19. Annalise
19
ANNALISE
I haven’t woken up feeling this good ever in my life, but the warmth I felt around my body made me want to not stand up from the bed.
I opened my eyes and felt how I was pulled closer to a naked body that covered me completely. The feelings I felt surprised me, because I didn’t think I needed to sleep in someone’s arms until now.
His arms made everything bad go away from me and replaced all the darkness with the light I needed.
I turned around in his arms in order to look at him, and the moment I managed to do it, I trembled when I realized that he was already looking at me.
“You’re already awake,” I said, and he gave me the most dazzling sleepy smile he had.
“Yes, I was already awake, but not for long,” he quickly replied.
I knew he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt, but I couldn’t find the courage to look at his body. I could only look him in the eyes, yet I somehow saw his muscles tensing as he pulled me closer to him.
“How did you sleep?” he asked, brushing my face with his long fingers.
“I slept very well. It felt good to not have anything in my mind for a couple of hours,” I answered and my lips curved up into a soft smile.
Even though we might’ve slept more than seven hours, I didn’t feel as rested as I would’ve liked to. Perhaps that was because of the chaos that came for us.
“How about you? I asked briefly and snuggled into his arms.
As I had his arms wrapped around me, I felt safe, and I knew I didn’t want to ever leave them.
“I haven’t slept so well in such a long time that I’m surprised how well I’m actually feeling right now.”
I supposed he slept well because he slept with me in his arms.
I wouldn’t have known if this was the reason, but I was just going to assume it. I didn’t know what changed for him, but he wasn’t the same Maksen I was used to. I still didn’t understand how he could be so soft with me, when his job was to murder people.
“I’m hungry,” I said briefly as I heard my stomach making some strong announcements.
“I am too. Let’s see if we can find something to eat in this house,” he replied, placing a gentle kiss on my forehead.
Every time I felt his lips on mine, I felt like my wings grew strong enough for me to fly. I didn’t know how to explain what he made me feel, but the way my body reacted proved to me more than what I could describe with simple words.
We got up from the sofa, and as my feet touched the cold wooden floor, I felt shivers going down my spine. The fire went out, and the temperature in the cabin became lower than it was when we fell asleep. At least we had those cozy blankets to cover ourselves with, even though Maksen seemed to not be bothered about the cold as he slept shirtless.
I stretched my body and whined when the sound of my bones cracking filled the room. I completely relaxed after I felt my body loosen up.
Maksen headed to the kitchen, and I remained behind to put my hair up in a ponytail. I really needed a long bath, with lots of soap bubbles and facial masks. I was sure that my entire face was swollen from how much I cried in the last two days, and I didn’t like my appearance.
I made my way to the kitchen only to find Maksen searching in the cabinets and sighing angrily whenever he found empty shelves. I started pulling the drawers, and apart from a few old and rusty forks and knives, I found little ants and dead cockroaches.
“Gross,” I mumbled.
“Guess we don’t have anything to eat.”
“Great. We were so clever when we left we forgot to ask for some food to take with us,” I replied and sat on one of the chairs around the table.
“Well, we do have water though.”
“Who knows from where that water might come. I won’t risk anything,” I quickly replied as I let my head rest on my palms.
Maksen sat in front of me and ran his fingers through his messy hair strands, then rubbed his face with his palms and eyed me.
The entire cabin was drowned in a faded light that made me think the weather outside wasn’t sunny. It was fall, and even though it was cold, I liked it. The beautiful colored trees, the wind blowing around our bodies, and the smell of rain hugging our lungs made me love this season.
The weather was just like I was right now. Gray colored, chilly, and full of dark thoughts I couldn’t ignore. Even though I felt good being with Maksen, I was expecting the moment when my mind would come for my sanity.
My uncle. No, the stranger who abused me.
My father. No, the man who tried to take my father’s place and create a real-sized cage for me.
My sister. Well, the girl who I thought was my sister and who made my life a living hell, but also the girl whom I cared about despite everything she did to me.
Olivia and Lydia, were the two women around whom I felt like a little girl who finally found her mother.
And they all lied to me, without thinking about how I would feel if I had found out the truth.
The only thing I can think about is that my father might have known that Sylvian was abusing me because that’s the only way he could’ve justified why he forbade me to go to their house. But did he know something about Maksen too considering that he didn’t let him go there either?
I needed to talk to him, even though I didn’t really want to see him now. He was one of the people who could’ve given me some answers.
But the person I would’ve loved to receive some answers from was my uncle.
I was scared of him, afraid of what he might do to me again, but I needed to ask him some questions just to come to peace with myself. I needed to see him, to confront him, and to give the little girl inside me what she deserved.
“You don’t have to zone out when you’re with me, Anna.” Maksen’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts and made me look at him. “Tell me whatever is going through your mind and we’ll figure it out. You’re not alone.”
“I’m afraid that if I tell you what’s in my mind, you won’t accept it and you’ll judge me.”
He frowned and narrowed his eyes, and then he stood up from the chair, towering over me when he came closer.
“Think of me as you think of yourself. Would you judge yourself for what you have in your mind now?”
I looked at him, and his words made a lot of sense. He really did know how to manipulate people and make them see the side of the story that was also in his favor. But right now, he didn’t manipulate me, he just opened my eyes.
“No, I wouldn’t judge myself, but I know the real reason behind what I have in my mind.”
“I would know it too if you’d tell me,” he quickly replied, letting his glance fall on my lips.
Did he want to kiss me again? Because if he did, I wouldn’t have refused it.
“I want to talk with my uncle. No, correction, I want to talk to Sylvian,” I finally said and I saw how his facial expression changed instantly.
He clenched his jaw while he gripped the edge of the table into his palm and I was sure that if he was going to squeeze it more, he was going to break it considering how old the wood was. He remained silent, but his eyes told me more than he was able to say.
“You said you wouldn’t judge me.”
“I’m not judging you, Annalise, I’m thinking of a way I could provide that to you, without having the urge to kill Sylvian the moment he comes to talk to you.”
Oh.
“I want to do it for little Annalise, you know? I want to ask him some questions, I want to confront him, I want to see the monster who could’ve done such a thing to a child,” I explained, and his jaw tensed even more.
I could see that he was angry, not at me, but angry at the entire situation. I knew very well that he wanted to kill Sylvian with no second thoughts considering that’s what he did better than everyone. But now that I told him that I practically need him alive, he’s reconsidering his ideas.
“Okay,” he finally said, and I was confused about how briefly he answered.
“Okay? So you’re fine with it?”
“I didn’t say that I’m fine with it, but I accept and respect your wish,” he answered and finally looked at me, his dark eyes pinning me and making me understand that he was a little unstable at that moment. “Only with one condition.”
I was expecting that answer. I nodded, moving a little on the chair and the moment I touched Maksen’s leg with my knee, he shuddered and almost grabbed me with anger.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Let’s go outside and see if we can find some fruit trees or something we can eat.”
That was strange. He walked away from me in no more than two seconds and I had to jump down from the chair and follow him quietly.
Did the wound my father made on his leg still hurt? Maybe.
We left the house and the chilly wind grabbed a hold of me. Maksen’s broad and muscular back was the only thing I could look at as I was walking behind him. It was tensing with each step he took, making me feel tingles all over my body.
I looked at the driver that was sitting in the car and wondered how he was feeling. I was sure that he was as hungry as we were and I felt bad for a second.
As we entered the woods, my attention was driven to a huge wooden door hidden by a small metallic building.
“What’s that? Is it a basement?” I asked and Maksen turned on his feet, looking right at me.
“Where?”
“Look,” I replied, pointing my finger to the spot I wanted him to look at. “Maybe it’s the basement. As far as I know, people keep cans and drinks in their basement, so maybe we’ll be lucky to find something.”
He followed me as I moved my feet towards it. When I reached the door, I tried to pull the doorknob, but without any success because it was locked. Maksen pulled it too, but mumbled something indecipherable when he couldn’t get in either.
“Get away from here.”
I frowned and stepped back, giving him enough space to do what he had in mind. Little did I know that he was literally going to kick down the door.
After it fell on the ground, he turned to me with a sly grin on his face that made my lips curve up into a smile.
“Good job, assassin,” I said, and his eyes became darker.
Maybe there were things or situations that were triggering him so badly that he didn’t even realize how his face or his eyes were changing. Without saying anything more, he stepped inside and I saw how he pressed the light switch on the wall.
“Perfectly fine that the light works in the basement, but not in the bathroom,” he said, letting a giggle come out of his mouth.
I could’ve listened to his giggles forever, but he didn’t do it too often, so I was enjoying every second of the moments he did.
We walked down the stairs and the smell of mold and humidity bumped into my senses, making me squint.
Once we stepped down from the last stair, I raised my glance up and saw lots of metallic shelves with cans, boxes, and lots of empty bottles of rum.
“Guess someone loved to get wasted with rum,” Maksen said as he approached one of the shelves.
“Look! There are cans of food,” I said, making a step towards one of the shelves.
I got up on my tiptoes to get the cans, and the moment I pulled the box they were put in, I accidentally pulled the box next to it too, making both fall on the ground.
“Oh, God!” I exclaimed and placed the box of cans back on the shelves so I could tidy the place up.
The moment I bent down to collect the things that fell out of the box, my blood froze in my veins and I felt like I was going to fall. I let myself fall on my knees as my hands started trembling with the old albums that I now had between my fingers.
“What are those?” Maksen asked as he came closer to me.
With each photo I turned, the fear gripped me even more, and my heart was beating at such an alert rate that I thought it would soon come out of my chest.
There were pictures with me and Sylvian.
Sylvian and the same head of the deer that was in the living room of the cabin, and the last picture was the one that made my mind connect everything.
It was a picture with Maksen and Sylvian, and he was holding him with his right hand that was covered by a tattoo with a bird caught in flames. The same tattoo the man in Maksen’s nightmares had.
“H—He is the man from my nightmares,” he said as he took the album out of my hands and analyzed him closely.
“Maksen, you have to…”
But he didn’t let me continue, because he ripped the entire album and threw it on the ground. The speed with which he left the basement shocked me, I hadn’t realized until I was left alone.
I inhaled deeply as I started jumping up the stairs in order to catch Maksen from behind, but the moment I came out of the basement, there was no trace of him.
I knew what he was going through, because I was there yesterday, and I knew he needed to process it alone.
Before I opened the door to enter the house, I heard a loud howl of pain coming from inside of it.
I hurried to enter as the fear gripped me even harder between its indestructible chains. The moment I moved my feet to the source of the howls, my heart stopped beating as I saw Maksen cutting himself with one of the rusty knives I saw earlier in the drawer.
“Maksen! Fuck!” I yelled, rushing to him before he would’ve put the knife deeper into his leg.
But the moment I put my hand on his, I felt how he pushed the knife even deeper into his flesh, and the tears burst out from my face. I could feel his pain and I tried so hard to pull it out that he burst out crying when I managed to do it and dropped the knife on the floor.
The blood was running down his leg, and it formed a pool of blood around his shoe. I was agitated, and scared.
I didn’t know whether to wrap my hands around his leg to stop the bleeding or to call for help. Each of the alternatives would’ve been better than me just gazing helplessly at him.
He had dried tears on his face, his jaw was so clenched it almost made me think that he was going to break his teeth, and his face wasn’t drowned in pain as I was expecting, but it was covered by a darkness I couldn’t explain.
I took off my hoodie and leaned down, putting it around his wounded leg tight enough so the blood would stop flowing. I knew I was just in my bra now, but fuck it. I didn’t care about that because all I wanted was for him to be okay.
I looked at him, and I noticed that he was avoiding my eyes. I didn’t care that he didn't want to look at me. He had to.
“Maksen. Look. At. Me.”
Each word that came out of my mouth became an order he had to obey, yet he didn’t.
I needed to do something more. I took a step towards him and put my hands on each side of his face, making him look at me, and the moment he accepted it, the glistening of numbness mirroring in his irises sent shivers down my spine.
“That’s why you trembled when I accidentally touched your leg?”
He didn’t say anything, but he stood still in the same place, looking at me and not giving me any sign of the emotion that he was feeling at that moment.
“Are you cutting yourself every time something happens?” I whispered, this time with more caution than ever.
This time he startled and put his hand on mine, letting his head rest on my palm.
He closed his eyes, and I was slowly disappearing into the void just to look for him and bring him back. A round, colorless tear rolled down his cheek, and I caught it with a brush of my finger.
“Maksen, please, talk to me,” I whispered close to his face, trying to ignore the fact that I stepped into his blood by getting closer to him.
“He did it. He was the man from my nightmares,” he replied slowly, as if he had an enormous weight put on his chest.
“I—I know, and I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
“You should be sorry that we both had to go through that. Neither of us deserved any of the things that happened.”
He opened his eyes and the moment he put his hands on my face, I knew he was going to kiss me, so I lifted my chin and the next moment, all I knew was how salty his tears were.
He pressed his lips on mine, and I felt how much he needed to feel me in that moment. But I woke up to reality when I felt my jeans getting wet when I pressed my body onto his as his blood was still running.
I was soaked in his blood.
“I need to take care of your wounds. We need to go back to Lydia’s house because I don’t have anything to bandage you with,” I whispered over his lips and he sighed deeply.
“I’m sorry that you had to see this. It keeps me sane every time I feel like everything is falling apart.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I replied quickly and brushed my thumb over his lower lip. “If we don’t get to see each other’s demons, then who would we even want to see them?”
He gave me a soft smile, then put his hand on my waist and pulled me closer. I felt the warmth of his body hugging me tightly as he buried his face in my hair.
“We should go. If you lose more blood than you already had, you won’t be here to protect me as you want,” I said, making him exhale deeply.
We looked at each other once again, then I took his hand in mine and we left the house.
If I thought my demons were bad, then I hadn’t met Maksen’s yet.