22. Elyse
CHAPTER 22
ELYSE
I t's hours later when Sebastian finds me sitting in the media room, the TV playing some kind of infomercial. I don’t know what it is...I’m not even watching it. I couldn’t focus on a television show if my life counted on it right now.
"You okay?" he asks, as enters the room.
I jump at the sound of his voice and then give him a smile. "Yeah, fine. Still anxious but there's nothing I can do about that. I’ll be anxious until we see this through."
He approaches, crouches in front of the oversized leather chair I’m curled up in, and tips my chin up. "Good thing I’ve got something to distract you."
"Oh do you? What’s that?” I don’t even bother curtailing the grin blooming at the idea.
He narrows his eyes and smiles back. "Not that you dirty girl, but I'll remember that for later. Go put on some warm clothes, your coat, and all the layers. We'll be outside for a bit, and I don’t want your toes to freeze off.”
"Okay, I’m officially surprised. Give me a hint."
He stands and smoothes out his pants. "Nope, just get ready. I'll bring the car around."
I bounce out of the chair and then the door, shaking my legs as I walk since my feet fell asleep at some point. In under ten minutes, we’re in the car, the heat on full blast to warm us. Sebastian even flicked on the heated leather seats to ensure I stay warm before we go out in the cold again.
He drives out of the edge of town and I’m staring out the window, scanning the light dusting of frost and snow on the last of the fall leaves. "You going to tell me where we are going?"
He doesn’t say anything but turns off on a dirt road.
"Is this the part where you murder me?" I ask, laughing at the absurd idea. He might fuck me, chase me, or use me, but he’d never hurt me.
There are lights up ahead but I can’t make it out through the slight frost on the window and the darkness surrounding the lit up area.
I keep my eyes locked on the display out the windshield, the sunset behind the surrounding forest finally highlighting a small winter carnival set up in a clearing. "What...is this?"
"I remember you mentioning that you'd never been to a carnival before, after you missed the school's fall carnival last year. So I decided to bring one to you."
I blink, tears already building, along with the ache in my chest. “Are you serious? You did all of this for me?"
He cups the back of my neck and draws me into a soft kiss. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for you. The sooner you realize that the easier our lives together will be."
I don’t bother arguing with him and turn to get out of the car. He joins me, and without saying a single word he lets me stand there staring. Once ready we walk towards the carnival. As we approach, I can’t help but smile wider the closer we get. There's a small game section with one attendant lounging on a fold out chair.
"Let me know if you want to play," he calls out.
Sebastian nods and keeps pace with me as I take it all in. There are a few rides, a ferris wheel, a tea cup ride, a spinning ride, and a few more things like a french fry truck and a cotton candy stall.
There's a few attendants near the rides but I don't pay much attention, not with Sebastian staring at me like that.
I point at the small stall with funnel cake. "Oh, I want that. But I didn't bring any cash with me..."
He extends his arm and I smile again as I slide my own arm through his to the elbow. "That's okay. I've already paid for everything. They'll give us whatever we want."
It only takes a minute for the attendant to hand me a hot funnel cake on a paper plate covered in a cloud of powdered sugar. I eat it until I can’t possibly have another bite, fold the rest into the plate, then toss it in the trash. Once I swallow the last piece, he leans down and kisses me, delving his tongue deep to catch the taste of the sugar.
My face is warm when he pulls away.
I clear my throat, needing a minute to settle after a kiss like that but he’s got plans apparently. “What now?” He asks.
There are so many choices I’m not sure. "Can we look around a bit?"
He nods and leads me to the edge of the carnival. We walk a little loop, and I try to take it all in, to see everything. My chest is tight, and I can’t even think around the knowledge that he did this for me. For me. As we walk, I pat my belly. "I'm going to need to work off all that fried deliciousness."
"If you need help with that, let me know."
I swat at Seb’s arm but smile. As long as he’s not planning to do it here in the cold, I’m down. “This is really beautiful, you know? I never thought I’d get to go to one of these. And here you bought out the whole thing just for me.” Tears coat my eyes and I blink them back, if only to keep from getting snotty when I try to kiss him later.
He leads me over to a small booth with a glass bottles set on a low shelf. The attendant in ratty jeans and a puffy vest slides a basket of balls toward Sebastian. “Knock em down, rack em up, win a prize for the little lady!” His voice carries through the mostly silent carnival.
I’m already grinning when Sebastian holds a ball out toward me. “You want to go?”
“No. I’m good. I’ll just watch.”
“You deserve things like this Ely,” he says, as he tucks some of my hair under my hat again. “You deserve everything you want and I’ve made it my personal mission to ensure you get it. Now, let me dominate this game for you.”
He waves the ball up at the prizes hanging from the ceiling. “Technically, I think I own all of these but...how about I win you one.”
I eye the overstuffed bears, miniature whale plushies, and a variety of small animals hanging from a net above the game. A stuffed dog catches my eye...brown like... I point at it. “That one.”
Sebastian turns to the game, throws the ball and knocks the glasses off in one swoop, one of them bouncing off the backboard with a loud crack.
The crack blends, morphs, and I clutch my head between my hands, pain ricocheting off my skull.
My vision blurs, and I’m pulled back in time.
Sebastian stands over me, I’m laying on the shiny tile of the foyer, and staring up at him through swollen eyelids. There’s a crack, and the small flash of a muzzle from a handgun catches my eye.
Sebastian shot me. He shot me.
I blink back to the present, my mind and body reeling as I try to assimilate this new piece of information, memory. He shot me.
I shove away from him as he turns, saying, "Ely, what is it...” He trails off.
I can’t breathe.
The air is too thin, too cold, and I suck it down, trying to get a full breath into my lungs. "Sebastian..."
Turning to face me, he cups my cheek. His gloved hand is warm against my skin. "Talk to me. What is it? What's wrong?"
All this time. The memories. They all pointed towards him.
Tears fill my eyes and over run to pour down my face. "Oh my god. Oh my god. I...I remember."
This man who has given me so much, and taken so much, too...tried to kill me.
He looks scared, and maybe he should be. "What, Ely, what is it?" I don’t say anything. I can’t. I can barely manage to breathe. Noticing this his fear climbs and he gives me a little shake. "Tell me, what’s wrong?”
I can barely form the words, let them out, make them true. "You...you...shot me."
Bile rises up in my throat, my body goes rigid, and I can’t believe this. The man I’m now tied to forever tried to kill me. What does this mean? I shake my head. I need to go. Get out of here...away from him. His hands tremble when they tighten around my biceps.
Slowly he lowers one hand and reaches into his coat, and my heart damn near implodes in my chest, when I see him pulling out a gun.
Where did he get that and why did he bring it here tonight?
Panic threatens to engulf me as I beg him with my eyes and shake my head. "Sebastian...?"
He can’t mean to use that on me right? I mean...I can sort of see it before we met, but now, after everything we’ve been through together? He wouldn’t kill me.
He grabs my hand, tosses my glove away, and folds my warm fingers around the grip of the handgun. I try to resist. Tugging my hand back, trying to pull away but there’s no escaping Sebastian.
No. I don’t want this thing.
I shake my head as I stare down at the weapon with wide eyes.
Gently, he moves my thumb to a little switch on the side and helps me flick it. "That is the safety, just click it to move it on and off. But it has to be off for the gun to fire." Then he shifts my index finger to the trigger. "All you do to fire is squeeze here, squeeze, don't pull."
The gun shakes in my hand, in our hands. I don’t understand what is happening right now. He adjusts my arm and presses the muzzle right into his chest over his heart. "Keep the gun trained here. If you feel the need to pull the trigger once I tell you the truth, then I want you to do it.”
All I can do is shake my head. He’s insane.
"No...I..." Quickly, I glance around, looking for a way out of this.
A place to escape. But there’s nothing but carnival lights, macabre with their jolly tunes taunting me.
"Listen to me… I shot you, Ely. I shot you that night because my grandfather made me. Once he showed me the contract all I could think is that I couldn’t live in that house while he...used you...probably raped you and see it happening. He told me if I thought you'd be better off dead then I needed to do it myself. So I did. In my mind, death would be a better option for you. It shouldn’t have been my choice to make and I understand that, but I couldn’t… "
Tears blur my eyes, and I blink them away as I study his face, trying to process what he’s confessing to me. "But…you didn’t kill me. You…missed?”
He nods. "Yes, I missed. I don't know now if it was my subconscious or what? Afterwards I thought you were dead. There was so much blood and you were already pretty beat up from your father and Yanov. With the thought that I had killed you, I walked back into that room and killed my grandfather.”
I blink once, and shake my head. What the hell is he saying right now? He shot me then killed his grandfather to avenge what he thought was my death? "You killed your grandfather for me?"
"When I told you I did it to protect you I wasn't lying. I was also trying to protect myself. He wanted someone to use, to force into things, to submit to him. He wasn't going to stop at you, he was going to find someone else when you were gone and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stomach it. I took out one more asshole intent on taking what doesn't belong to them. I guess...in that moment...he reminded me too much of what happened to me because of Tanya." He closes his eyes and slowly breathes in and out through his nose like he’s trying to settle himself. "There was no way I could leave you to the same fate. And when I realized my mistake, when the doctor told me you were alive…guilt consumed me. I had to fix my mistake, I had to make sure you survived and had the chance to succeed.”
Anger, bile, rage, all of it surges up, forcing its way out. "You were such an asshole to me though!” I scream at him.
"I know, and to be honest, I’m always an asshole, but with you it was different. I had to be, because the moment you opened your eyes and looked at me, seeing right fucking through me, I knew you’d be my damnation. I wanted you to be mine. On every level. And I refused to be like Tanya, or my grandfather."
We stare at each other, his hand wrapped around the top of the gun, mine trembling. Even as angry and confused as I am, I keep my finger off to the side of the trigger so I don’t accidentally do something stupid.
"That's it,” he whispers.
"That's it?" I echo. Slowly, I lower the gun, and he doesn’t stop me.
When I turn, he snatches me hard around the middle and pulls me into his chest. "No, we promised each other. No more running. For sickness and health, through the good and the bad. All of it."
I shudder against him and drop the gun to the ground.
"Why did you do this to me? How could you? Just shoot me? Like I’m no one, not even a human being. How long did you leave me to lay there, dying?”
He clutches me tighter. "I don’t know. Honestly. I was sick to my stomach. I never said it out loud, but I would’ve ended my own life if you had died that night. The only reason why I didn't is because I owed you. I owed you the chance at a life. Free of your father.”
I drop my face into my hands, and his confession wraps around me.
Months of not knowing what happened pour out of me in gut wrenching sobs. He gathers me into his arms, and I don’t have the strength to resist, not when I can barely breathe around the tears. I want to hate him. I want to hurt him. But that won’t change what’s already happened.
We can’t change the past, but we can change the future.
Gently, he climbs into the backseat of his car, and settles me onto his lap. I stare out the window and make a sound.
“Shhh...it’s okay. This is for some privacy while we talk. It will still be there when we get this settled.” He shifts me onto his lap at a better angle.
“How is this okay? How will it ever be okay again?” Wait. All this time he’s kept this secret. What else has he kept secret from me? “What else have you been hiding? I want it all. Everything, no more secrets. I’m so tired of fucking secrets”
He cups my cheeks, and I can hear the heavy gulp he makes. Shit this is going to be bad, too.
His voice shakes as he answers. "When I brought you back from Yanov I gave you a fertility drug."
I freeze, processing, trying to remember that hazy time between the killing and recovery. It’s hard with all the painkillers they gave me. "You did what?"
He clasps my hands as I raise them to strike out. At what, I don’t know but I’ve reached my limit right now.
"I want a family with you. I want to look at your daughter and see your eyes and your pride and your love. I want a happy home, for both of us, so...I'll make one for us."
I tug one hand out of his crushing grip and press it low on her belly. "I could be pregnant right now. You didn't think it might be bad if my father got ahold of me again?" I would fucking die before I let him take a child of mine and do the same thing to them.
No, I’d kill him first.
He shrugs. "I won’t lie to you. I was being selfish. I was hoping you'd get pregnant and it would be further proof of our commitment to each other, for the world. So no one could doubt we're together. That you belong to me."
I let out a long shaky sigh. "Is that it? Any other big zingers you want to spring on me?”
He nods, "Oh, well...there's one more thing."
This time I glare, and swipe at my cheeks, wiping off the cold tears. "What? What else could you possibly be keeping from me? And by the way, after you tell me I’m going to fucking need that gun back."
He smiles like I’ve said something cute. I’ll show him fucking cute.
"I love you. I love you so much I can't even think around it. Everything I do, I do to protect you, to show you how I feel without the words. I love you, Elyse Arturo. So fucking much I'm afraid I'll crack under the pressure of it."
Well. Shit.
That’s not what I expected to hear. “Is that it?”
He nods, tilting to the side, like he’s waiting for my reaction.
I reach up and smack him hard across the cheek. It burns my palm, and I clutch my burning hand with the other. “That’s for trying to fucking kill me.”
It might make me stupid, but his honesty makes me love him more. Cupping his cheeks, I lean into his face and right before I press my lips to his I whisper, “I’m probably a fucking idiot for loving you as much as I do, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”