6. Luna
The corner of my mouth stings as I dab it with a cotton bud slick with antiseptic cream. It’s my night off work which automatically makes it the worst night of the week. The bathroom is in darkness around me, only a single tealight candle flickering on the edge of the sink. The orange glow lights up the underside of my chin, hollowing out my cheeks with shadows like a carving, ghoulish and grim.
Blood tinges my taste buds, the sting in my lip the cause of that, and I try not to think about the other pain. The way there’s a type of pressure pushing down inside my pelvis, my lower spine, a sharp ache in my backside that I know will not allow me to sit comfortably for a few more days. There’s numbing cream I can use down there, but the thought of touching it when it hurts so much makes my temples pound with an oncoming headache. And I’m sure he isn’t finished with me yet. It’s why he sent me to clean myself up. There was blood, and my uncle doesn’t like mess.
Placing the cotton bud down on the basin, the space between the hot and cold taps, I stare at it, wondering how long I’ve been, how much longer I can get away with being in here.
Tears build, my face angled down, my gaze locked on the darkened plughole in the sink. I wish I were small enough to fit between the gaps, let the water from the taps wash me away. I don’t know where the pipes would take me, but it would be better than here.
It would be better than here.
“Luna,” Uncle Nolan bellows loudly from the other end of the hall, and just the sound of his voice has my stomach bottoming out.
Sickness rushes up my throat, burning on its ascent, I spin, dropping to my knees, and expelling everything inside of me into the toilet. Sweat beads across my forehead, my hands ice-cold and clammy, palms damp with dread. My arms are curled over the toilet bowl, hands hanging in, I reach up to flush the chain, my fingers numb as they find the handle and pull. When the water finishes spitting, I drop my forehead to my forearm and let my eyes fall closed.
I’m panting for breath, panic a hot dagger in my back, I won’t have long. I need to get it together. I need to remember how to breathe. How to walk without pain penetrating through my coccyx, how to clear my face of expression or emotion. I need to remember how not to cry.
Bile comes up next, my upper spine cramping with pins and needles as I gag and heave some more, spitting into the clean water of the toilet. My knees ache, the bones crunching as I reach up to flush again, turning myself around so I can lean against the wall.
A knock rattles the bathroom door, followed by a short, “Miss Beaumont,” from one of my uncle’s guards.
“I won’t be a moment,” I manage to get out, my voice cracking, a withered broken thing inside of me, somewhere, deep down, that same six year old girl is crying.
It feels like I’m dying when I attempt to stand. Fingers clinging onto the edge of the basin to haul myself up. Trembling knees and shaky breaths get me up just enough to twist the cold tap, cupping a palm beneath it, I gather some water and swish it around my mouth, spitting into the sink.
I catch my reflection in the mirror, my blue eyes haunted, they look so clear they feel like I’m looking at someone else. The violet rings beneath my bloodshot eyes need covering, I can’t be anything but perfect before I go back in there.
It’s the first time I let myself think about the patient at work.
Blackwell.
Wolf Blackwell.
I’m not sure why thoughts of him come to me now. I have thought of his warmth many nights when I’ve been lonely and scared. And I don’t even know why. He never says more than three words to me and they’re always usually grunted and cold. A bit mean.
Him asking me to dinner was because he had a high temperature and is on a ridiculously high dose of intravenous pain medication.
And yet, I wish I could go with him.
Anywhere.
Away from here.
I think of the cupboard, his hot naked skin heating me through my scrubs, his breath on my face, our lips almost brushing.
I thought he was going to kiss me.
I think I would have let him.
Be my first.
He has these pretty eyes like dark honey, yellow-caramel, which remind me of an actual wolf’s. With his tanned, olive complexion and his dark brows. Black hair, strong features and thick black stubble, he’s like a man-wolf, one of those men that can shift under the light of the moon.
I think about him doing just that, fur sprouting, a snout elongating his face, dissolving his strong features into a dripping maw. I think of him bounding through my front door, racing his way up the stairs, and ripping all of my Uncle’s men to shreds. He tears out my uncle’s throat, before he comes for me.
He’s slow and careful when he approaches, his thick, black fur drenched in crimson. But he dips his head, pushing his wet nose into the palm of my hand and nuzzles me. Curls his huge wolf body around me, and neither one of us cares about the blood as we settle together in a dark corner. Then he stays.
With a quivering hand, I reach up, pulling open the mirrored cabinet to retrieve some concealer. I dab it on quickly, patting it in with my fingertips before wiping my hands on the dark hand towel. I try not to think about anything else as I twist the door knob, letting myself back out into the hall.
The wall sconces are lit few and far between, just enough to make it to the end of the corridor without tripping over my own feet. I count ten men between the bathroom and Uncle Nolan’s rooms, and knowing that he could call on any one of them to hold me down, and they would, without question, makes me want to vomit all over again. So I push the thoughts aside, my bare footsteps light against the worn runner carpet, my silken nightdress fluttering around my thighs.
The door opens from the other side as I approach the bedroom, revealing the fire roaring brightly behind the grate, someone must have added new wood. When I step inside, the guard stays where he is, on the inside of the bedroom door, and I sense another on the other side of me as I pause just inside the room.
Uncle Nolan sits before the fire, bare except for a pair of dark coloured boxers covering him. He looks handsome and strong, at ease in the way he elegantly lounges in the leather armchair. All open and carefree. Sated. Like he just had the best sex of his life.
It makes me sick.
“Luna,” he purrs, the sound raking up my spine like a rusty pitchfork. “I thought you had gotten lost,” he tilts his head. “And so early on in our evening too.” He clucks his tongue, a soft shake to his head, he smiles, this loose, warm grin, that makes my insides knot as though they are snared in razor wire.
“I’m sorry, Uncle,” I whisper, my entire body trembling so hard that little loose hairs drift around my face, catching in my lashes.
“No need to be sorry, sweet girl,” he smiles, something carnal. “Come here.”
He opens his arms in demand as opposed to invitation, and my feet start reluctantly dragging me forward. He pulls me carefully down into his lap, manoeuvring my legs over his thighs, tucking me into his chest, my face into the side of his neck. His scent is stomach-churning, because he smells like us, our scents combined together with sweat and blood, too much skin and too many unwanted touches. Tears burn the backs of my eyes, my eyelids hot and clammy as Uncle Nolan slides his hand down my spine, his fingertips grazing over the top of my painful bottom, only the silk of my nightgown between us.
He rests his chin atop my head, his other hand coming around my waist, holding me to him, his hand light on my hip. He doesn’t need to hold me tightly, he knows I won”t try to get away. I haven’t tried to escape him since I was a very small child.
“I do not mean to hurt you,” he starts, as he always does, with the niceness and the fake apologies after he has been particularly aggressive with me, impatient. “Sometimes, sweet girl,” he hums, the vibration like a sonic wave penetrating my skull, “I get so carried away with you, your beauty makes me forget myself. You understand what you do to me, don’t you, Luna.” It’s not a question but I am expected to answer anyway.
“Yes.” I swallow, the feeling like razor blades attacking my throat. “I’m sorry, Uncle Nolan.”
“Mmm, yes, yes you are,” he hums again and my breaths are these short, laboured, painful things. “You know that we are going to have to do more tonight.”
My eyes squeeze closed, fingers curling tight in my lap, “Yes, Uncle Nolan.”
“I don’t like hurting you, Luna,” he tells me again, his words too soft and kind to be real. “It’s why I’ve left you untouched here,” he says, just barely grazing his fingertips over my mound, reminding me of my virginity, like a scythe swinging just atop my head. “Pure. I’m not trying to ruin you completely, I love you, sweet girl.”
Completely.
Sickness churns inside of me, every part of my body feeling like it isn’t mine.
I’m not sure it really is anyway.
Ever has been.
Ever since I arrived here, my body has been just for him.
To use.
So when he’s using his grip on my waist to lift my hips, his fingers of the other hand sweeping beneath the silk fabric, tugging it up around my waist. He settles my naked bottom back down onto his thigh, and slides a thick, dry finger slowly down my crack.
I flinch, even though I try so hard not to, and his descent stops, his fingertip curling in between my cheeks, but it doesn’t go anywhere, he’s not moved low enough yet.
“Do I sense reluctance?” he breathes the question, his hand sliding from my waist to cup the underside of my chin, his thumb and fingers clasping my jaw in a painful grip, jerking my head up. “Do we need assistance now?”
I think of the men by the door, more out in the hall, the way they’ve seen everything and do nothing about what happens to me here. I get it. It isn’t their problem. They won’t get involved. They need their pay checks.
But that’s the problem with the world, we watch these terrible things happen all around us everyday and never interfere because we don’t want the bad thing happening to transfer onto us.
Fear is a wonderful ruler.
“No, sir,” I whisper through pinched lips where he cranes my head so far back it squashes my face. “I’ll behave.”
His grip loosens, his hold relaxing somewhat on my face, allowing my chin to drop down a little. His green eyes soften, as though my words touch his heart. But they don’t. That organ of his is charred to ash, incinerated. There is nothing left inside this evil man but rot.
He hums again, releasing my jaw completely to cup my cheek, smoothing his thumb beneath my eye. I stiffen at the touch, his gaze dropping to where the digit sweeps and I pray the dancing shadows in the room are enough to hide my likely poor concealer job. As it is, he must see nothing that displeases him because he smiles at me, and on anyone else, it would be attractive.
Holding my gaze, his hand still cupping my cheek, the finger of his other hand restarts its descent. A sharp breath daggers my lungs, the scent of his usual brand of cigars getting trapped in my nose as the tip of his finger circles my swollen back hole, his hand rough between my cheeks. He watches my face so intently, I daren’t breathe too hard in case the tears start to fall. It takes everything I have left not to wince when he pushes his finger inside, immediately forcing it deep, shoving through the tight, painful ring of abused muscle.
The groan that rumbles in his chest, the grit of his teeth as he fucks his finger into me, adding a second far too quickly to stretch me out once more, is animal. He is feral as he grunts, his other hand dropping to my hip to thrust the dry, rough digits into me so hard my teeth rattle. I stare at his eyebrows unseeingly, so he thinks I’m giving him my full attention.
A scream gets trapped in my throat when he tears his fingers out of me brutally, leaving me empty and sore, but at the relief, I sag into his chest, my fingers curling tight beneath my chin, because I want to be held. I want to be comforted. I want someone to look after me because they love me, not because they hurt me.
But he’s all I have.
Uncle Nolan coughs, a strange, empty throat clearing, that has his chest shaking as he swallows, “I thought I told you to clean up,” he says coldly.
My eyes snap open, the smattering of coarse chest hair suddenly feels rough against my cheek, and my heart drums so hard in my chest, I feel like I’m going to faint.
Licking my dry lips, I whisper, “I did, sir.” And it’s the truth.
Panic is like a living, breathing thing inside of me, I don’t even know what he’s referring to right now, and the unknown is far worse. He grabs my upper arm, yanking me to my feet as he pushes to stand, and I cry out, unable to keep the sound from escaping. Uncle Nolan shakes me, his grip on my bicep punishing, but it’s his other hand that has my attention.
Dark red blood covers his index and middle finger, the deep, almost black coloured liquid slides down the back of his hand, curling around the dip between his forefinger and thumb. My eyes are wide as I feel wet warmth dribble down the backs of my thighs, but I don’t look, too afraid, too nervous to realise this could be real damage.
And I won’t get help for it.
I could be left here to die.
I almost want it.
That doesn’t look anything like it has before.
Uncle Nolan shakes me again, before releasing me abruptly with a hard shove. My arms flail, feet scrabbling, and I hit the floor hard, my back crashing into the grate covering the fire. Instantly, the heat singes me, the metal burning through my silk nightdress. I throw myself forward on instinct, trying to get away from the fire, but my arm shakes so hard when I land on my palm that my elbow gives out and I go crashing to the floor.
My chin hits the hardwood, clacking my teeth together, pooling blood on my tongue. Stars shoot across my vision, and I don’t try to get up again. Body tired and aching, goosebumps prick my skin, a cold wash comes over me like a blanket made of ice drifting down to cover me, chilling me to the bone like death.
Through blurry vision, I see yellow-caramel eyes and it’s the last thing I see before everything goes black.