Prologue #2
The next time Kit checked his watch, more than an hour had passed. That was more concerning than anything else. It also confirmed one thing: he was probably going to die.
Kit had been scared for his life before.
When he was around twelve, he’d fallen foul of a few older kids who’d threatened him with a knife for his meagre lunch money.
Another time, a few years ago, he’d gone to a party up an embankment, drunk far too much vodka, and ended up almost being flattened on the train tracks when he’d staggered the wrong way home.
And then there were the half-dozen occasions where he believed his dad would hit him too hard, or make good on his threats to finish him off with a smashed beer bottle.
Not like Kit would have even been the first kid on the estate to die at a parent’s hands.
On every single one of those occasions, Kit had feared for his life. But none of them compared to now, sitting in the car going fuck-knew-where with this unhinged man who controlled not only Kit’s body, but his mind without even lifting a finger.
The man hummed. Kit risked a glance over at him. One of the man’s sharp—too sharp—canines poked out of his mouth and rested on his plump lower lip. Kit looked away again, out of the window, the lights a blur through his tear-stained eyelashes.
The humming turned to something close to singing, the man making the tune sound both beautiful and haunting all at the same time.
“Do you know this song?” the man asked, breaking off mid-hum and jarring Kit as he contemplated throwing himself out of the moving car.
Kit shook his head, not daring to speak.
“I suppose you wouldn’t. It’s Chopin. Opus nine, number two,” the man added, as if Kit would know the difference.
Still, he resented the implication that classical music lay beyond his knowledge.
Kit was far from cultured, but he wasn’t wilfully uneducated like many of his peers.
Music at his school, however, involved thirty pupils all blowing on recorders, creating a symphony of tuneless toots that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in a nursery school.
“I’ll just have to teach you,” the man continued. “It is such a treat to mould young minds.”
Kit swallowed bile. “Are you going to tell me your name?”
“Lawrence Weston. You should call me Sir, however.”
“Sir?” Kit repeated, incredulous. Sir was for teachers when you were getting told off, for the shopkeepers when you were trying to get away with lifting something, or for the policemen when they came poking around the estate.
Sir was not for strange men who bundled you into cars and drove off like they owned you.
“Yes,” Lawrence said. “Manners are important, Christopher. You should always use the correct honorific when addressing your betters.”
“It’s Kit. Not Christopher.” He didn’t bother arguing about Lawrence being his better. That would be pointless to take issue with, but Kit’s name was important to him.
“I like Christopher better. It’s more traditional.”
“But that’s not my name.”
“Yes, it is.”
Lawrence didn’t seem open to further discussion on the matter, but Kit wasn’t finished. “You can’t just decide what to call me.”
“I think you’ll find, Christopher, that I can do what I like.”
Kit took a ragged breath as he tried to stop himself from retorting. People had tried over the years to temper his biting tongue, but he wasn’t in the habit of letting others control him. “If you’re deciding what I’m going to call you, Sir, then it’s polite to let me decide my own name.”
Lawrence’s gaze was assessing. “Give me your hand.”
Kit’s hand moved as if of its own accord, stretching over to Lawrence in the driver’s seat. Lawrence took hold of his index finger and bent it backwards, the snap of bone shocking in the silence.
Lawrence’s next command had Kit’s scream dying in his throat. “No noise now. I don’t want to deal with hysterics.”
Kit took his hand back, cradling his broken finger to his chest. Even the slightest movement sent spikes of pain up through his arm. Whatever Lawrence was, he’d snapped Kit’s finger as easily as a toothpick.
“I can hear your heart beating rather fast,” Lawrence observed.
Kit decided not to focus on how Lawrence could hear such a thing. “It hurts,” he gritted out.
“I’d imagine so.”
Kit had many things that he wanted to call Lawrence. Instead, he closed his eyes and willed his panic to recede.
They drove for an indeterminate amount of time. Kit’s finger throbbed, and he whimpered as he attempted to move it into its correct position.
Hours later, if the paling sky was anything to judge by, Lawrence pulled up to a large house at the end of a winding country road. “Come,” he said.
Kit made it out of the car on wobbly legs, trembling all over, and not because of the chill in the early-morning air.
He’d been awake for so long that his eyes itched with tiredness, and his stomach gurgled with hunger.
His shoes crunched on the gravel underfoot before Lawrence led him up the stairs to the front door.
Whatever Lawrence was, he had strength far beyond that of a human and took control of Kit’s body like a malevolent puppeteer. His eyes became black, and his teeth were like those of a shark.
Kit knew, deep down, what he thought Lawrence might be.
He just didn’t want to admit it to himself.
He took in the house as they entered. It was similar to an old manor house Kit had once visited on a school trip; dark wood panelling, gaudy gilded paint, and old-style gas lamps placed along the walls.
To Kit’s surprise and unease, Lawrence moved behind him to take his blazer off his shoulders.
Every touch on his body made Kit shiver, as if spiders were crawling across his skin in the wake of Lawrence’s fingers.
Lawrence left Kit in his thin shirt. He put his arms around his waist, hugging himself, but that jostled his broken finger. He gasped as pain shot up his arm.
After a blink, Lawrence was in front of him. “Does it hurt?” He sounded more intrigued than concerned.
“Yes.”
Lawrence cocked his head. “Would you like it not to hurt any longer?”
Kit swallowed. “Yes.”
Lawrence grabbed hold of Kit’s other wrist and pulled him through the house, up the wide staircase, and into a bedroom.
It was grand—all the furniture made of rich cherry wood, the four-poster bed decorated with vivid scarlet drapes, and a patterned rug of knotted textiles in a similar colour on the floor.
Kit felt not only out of place, but out of time.
Now that they were in the light, he studied Lawrence’s impeccable appearance.
He had no wrinkles on his shirt and suit trousers, unlike Kit in his crumpled school uniform.
Lawrence was tall and, though he was slighter than the bodybuilders Kit saw on TV, the way he held himself exuded strength.
He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, but applying such an age felt inaccurate.
Lawrence looked like he could have walked out of one of those old Austen novels, or starred in a golden-era film, or appeared in a black-and-white photograph from times gone by.
And yet, here he was, standing in front of Kit, real and present and dangerous.
Lawrence grasped hold of Kit’s face, nails digging in. He turned his head left and right, inspecting him.
“You’re flawless,” Lawrence said, though it didn’t sound like a compliment.
This was Kit’s chance. If he was going to get out of this, it would have to be now. So, with everything he had, he struck out, his fist connecting with Lawrence’s face. Lawrence hissed, but Kit didn’t wait to see how he reacted.
Kit bolted for the door, but he didn’t make it more than a few steps. Kit’s shoulder threatened to pop right out of its socket as he was yanked backwards.
“And to think I was going to be nice and heal you as a show of good faith,” Lawrence said, tutting.
“Please,” Kit said, begging. Breaking. “Please just let me go.”
Lawrence dragged him towards the bed. Kit dug his feet into the carpet, and when that failed to stop the onward movement, he attacked again.
He kicked at Lawrence, but only found himself in the air, weightless, before landing on the bed.
The soft, luxurious sheets were like the most comfortable of traps.
Lawrence was on top of him before Kit moved a muscle. He’d often wondered what it might be like to feel the weight of a man pressing him down into a mattress, enveloping him. He’d always imagined it to be intoxicating.
This, however, was suffocating.
His school tie cinched tighter than ever around his throat, choking him. Lawrence used it to pull Kit’s head up off the bed as he stared down at him, eyes black, teeth bared.
“Go on, then. Fight me. I’m enjoying it,” Lawrence said.
Rather than obeying, Kit went limp.
Lawrence looked disappointed for a second, but then grinned.
“Fine, have it your way.” He pulled at Kit’s shirt collar, ripping the fabric as he freed Kit’s tie.
Instead of removing it, he kept it around Kit’s neck and tightened the knot so that it pressed against his throat.
The material was cheap and scratchy, and Kit couldn’t pull it free, no matter how desperately he scrabbled at it.
Kit looked down at his own body, helpless, as Lawrence undid the buttons of his shirt one by one, a mockery of care being taken.
He almost wished that Lawrence would just rip them open.
This slow removal of his clothing was much, much worse.
But Kit’s hands were useless against Lawrence, and his focus was on trying to undo the knot that was stealing his air.
Lawrence pushed Kit’s shirt over his shoulders and down his arms, baring his chest. He’d not undone the buttons at the cuffs, so the material trapped his arms underneath him, leaving him exposed.
Lawrence raked a nail—a claw—down Kit’s sternum, his chest heaving as Lawrence moved to circle a nipple. A helpless whimper escaped Kit as Lawrence pinched him.
Lawrence hummed. “Your reactions are delicious.”
Kit closed his eyes, unable to watch any longer.
“Open them, darling,” Lawrence coaxed. The words didn’t have the layer of coercion of some of his other requests. Lawrence wanted Kit to follow the instruction of his own volition, he realised. So, he kept his eyes shut tight.
Lawrence’s nails dug into Kit’s chest, each claw cutting deep. Kit sucked in a sharp breath at the pain. “Open your eyes, or I’ll remove them,” Lawrence said. “If you choose not to look at me, I’ll make sure you never look at anything ever again.”
Kit’s eyes blurred with tears when he obeyed.
“You’re so beautiful when you cry,” Lawrence said, swiping a tear from Kit’s cheek. It was a soft gesture until Lawrence sucked his finger into his mouth, taking his time to savour Kit’s tears mingled with his blood.
Kit blinked as more tears fell from his eyes, unbidden, each one burning hot down his face. He wasn’t beautiful when he cried. He looked like a fucking wreck.
“You’re untouched, aren’t you?” Lawrence said as he gripped Kit’s waist, each finger pressing bruises into his flesh.
Kit gave the smallest of nods. There was no point in lying. Lawrence would make him tell him the truth; Kit had figured that much out already. He just hoped that it might make the monster go easier on him if he told the truth.
“Perfect. You saved yourself for me.”
Not for you, Kit wanted to scream. He almost did. Almost.
But he nodded again instead.
The smile that Lawrence gave him was all teeth. Teeth that were ripping open the skin at Kit’s neck.
He did scream, then.