Chapter 6 - Duncan
DUNCAN
“I’ll always be broken. Damaged,” I say to an unconscious Elowyn, running my knuckles over her warm cheek. Resenting how good she feels. “Wrong.”
She’s lying on the bed in the guest room assigned to her, unmoving. As silent as she’s been over the past decade.
This time, not by choice.
This time, I was the one who stripped her of her agency by ordering Herbert to slip the sedative into her water.
Her days of turning away from me are over. She’s right where and how I want her.
Under my thumb and ready to be ruined.
“And by the end of our time together, you’ll be just like me.” My lip curls into a snarl. My body refuses to acknowledge the longing humming beneath my skin, the feelings still simmering there. “Broken. Damaged. Wrong. Then our debt will be settled.”
I stroke her cheek over and over as I hold up the Polaroid camera lens trained on her face, my grip nearly crushing it.
There’s no reason for this anger.
Not now, when I finally have Elowyn here, passed out and lying in a deliberately bare bedroom.
Cheap sheets stretch over a secondhand bed. The dresser is older than she is, the drawers empty. Even the shampoo, conditioner, and soap in the adjoining shower don’t smell like her. Like vanilla.
Every detail is a reminder, for her but mostly for me, that whatever power she once had over me is gone. Completely.
“I’m the one in control. Me.”
Enough talking. No more bullshit.
I haven’t drugged her so I could yap like a weak motherfucker.
After years of heartache, years of wanting, years of scraping by one cent at a time, I’m finally taking what’s mine.
The camera slips from my hand, the strap dragging against my neck. When I tear my mask off, it’s not because it’s suffocating me or because I’m out of breath.
I just don’t need it anymore.
This beautiful, terrible girl in my home won’t wake up for hours.
Meaning, I have time to do this, to strip the clothes from her body, one item at a time.
While I do, my traitorous heart rebels. It starts pounding harder, urging me to stop. Not to go there. Not to hurt her like this.
I silence my conscience by refusing to see Elowyn as a person anymore, but as my newest commission with a twist.
Unlike the work I’m trained to do, there’s no way to save her, me, or us.
Cracking her soul so I can insert my filthy self into it is destruction.
The thought makes my heart pound even louder. My stomach joins, churning, warning me how this is a bad fucking idea.
It was easier to plan all of this when she wasn’t here, so close.
Fuck that. I’m stronger than this.
I’m cold, calculating, and precise as I set her clothes aside.
While staring down at her naked body, I tell myself I don’t feel sorry for her.
That I don’t see how her legs and arms are lean from hours of hard labor.
My chest definitely doesn’t sting at the pale bleach smudges on her fingertips.
The dark circles under her eyes?
“I don’t care. I don’t. Fucking. Care.”
I’m convinced. Of course I am. But I repeat it a couple more times just in case. It can’t hurt.
When doubts and guilt refuse to leave altogether, I scoff and just get to it. The task at hand.
Those pink nipples need hardening for the pictures I’m about to take.
Again, I have to remind myself that this is business. Blowing on her nipples, licking and biting them, is part of my revenge.
My dick strains in my slacks and precum dampens my boxers when I spread her legs, but that’s to be expected. I’m only human.
The ache in my soul, my ribs, my lungs? That’s a ghost from my past. Nothing more. Nothing less.
A sharp pain slices through my head, calling me a liar, before a worse headache follows.
A familiar pounding, the kind that comes before a flashback to a time when my feelings for Elowyn were pure, right, and incredibly na?ve, forces its way into my consciousness.
One I’m helpless to stop.
I stood outside Elowyn’s room, my stomach all tied up in knots.
She’d just turned sixteen weeks ago, a few months before my parents were murdered. Before grief and anger shaped who I was.
That was when my eyes opened. When she stopped being just Barclay’s little sister.
When, though nobody knew it—not even her—she became mine.
I never let it show. I worked hard to hide my feelings whenever I’d been around her, but God, it was getting impossible.
A flash of her smile could make my day. Watching her brush an errant lock of hair behind her ear set my soul on fire.
The nickname I’d given her, little moon, was the best secret I ever kept. Especially since she blushed when I called her that.
That day, though, worry carried me to her room, not my selfish need to see her.
The same nagging concern pulled me there night after night once I became an orphan and moved in with the Montgomerys.
But I digress.
Elowyn was alone, and I had to go to her.
She’d left the living room with her shoulders slumped, the dog she’d brought from the shelter trailing behind her.
Fuck, I hated seeing her walk out like that. Her pain hurt me on a visceral level. Her parents’ refusal to let the dog anywhere near them stung. And Barclay calling it gross? That lit something ugly in my chest.
None of it could show on my face.
Still, I’d wanted to run to her. To assure her that I, for one, don’t hate the adorable dog at all.
And the only way I could do it without raising red flags with the Montgomerys had been to wait a few minutes, then say, “I’m going to check on her. Be right back,” like I had in the past.
No one batted an eye.
I’d risen immediately, already set on the quiet minutes alone with Elowyn.
Now at the door to her bedroom, I rolled my shoulders, working the tension out of my body.
Deep breath, and I knocked.
A bark, then, “Come in.”
My lips pressed together as I stepped inside. I didn’t like hearing her voice like that—subdued, careful.
She shouldn’t be scared in her home.
Fuck me, I couldn’t wait for us to be older. For me to have a good job and my own place, somewhere Elowyn and I could be together. Where she wouldn’t have to be so damn considerate of everyone else’s feelings.
Her family weren’t bad people. I didn’t hate my best friend. But she deserved to smile every hour of every day, and it wasn’t happening in the Montgomery house.
Once it was appropriate, I vowed I’d take her out, do things the right way.
Then she’d have a safe, warm, loving place to rest.
With me.
I was too young to be considering marriage. It was too presumptuous to believe she’d say yes.
None of that made a difference to my heart, which beat for no one but her.
“Duncan.” In her school uniform, Elowyn crouched beside a mutt that rushed to hide behind her. The rapid blinking of her eyes told me she was just as scared. “You’re mad about the dog too?”
I’m mad all right, just not about the dog. I’m mad that you’re here instead of where the hell it is you want to be. That you’re basically being punished for being a good person. Most of all, I’m mad that I can’t hug you.
Since I couldn’t say any of that, I did the next best thing. Squatted next to her and reached out to pat the mutt’s brown coat when what I really wanted was to thread my fingers through Elowyn’s hair.
“Not mad, little moon.”
“Thank you.”
I clenched my free hand into a fist, or I would’ve done something I’d regretted. Like putting a hole through the nearest wall.
She shouldn’t be this grateful over nothing, goddammit.
One day, after I claimed her as mine, Barclay and I were going to have a serious talk. Even after Elowyn and I moved into our new home, he and everyone else would have to treat her better. Much fucking better.
Swallowing my anger down, I asked, “Who’s your new roommate?”
A small smile curved her pink lips up. “Peanut.”
“Nice name,” I muttered, my throat tight with awe for her.
While my life had revolved around my home, school, and the occasional fistfight, Elowyn was a ball of warmth no matter what happened to her.
“It is.” Briefly, she leaned toward me.
Electric currents buzzed between us.
My lips parted. My hand lifted to cup her cheek.
Too fast, she shook her head and returned to where she was, neck reddening.
All the blood in my body went south. Pressure built in my groin, my erection straining my jeans. It was bad. Real bad. So I cleared my throat. That kind of helped. “Something wrong with it?”
“With him, and no, he’s the most perfect little thing.” Her smile dims. “The only problem is, he’s been in the shelter too long, and so they were about to put him down today. I couldn’t let them.”
That was why she brought him here, then. Even knowing how her family would react, she had to save him.
I was going to make it worth her while. I was going to adopt Peanut. For her.
Yeah, we were poor and couldn’t afford to have a dog. But the pain on Elowyn’s face was unacceptable.
Something had to be done.
“Don’t worry, though. I took care of it.” Before I could say anything, she was already fixing her expression into a determined one. “I added an URGENT banner to his photo on the shelter’s website. By tomorrow, someone will adopt him. You’ll see.”
She wasn’t wrong. The next day, Peanut really did have a new home. As far as I know, he still lives there.
Thanks to Elowyn, he was saved.
I wasn’t.
My teeth grind, remembering how, after every conversation with her, I foolishly believed that Elowyn could love me too.
When my parents died, I was so sure she was the kind of girl who could heal anything. Even a broken, devastated orphan like me.
For a while, she did. Until she ripped me apart.
Without my permission, my fingers curl around Elowyn’s delicate throat.
“You’ve ruined me.” By choosing money and safety. For not even trying. I squeeze her a little tighter. “Whatever reason you had for giving up on us, it doesn’t matter. You’re going down for this. You and your brother.”
And while she’s the one being choked, I’m the one who can’t get a breath in.
It’s her fault. Again.
I should leave. Get some fresh air. Remember why I’m doing this.
I would have too, if I weren’t a glutton for punishment.
My eyes slide lower over her curves. The rise of her breasts. The dip of her navel. How pink she is between her thighs.
I’m dying for a taste.
You’re dying to have her, period.
“I don’t care one way or the other.”
I unbuckle my belt. Take myself out. Can’t stop myself if I wanted because, fuck, I’m so hard it hurts.
I’ve never been this thick, the pulse in my dick never so strong that my control has snapped like it does now.
I’m not a man at this point. No.
I’m all want. All desire.
All vengeance.
When Elowyn wakes up painted in white, she’ll see it too.
Grabbing her panties from the bed, I wrap them around my cock and rub myself. I lean in to grip her breast, hard enough to bruise.
I just need this small relief. This ache to be gone.
I’m grunting and thrusting my hips, my climax a coiling snake inside my stomach.
I’m going to come, then…
Fuck.
I make the mistake of looking at her face.
God, she’s beautiful.
Beautiful and mine.
Never was, never will be.
Despite how badly this truth pains me, desire still surfaces. The urge to spread Elowyn’s legs wider and lick her into an orgasm is strong.
Your plan.
Fuck. Right. I promised myself that every time I pleasure her, she’ll be awake for it.
Awareness is the point, since attachment doesn’t form in sleep.
At the image of her—awake, coming on one of the depraved objects I bought just for her—my dick jerks in my palm once before I come all over Elowyn’s stomach.
The torture of never actually getting over her turns this orgasm into a full-body ache. I’m left gasping and cursing her until I’ve emptied myself.
When I’m able to think straight, I tuck myself into my boxers. Zip my pants, buckle my belt, and with self-loathing poisoning my body, I get to phase two.
The camera, balanced in my hands, clicks as I snap a photo of her tainted stomach. Only an inch of it fits in the frame, where my seed and her skin are both visible.
The photo is warm, same as the ones I captured of Elowyn as she walked down my halls. Through the hidden holes in the walls, I terrorized the poor thing before tucking the evidence into my closet.
It’s nothing compared to what she’ll wake up to.
After I put the photo on her bed, I resume taking more pictures of her. I frame another inch of her body with my camera.
Press the shutter. Wait. Repeat.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The valley between her breasts, her belly button. The perfect triangle of her pussy. Her toes, her fingers, they’re all captured one by one.
The shutter of the camera and her shallow breaths are the soundtrack of my obscene task.
Again.
Again.
Again.
It goes on like this until I’ve exhausted the dozens of films I’ve stocked in the drawer of her bedside table. Until I’ve documented both the front and the back of her body.
I dismiss the voice that insists I’m losing more of myself by pinning the photos of this depraved collage to the wall by her bed. Nothing can stop me, least of all my foolish heart.
Once I’m done, I take a step back to look at my handiwork. At the photos I arranged in random order, from the floor to as high as my hand can reach.
There’s no grace or symmetry to this collage. Picasso’s Cubism isn’t there either.
This is a jarring portrait of a lost girl.
My girl.
Not yours.
Not anyone else’s either, as far as I’m concerned.
No one’s.