Chapter 15 Kateřina
It’s one of those days again. One of those shitty days that out of nowhere, my body decides to betray me with a fever.
But I’m not sick. I know it’s the stress and the constant pressure.
Being stuck in this madman’s house feels suffocating.
I don’t even know why I craved his approval in the first place.
Why the hell did I bother dressing up, trying to impress him? What was I thinking?
Maybe it was the rose scent that pulled me back to the first time I spoke to him when I thought he was just a charming gentleman. But now I see the truth. He’s insane. I still can’t shake the image of him carving my initials into his hand. Why the hell would he do that?
But then … there are moments when he’s not like that.
When he’s gentle, when he speaks softly, it’s like he’s someone I could trust, someone I could care for.
When he plays or talks about the piano. His music.
He changes. There are moments like this when I find myself worrying whether he’s in pain from the carving.
It’s been two days. It must still be hurting him.
Ugh, I’m so fucked up.
He knows exactly how to twist my emotions, how to make me feel chosen, like I’m the only thing that exists in his world.
One moment, I’m almost stupid enough to believe whatever twisted version of love he’s feeding me, and the next, I’m paralyzed with fear, knowing he could break me without a second thought.
I can’t seem to escape this pull. One second, I want to believe in him, and the next, I’m too scared to move, unsure if I’m safe or just another pawn in his twisted game. How did I get here? How did I let him get inside my head like this?
Once again, my eyes won’t open properly. I’m burning from the inside, and with me, the sheets are burning, too. However, this horrible pain that spreads throughout my body, along with the shivers, exhausts me to the core.
There’s a knock on the door. I’m really not in the mood.
“Yeah?” I mumble weakly.
The door opens. “Hello, Miss R??i?ková. I brought you some tea.” Eleanor walks closer to me, holding a silver tray with a teapot and two cups in it.
“I don’t want anything,” I say, my voice laced with shudders.
“Some warm tea will help you feel better.” She places the tray on my nightstand and presses her hand on my forehead. “Didn’t you take the pills?”
“I’m not sick. It won’t pass like that. I just have to endure it.”
She doesn’t understand. Why would she?
Doctors don’t understand either. They never did. They never found a reason for my high fever. Always the same words: “No apparent reason.”
But I know. It happened often, especially when my father yelled at me, when he locked me in my room for misbehaving, for speaking out of turn, or for simply not being the daughter he wanted.
The burning fever would rise, consuming me like my body was punishing me the way he did.
I remember lying in bed, shivering and drenched in sweat, while the walls of my room felt like they were closing in, corroding around me.
And now, all these years later, it’s happening again. But this time, it’s not because of my father. It’s him.
The fever comes when fear creeps in when I feel trapped, and when I start questioning whether I’m losing myself. My body knows before I do.
“You need to eat something,” she insists. “You need to be strong.”
“Or what? Your boss will punish you for leaving me to die?” I jeer. Eleanor is probably an unlucky prisoner, just like me, and I shouldn’t talk to her this way. But something feels off with her. Perhaps she’s grown accustomed to it and begun to consider it normal.
Unbothered, she pours some tea into the mug and sets the teapot beside it again.
“You won’t die because of fever.”
My eyes roll back involuntarily. I regret that I asked her to call me by my first name. I’m glad she didn’t, though.
Suddenly, the door swings open, making both of us jolt from surprise. It’s him.
“Mr. Manson,” she says quietly and lowers her eyes.
He doesn’t talk. He marches up to me and gently presses his hand on my forehead. I draw myself back as much as I can. The bed keeps me caged, and he blocks the only way out.
“Is there a particular reason that I wasn’t informed about her condition?” he asks Eleanor sternly, maintaining eye contact with me.
Eleanor’s demeanor shifts. She becomes awkward. Scared. “I … I—”
“Get the hell out of here before I decide you’ve made the worst mistake of your life,” he growls.
She gulps. “Yes, Mr. Manson.” She lowers her head and walks away.
Slowly and without tearing his dark green eyes off me, he takes a seat on the bed next to me.
“Could you be more savage?” I scoff, annoyed, and turn my head away.
He raises a brow. “That wasn’t savage at all, little rose.”
I don’t talk, and I keep my eyes away from his. I don’t want to look at him. I’m sure he’s going to affect me again and make me feel things I don’t want to.
He lets out a deep breath through his nostrils and presses his palm on my forehead again. “The doctor is on his way.”
“What?” I jump in surprise. “You called a doctor?”
“Contrary to what you think, little rose, I don’t wish you harm.”
“But …” I falter, letting my mind race. “Aren’t you afraid I will ask him for help?”
“Well, you can do that.” He rubs his stubble. “If you want me to kill him.”
“You are a savage!”
He laughs brightly, as if my surprise amuses him.
Gosh, his smile.
It deepens, turning into a predator’s grin. Dangerous, yet undeniably magnetic. His eyes never leave mine, as if he’s seeing through my soul. Like the devil.
He leans in closer, making my heart race. “You think I’m a savage?” he murmurs.
I don’t speak. His hand slides from my forehead to the back of my neck, and I shudder involuntarily. I want to pull away, but his grip is firm, his touch electrifying.
“Don’t be afraid,” he says, his voice soft. “You can trust me.”
I swallow hard. He’s undeniably hot, undeniably dangerous, and yet all I can think about is his hands on me.
“I’m not scared,” I lie, unable to look away from his eyes.
“Good. Because the moment you stop being scared, little rose, is when you become mine.”
“You can’t just decide who lives and who dies,” I mutter in an attempt to stand up for my beliefs and common sense.
“Can’t I?” he asks, his eyes darting all over my face. “People die every day, love. Some of them deserve it. Some of them don’t. The difference is, I get to choose.”
A shiver runs through me. “I won’t let you hurt him.”
“Then don’t ask him for help.” He leans in so close I can feel his breath scraping my cheek. “Simple, isn’t it?”
My throat tightens. “You’re bluffing.”
“You’ll see.”
I hate the way my breath stutters. I hate the way my body is still tingling from his closeness.
But most of all, I hate that deep, deep down, I believe him.
I believe that he will kill him in a heartbeat if he senses the slightest thing going wrong.
But I also believe him that he won’t hurt me. And I hate myself for that.
The shudders consume my body, and I shake uncontrollably. I’m so cold at the moment.
He stands and walks to the closet. He takes one more blanket, brings it to me, and covers me with it as well.
Slowly, he caresses my hair back and studies my face once again. “Rest, little rose.”
Before he pulls away, I grab his wrist weakly. I can see a mild surprise in his expression. “Stay for a while,” I murmur.
I have no idea why I ask. Maybe it’s the fact that he takes care of me in ways that no one else has.
He pays attention to my suffering, and he doesn’t close the door and let me deal with it alone like my parents used to do.
He is there, trying, noticing, all in his own twisted way.
And I can’t deny that it makes me feel good.
No matter how sick this makes me, it’s the truth.
Carefully, he slides under the blanket, sits right next to me, and extends his arm so I can slip into his embrace. I’m in such need of comfort at the moment that I simply obey, crawl into his arms, and rest my cheek on his chest.
His strong arm circles around my shoulder, making me feel tiny in his embrace. I feel awkward. Of course, I do. I just asked my cruel, killer captor to hug me, and he did it.
And he did it tenderly.
The way it should be done.
The way I never expected him to do it.
The way I needed it.
I don’t allow my hands to touch him—that would be too much. Too much intimacy with a killer that has kidnapped me.
He doesn’t speak; he seems calm and indifferent, but his heartbeat tells a different story. It’s pounding under his chest, as if he feels awkward as well.
Is he capable of feeling awkward?
“Did you really kill that man you were talking about the other day?” I ask, praying he’ll say something to make him redeem himself in my eyes. Wishing he’d try to justify himself, saying that he only threatened to kill him in the heat of the moment.
But instead, he says one word.
“Yes.”
My heart jumps.
“Why?”
“Because he tried to harm me. He tried to kill me.”
And then, my mind keeps revolving around one question. One question that has been bugging my mind for many days now.
“Why did you kill your brother?”
I can feel his heartbeat quickening and his body temperature increasing under the thin black cotton shirt he’s wearing. His muscles tighten, and he’s pulling me closer to him.
“Because he was a monster,” he explains, his voice low and gruff.
“That’s not enough. Dealing with a monster doesn’t mean you have to become one yourself.”
He scoffs. “I wasn’t born a monster, little rose. He made me one. He killed me. He killed everything good I had inside of me.” He pauses. “And when the time came, I simply returned the favor.”
Strangely, I feel sorry for him. I know he’s telling the truth. He always has, and he has never given me a reason to doubt him about it.
“What did he do to you?”
His body is stiff, and his breathing becomes more forced. “He killed my mother.”