Chapter 17
My heart cramps as Cole’s hold drops from me, his hands light where he caught me, but my skin burns from his touch all the same. The door slams as Blaze storms out, the sound echoing through my skull, a headache sweeping through my forehead.
Swallowing hard, I quickly reach up to swipe away a lone tear, pain pulsing in my temples. Salt on my tongue from tears that I can’t quite seem to catch quickly enough, I lick my lips, shove my cuffed sleeve over my cheek.
“Ember,” Cole says my name with his usual cold detachment, but there’s something else in it that makes my gut squeeze.
Pity.
His large, scarred hand comes to my lower back, just the barest brush of his fingertips over the thick fabric of my hoodie enough to have me flinching forwards, out of reach. I’m not sure what sort of noise it is that escapes my throat, but he takes a step back, hands up, palms facing outwards in a placating gesture.
“Sugar,” Flint says, blue eyes on mine, unmoving, hands loose at his sides, Phoenix at his back, his eyes, too, on me. “He doesn’t mean that.”
I shake my head, trying to catch my breath, my lungs feel as though they’re full of liquid, weighing me down and making it hard to breathe. I back up until my spine connects with the wall, keeping my head angled down, watery gaze on my bare feet. Blue veins and icy skin, chipped black polish on my toes and a thread of black cotton loose from the elastic cuff of my joggers, hanging over the top of my foot.
Stupidly, I thought I was getting somewhere with Blaze.
It feels like all of the years I’ve waited, desperate to find him, scared to, were wasted.
Wishing he knew how I felt, how I see him, how, even when he fucks me too rough, too brutal, spits nasty words, he’s it for me. Has always been.
My home.
“Ember.”
I’m not sure which one of them even says it, my name, but the sound of it feels like nails scraping down the bone of my skull. I grit my teeth as my hands come over my ears, muffled sounds reaching me, but I tune them all out. Today has been too much. With Cole, and with Phoenix, Flint. I’m not good at processing all of these overwhelming feelings, confliction and hatred and something else. More.
I have never had to be around so many people before.
I am used to silence, the loneliness, shunning. All of this is new and overwhelming and I’m not in familiar surroundings, my bedroom in my parents’ house feeling like both a cage and a sanctuary some days. Cold and empty.
But here, everything feels warm. There is life, and sound, and people. There is laughter and smiles and comforting hands and soft eyes, and I have never felt anything quite like it before. Here. Abducted, stolen away in the night to this locked tower where I’m guarded and fed and love-
“Why is no one looking for me?” I ask it out loud, swallowing the scratchy sound of my thin, thready voice as I do, because it’s not a real question.
Not really.
I think, perhaps, deep down, I know why.
I’ve never been wanted by my family. I’ve never really been wanted by anyone, until Blaze, until here, until now. And even this castle made of sand is dispersing its grains into the wind. And I’ll be left like that.
Ashes in the wind.
Maybe they think I left them. They’re probably happy about it. Maybe they haven’t even noticed my absence enough to feel happy about it.
I shouldn’t care.
I don’t want to care.
Because caring means you can get hurt, and I don’t wanna hurt anymore.
Not for them.
A breath heaves in through my nose, my nostrils flaring as it catches in the back of my throat.
It feels like I’m falling, my head too light. It should be floating, not sinking, but that’s what I’m doing. Even though I am standing perfectly still. Steady on my feet, my knees unbending. I cannot imagine anything more in this moment, as my arms drop to my sides, my breath an erratic mess inside my chest alongside my hammering heart. I should be crumpling to the floor. Curling into a ball. None of that happens.
The three men still in the room are far enough away that they’re not touching me, but I can feel their heat, their bodies, their warmth and their pity.
It makes me want to claw my way out of my skin, peel it off ribbon by ribbon, exposing all of my tendons and veins, let the air wrap around me, upsetting my nerves. I imagine my muscles jumping, my organs stuttering, all of my insides exposed to my outsides.
I think of the empty flat Blaze tossed me into only a few short weeks ago. Picture the room in darkness, the broken windowsill sharp on its edges, the slatted blind bent and fractured. The exposed ceiling, the long white wire hanging down in the centre of the room.
How it would feel.
The cold air stagnant, musty. The thick, plastic wrapped wire tight and unrelenting around the centre of my throat. I hear my raspy exhales inside my head, nothing getting in, everything wheezing out. How my arms and legs would probably flail. My nervous system overriding the pain in my head. My heart. Like a searing knife, something razor sharp. It wouldn’t hurt, a quick thrust of the blade, I don’t think I’d even feel it. But my body would fight regardless, even though, inside my skull, there would be peace.
I think, sometimes, that perhaps, I was just born sad.
“I’m going to go to bed,” I whisper, not waiting on an answer to my previous question.
My bare toes curl into the cold floor, fingers closing over the ribbed cuffs of my sleeves, the hoodie that still smells like Blaze, smoky caramel and spice.
“Ember,” my eyes fall closed, chest inflating with one slow inhale at the smooth sound of Cole’s voice. “Come and stay in my room tonight,” I hear him swallow, the room otherwise silent. “I can leave it to you, just so you can have some space.”
A lump lodges inside my throat, dry and too big. Cole doesn’t like me. Yet, he’s standing here, offering me his bedroom without a single ounce of hatred in his tone, and I can’t even look at him. Gaze fixed on my feet, a teardrop falls, hitting the pronounced bones in the top of my right foot.
“I think that will probably make it worse,” I think of what he said, Blaze, ‘just a tight little cunt’. “But,” I swallow then too, my voice low and scratchy, nervousness igniting fire beneath my skin, “thank you, Cole.”
Slowly, I push off the wall, skirt around Cole’s intimidating build, trying hard to make sure I don’t brush any part of him. It feels as though insects are a plague across my skin, and I can’t stop it, the creepy crawling sensation.
I’m slow as I tread quietly down the hall, the light off, the doors on either side of me closed. I twist the handle as I reach Blaze’s room, a space that has little pieces of me scattered throughout it now, like I live here too. Belong.
I lean back against the closed door as I shut it softly behind me, my palms flat against the wood, my bum resting against the tops of my hands. I don’t switch the light on, the lamp, none of it, leaving the room in darkness despite it making my chest hitch. I pad across the thick carpet, towards the partially open door leading to the en suite bathroom. The door of which is always open, even when Blaze or I are inside of it, the light of the mirror on.
And I like it that way. The way he comes up behind me when I’m brushing my teeth, mouth full of foamy white paste. My brush is green, his is pink, and I smile at the thought. Thinking of how he let me choose between the two. Lime green, fluorescent pink. Blaze narrowed his eyes on me when I picked the green, but I think he knew I would, it’s always been my favourite colour.
He showers with the door cracked, but I never go inside, even though I always want to. I think he does it that way, like an invitation, maybe hopeful. Except, I don’t know what the boundaries are, where the lines sit, how far or near to them I am.
The silver-grey marble tiles are cold against my bare feet, the small window high up in the wall showcasing low, heavy rain clouds, black and steel grey, rushing violently across the dark night sky.
Stepping into the large shower, I reach for the tap, pulling it towards me. Water rushes from the rainfall showerhead, wetting one leg, sticking the thick fabric to my skin. Breathing in deep, I curl my thumbs beneath the elastic waistband, pushing them down with a very slight pressure. They’re borrowed from Phoenix because he’s the smallest of all the men, and I tied them up tight to keep them around my hips, but it doesn’t take much to get them slipping down my thighs, pooling around my ankles where the cuffs hold tight. I pull off my t-shirt and hoodie, both of which belong to Blaze, everything black in colour, all of it smelling too much like him. It’ll never leave my nostrils, I’m sure I’ll catch his scent wherever I go for the rest of my life.
Using my feet, I kick off the joggers, shoving them with my toes to the floor beside the shower. I drop the clothes into a heap, and step under the spray. The water is too hot, clouds of steam filling the room, little wisps of it slipping out of the cracked door, I watch it go with the white glow from the lit mirror, disappearing into the dark bedroom.
Condensation slicks the glass wall of the cubicle, misting the world around me until there’s nothing but me, the water and steam. Shadows and unsteady breaths.
My mind wanders as I close my eyes. Plant my splayed hands on the wet tile wall while the hot water beats down on the top of my head, plastering my curls to my face and neck. My ears buzz, my heart pounding overly hard, it makes my breath catch and rush and flow, in and out of me with pain in my chest cavity.
I think of Blaze in the cornfield. The glass between my fingers puncturing my skin, his bigger hand closing around my fist, squeezing tighter and tighter as the shard pierced deeper and deeper into my flesh.
I curl my fingers into my palms, feeling for the little divots now scarred there, my nails scraping over the top of what I know are pale pink marks. I had to scratch out all the splinters, pick them out with my teeth when some were embedded just too deep.
I think of his words, the way he said, ‘Do you want to make me happy, Pretty Girl?’ The way I wanted to say yes, even though I knew I should say no. He was too close to me, in my face, our lips almost brushing when he said, ‘I want you to come with me.’
He didn’t know I would have come willingly. That I had attempted to search him out only four years prior. That I would have, will, follow him anywhere. He didn’t need to put me in the trunk, he didn’t need to force me. Even if he was cruel to me every day. Even if he will be. I don’t want to go anywhere. I have always wanted to be by his side. For as long as I can remember, his is the face I have dreamed about.
Tears slip down my cheeks, silent and painful. I make no sound, hearing nothing more than the pound of the water, thinking of all the things Blaze said to me those few short weeks ago, on Guy Fawkes Night, all the things I felt but didn’t respond with.
‘You like the hurt.’
I do. From you.
‘You know what I think, Pretty Girl, I think you like to be scared.’
Only by you. I crave your attention. Your stare on my skin. Your hands on my flesh.
‘You look like you’ve given up.’
I will always submit to you. I like when you take control of me. When I don’t have to think anymore, even in your anger.
‘Let me keep you.’
I’ve always been yours.
And then tonight, the snarling, almost hurt way he spat words at me.
‘You wanna act like a little whore, you can fucking be one.’
I blink under the spray, lashes heavy with droplets of water as it rushes over my skull, curls around my temples, steadily dripping into my eyes.
I step out, my feet wet on the marble floor, dripping water across the tiles as I move towards the basin. Shower still running, I reach up with shaky fingertips, pushing on the mirrored cabinet above the sink, popping open the door, all without looking at myself in the reflection.
I stare at its contents, three glass shelves, toothpaste, shaving foam, dental floss, all of it deemed safe. Blaze removed all of the razors, spare blades, toothpicks. Anything he thought I could use to harm myself. But I know on the middle shelf behind the circular, cardboard pot of cotton buds, there’s a nail kit. Clippers, files, tweezers, scissors.
Almost numbly, I reach for it, gently moving other items out of the way with the back of my fingers. The cloth kit feels like it weighs everything and nothing as I secure it in the gentle curl of my hand. Leaving the cupboard door open, I unloop the small blue string, let the cloth unroll, reveal all of its insides.
The small silver scissors glint under the light, the hooped handles much too inviting to my itching fingers. I try so hard to stay in control of myself, my emotions, but this is the only thing that works. Makes me feel just a little bit okay.