you feel better to fight against me or demean me, I implore you to try.”
I open my mouth to argue, to say something. I can’t just lie down and surrender to this idea. Even with my heart pounding, I slip out a “but” before he suddenly moves.
In a fluid motion, Dorian sweeps me off my feet. He pushes me onto the table, laying me flat on my back, my legs dangling off the edge. He blocks out the overhead light as he leans over me, face inches from mine. Water drips from his hair and drop onto my face.
I look away, trying to squirm out of his grasp, but the movement sends pain rattled through my ribs. But my eyes are only pulled away from him for so long before his low growl of a voice demands my attention again.
“Look at me, kitten.”
Dorian’s hand braces the back of my neck, pressed between me and the table below, and the other grasps my hip and holds me in place.
“This is the only bit of rebellion I will entertain. So yes, go on and act out as much as you wish. For everything you try, there will be a punishment.”
I stop wriggling, suddenly horrified at the prospect of a punishment. My mind races with a plethora of different, horrible things that he can do to me, and I’ll be too weak to fight him off. In the same instant, a strange rush courses through me that I don’t understand.
“I don’t exaggerate or lie. I will have you until your last day. And the quicker you learn to be obedient and follow my rules, the easier that time will be for you. Do we have an understanding?”
What can I do besides nod? When I do, his grasp on the back of my neck tightens slightly. Although not painful, it shoots a thrill through me.
“I bet you wish you’d never crossed paths with me,” he says, amusement coating his words that breathe new life into my now-dormant fury.
“Yes,” I stammer.
Dorian chuckles. It’s not the same warm round of quiet laughter I’m used to hearing from him, but something more sinister. “I bet you’re wishing you’d let me die.”
“No!”
From the bottom of my heart, I know I would never wish death upon him, even with my life in the palm of his hand. And even if he terrifies me, even if I wish we never met, there’s no way I’d ever wish that for him. No matter what he does to me.
Dorian goes quiet. All the darkness disappears. For the first time since yesterday, when we were just Kittie and Dorian, I look into the eyes of the man I know. It’s the same look he gave me when we first met in the hospital. Shock and confusion paint his face, and he looks vulnerable for only a split second.
Then, the expression fades as he slams it behind the vault of his facade. His emotionless eyes return, and he pulls his hand from my neck to catch a droplet of water that trickles down my cheek with his thumb.
“You think you really mean that, don’t you, Kittie?”
“Even if I hated you—” I say, courage bolstered somewhat by the glimpse into his old humanity, “—I still wouldn’t want you dead. I meant what I said. I want you to be happy.”
A half laugh escapes him, and my glare falters. Whatever glimpse into his soft side that I love is brief, and I’m scared it’s gone forever.