24. Chapter 24 #2
The breath caught entirely in my throat.
The ambient noise of the bar—the music, the laughter, the clinking glasses—faded into a dull, distant roar.
I stared at the words on the screen, my heart hammering a frantic, terrifying rhythm against my ribs as the realization of just how trapped I truly was began to sink in.
The phone buzzed again, the screen casting a harsh, pale light over my trembling hands.
UNKNOWN: I want to pin you down until you forget your own name. I want to ruin you, to hear you scream my name while I fuck you completely senseless, over and over, until you can't even stand.
My breath caught, a hot, sudden spike of static shooting straight down my spine.
A warmth coiled deep in my stomach, pooling between my thighs in a way that made my head spin.
I shifted uncomfortably against the sticky vinyl booth, my legs pressing tightly together as a desperate, involuntary shiver wrecked my body.
It was sick. It was completely unhinged. I was sitting in a crowded bar, terrifyingly close to a psychological precipice, and yet my body was betraying every single ounce of my sanity.
My thumbs hovered over the keyboard, trembling. I wanted to type stop. I needed to type it. I needed to erect some kind of barrier between his words and the dangerous, feral reaction they were pulling out of me.
ME: Stop.
I hit send, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing a breath down my throat, trying to convince myself that I was horrified.
Before I could even open my eyes, the phone rattled against my palm.
UNKNOWN: Your mouth says stop, sugar-plum... but the way you just squirmed in that seat tells me a completely different story.
A volatile cocktail of panic and sheer, unadulterated fury surged through me, burning away the last of the hazy, warm buzz from the tequila. I stared at the phone, my vision tunneled on the glowing screen. He was watching me somehow.
My fingers slammed against the keyboard, typing the words with enough force to crack the screen.
ME: Fuck off.
The response came back with that same terrifying, lightning-fast speed, the bubbles appearing before my message had even spent a second on the screen.
UNKNOWN: Not a chance. But I would like to fuck you.
I gasped, a sharp intake of air that felt like swallowing glass. Before I could even process the blunt, raw weight of his words, another text popped up right beneath it.
UNKNOWN: I want to sink my teeth into that pretty throat of yours and leave bruised, purple hickeys all over your neck so everyone at Blackthorne knows exactly who you belong to.
The sheer audacity of it struck a match in my chest. My blood roared in my ears, hot and defensive. The twisted, intoxicating thrall he had over me in his cell vanished, replaced by a desperate need to reclaim my own autonomy. I wouldn't be his prey. I wouldn't be his doll.
ME: I don't belong to you. I don't belong to anyone. And stop calling me stupid names.
I stared at the screen, my chest heaving, waiting for the counter-strike. When the text arrived, it wasn't a furious demand or a threat. It was something far worse—a soft, chillingly amused chuckle translated into text.
UNKNOWN: Not yet, Elara. But we both know you're already wearing my collar. You're just waiting for me to pull the leash.
My thumb hovered a hair’s breadth away from the block button, trembling so violently the screen blurred. Do it, my remaining sanity pleaded. Shut it down.
I waited, bracing myself for the immediate, threatening chime of a follow-up text warning me not to. But the phone stayed dead, its pale light reflecting off my frozen face.
No warnings.
No typing bubbles.
A cold realization pierced through my tequila-soaked brain: it was a test. He was giving me the rope, waiting to see if I would hang myself with it. He wanted to see if I had the nerve to disobey him.
I leaned my head against the vinyl booth, my mind spinning in a dizzying, drunken circle. What could he possibly do? a defiant voice whispered. He was locked in a maximum-security prison cell. He was stripped of his clothes, his freedom, his tools.
He was a caged animal.
But then my eyes drifted to the crowd, and the defiance evaporated into pure, unadulterated dread.
The bar was a swirling vortex of nightmares. Monsters, demons, and killers danced under the strobing neon lights. How many of those masks were hiding people who would gladly burn the city down just to hear him laugh? How deep did his chaos run?
My gaze swept across the room, tracking the artificial fog rolling off the dance floor, until it locked onto a shadow near the exit.
Leaning against the wall, completely motionless amidst the chaotic, grinding crowd, was a figure clad entirely in black. And covering their face was a stark, bone-white jester mask.
The painted, exaggerated grin of the mask seemed to mock me from across the distance.
I couldn't see eyes behind the slits, but I could feel them.
A heavy, suffocating weight pressed down on my chest, pinning me to the booth just like he had pinned me to the concrete wall.
A violent wave of goosebumps erupted across my skin, turning the heat of the bar to ice.
My thumb slowly retreated from the screen. I couldn't press it. I didn't dare.
Desperate to break the paralyzing spell, I grabbed the sweating glass of ice water and choked it down, swallowing the freezing liquid in massive, desperate gulps until a sharp, blinding pain slammed into the front of my skull.
I winced, pressing the heels of my hands to my temples as the fierce brain freeze ripped me out of my panic.
"Oof, slow down there, killer!"
Emma’s voice shattered the tension as she slid into the booth opposite me, a triumphant grin on her face. She slammed a sticky plastic tray onto the table, bearing four shot glasses filled with a translucent, menacing liquid.
"I brought reinforcements. Tonight, we do not feel feelings. Tonight, we drink."
I forced a ragged breath into my lungs, nodding numbly as I pulled my hands away from my face. "Yeah. Let's drink."
Before taking the glass, my eyes flew back to the far wall, searching the shadows by the exit. The space was empty. The white jester mask was gone, swallowed up by the crowd.
As if it had never been there at all.