Chapter 9 #2
I’m…wet. Embarrassingly so.
So wet that my panties are fucking soaked. My eyes drift closed, my breath catching as I toy with my nipple and push two fingers through my silky wet lips. I moan softly as I roll them over my swollen clit, my hips rocking as I grind against my fingers, thinking of—
Abruptly, like I’ve just had cold water dumped over me, I jerk my hand back out of my shorts.
A harsh, sobering thought slams into me as I smash my hands down onto the bed.
Shoot me now. I was about to start fantasizing about Bane.
And I don’t care how much of a train wreck I am, I’m not that bad.
I exhale harshly, kicking back the covers to slide under them. I tug the duvet up to my chin, my heart still hammering in my chest as I try to slow my breathing.
Get it the fuck together.
I scowl up at the ceiling as my current reality presses down on me.
I’m marrying Bane.
I’m going to be sleeping with him. He’s made that clear.
Guilt slithers through me.
I mean, him being a moody, controlling asshat aside, he was Lark’s fiancé. That he would even want to sleep with me is…fucked.
I make a face in the darkness.
For fuck's sake, Lark and I were more than just friends. We were like sisters.
It's verging on Biblical.
I blow air through my lips and let myself sink back into the sheets. My eyes close and I exhale again, trying to let the pressure of everything melt away.
A sudden crash downstairs rips my eyes wide open. I sit bolt upright in bed, my heart hammering in my chest.
What the fuck was that.
There's a rustling sound, like someone rummaging. My throat tightens, the hairs on the nape of my neck standing straight up as a chill whisks its way down my back. I glance at the side table, looking for my phone, then I remember.
It’s downstairs, on the kitchen table.
I mean, I have my laptop with me, but what am I going to do, email for help?
The sound comes again, footsteps. My head whips to the side, and I tense when my eyes land on the wooden rolling bar leaning in the corner.
I use the smooth, vaguely baseball-bat length cylindrical piece of wood to work out muscle knots.
It’s no gun, but it’s better than nothing.
I slowly and quietly slip my legs out from under the covers and stand. I tiptoe silently over to the rolling bar, wrap my fingers around it, and then brandish it like a club as I turn to the stairs down to the lower level.
More rustling downstairs.
My pulse skips. Adrenaline courses through me like hot mercury.
I take the stairs as quietly as I can, tiptoeing down with the rolling bar raised. I just need to reach my phone—or, if I can’t, I need to make it to the door.
Clammy wetness breaks out across my back. My hands tighten around the smooth length of wood, comforting in my grip, as I reach the ground floor. I turn quietly, heart pounding, eyes stabbing into the darkness.
The man comes out of nowhere.
With a scream, I whirl, yanking the wood back and swinging it as hard as I can toward him. He dodges it, whooshing past me like smoke as I spin. He charges again, and another bloodcurdling scream erupts from my throat as I take aim again at his head, as hard as I fucking can.
Glass explodes everywhere when the momentum of my home run attempt yanks me off my feet and I go slamming into the upended side table, toppling over it.
I crash to the ground, crying out in pain when my hand hits shards of broken lamp.
I whirl, heedless of the blood, a yell on my lips, brandishing the wood again.
The carriage house is still, and utterly quiet.
There’s no attacker.
No intruder.
No threat.
My pulse is still racing as I get up off the crunchy, glass-strewn floor. I bolt over to the wall and throw on every light switch I can reach.
There’s nothing and nobody here.
I swallow shakily, my eyes scanning the space. Quickly, I go to the front door.
It’s locked. From the inside.
The back door is the same, and none of the windows is smashed in. I already know the answer, but I check upstairs too, anyway—hoping I’ll find a broken window, or a hole in the ceiling. Anything to prove that I’m not crazy.
But of course, I find zero signs of forced entry.
Quietly, my pulse back to normal, I clean and bandage the small cuts on my hand. I vacuum up the shards from the lamp I murdered and pull the side table back onto four legs before sliding it back into place next to the couch.
The addict in me screams for something to take all this away. But I know now that not even heroin can get rid of the thing that’s in me.
The broken thing. The tangled, easily confused thing.
Which is just a kinder way of reminding myself that I’m fucking crazy.
Like, actually.
They tell me that I’ve been on my array of daily psych meds since I was a kid. But I know the doses all increased after my ordeal.
Most of the time, they help.
Sometimes—like tonight—they don’t.
There was no intruder. No attacker. No danger.
The only enemy here is me.
I smile wryly as I shut all the lights off and head back upstairs. In my bathroom, I open the medicine cabinet and let my eyes run over the familiar lineup inside.
Lithium, for my bipolar disorder. Risperidone, a mood stabilizer. Zoloft, an antidepressant. Lorazepam to counter panic attacks, or to help with sleep. Lexapro and Buspirone for anxiety.
I end up taking a lorazepam and twenty milligrams of melatonin so I can conk out. Then I crawl back into bed.
Sullen. Subdued. Quiet.
Joke's on you, motherfucker, I think to myself, picturing Bane’s obnoxiously attractive face. You have no idea what kind of crazy you just chained yourself to.