Chapter 26
Elowen
Three days have passed in this prison.
The front door is always locked. I can roam around this house, which doesn’t take more than a minute to cover, yes, I’ve counted.
What else can I do besides stupid things like that?
I have a Kindle as my source of entertainment, for which I suppose I should be thankful. There could have been nothing at all.
I lower the Kindle, set it on the bed, and look at the monster on the couch. It’s already past midnight. He looks like he’s sleeping, his forehead resting on his knuckles, his elbow propped on the armrest of the single-seater couch.
That’s where he stays the whole day and night, right in front of my face. The only times he leaves are for bathing, using the toilet, cooking, and working out. I stay in bed the whole day, leaving even less than he does.
I can see myself losing my mind completely in the very near future. I know what I’ll do when that happens: I’ll kill him. I’ve been having many ideas about it lately.
I get out of bed and walk closer to him to see how deeply he’s sleeping. His breathing sounds even. His face is relaxed. My eyes land on his laptop on the table. Silently, I pick it up and carry it out of the room into the small living room.
I set it on the table, sit on the sofa in front of it, and open the laptop. The lock screen appears. It’s an image of me, lying on the floor, laughing, while Bruno and Rosie lick my neck and face.
I make a mental note to delete all my photos from this dick’s laptop once I’m done contacting my family.
I press the unlock button in the bottom right corner.
It tries to read my Face ID, which comes back invalid.
The screen shows the password interface.
I enter my name. Invalid. I enter his name.
Invalid again. I enter his favorite color, brown.
Invalid. Piano. Invalid. And with that, a notification appears: the device has been locked for security purposes. No more passwords can be entered.
Fuck it. I slap the damned thing shut.
I get up from the sofa and walk into the kitchen. I search the countertop, then the drawers. The sharpest thing I find is a handful of forks. I take one and leave the kitchen, walking into the bedroom.
He’s still sleeping in the same position. I move closer, lean down, and hear him breathing evenly. After making sure he’s still asleep, I drive the fork toward his chest with all my strength, just as it’s an inch away, it stops. He’s caught my wrist, slowly opening his eyes.
He pulls my hand up and presses the fork’s prongs against his neck. “Next time, aim here.”
I snatch my hand from his grip and straighten up.
“Thanks for the advice. I’ll keep it in mind.”
I throw the fork onto the table and walk to the bed, sliding under the sheets.
It’s already past midnight, but sleep is nowhere near my eyes.
I have to see Salvario as soon as possible.
I need to make certain things clear in my damaged head.
There’s this fractured part of my mind that can’t seem to separate Hunter from Salvario.
I’m sure once I spend some time with Salvario, that part will come to its senses.
Hunter
It’s been seven days since I brought her here. Her stitches have been removed, and the wound is now covered with a waterproof adhesive plaster.
Apart from her stupid attempts to murder me, she’s perfectly fine.
She isn’t happy, but she’s also not suicidal, which matters most. She’s eating well, mainly through blackmail.
The only thing giving me concern is her poor sleep.
She falls asleep around two, sometimes three in the morning, and wakes up after nine.
The hours give her enough rest to stay in decent health, but it’s not entirely healthy.
She used to sleep around ten, most nights she’d push it to eleven, and wake up after seven in the morning.
I walk to her bed.
“Come with me for a walk.”
She scoffs, making no move.
“Elowen,” I say, a little tighter.
She gives me the middle finger, still scrolling her Kindle. I bend over her and snatch the Kindle from her hand with one hand, grabbing her raised middle finger with the other.
Her head snaps toward me. I push her finger down, curling her hand into a small fist and keeping it in mine.
“Don’t flip me off, baby, unless you want this finger inside your pussy.”
“I dare you to do that,” she grits out.
I throw her Kindle onto the bed and push the sheets away from her. I grab the waistband of her wine-colored velvet pajama bottoms.
“If you touch me, I swear I’ll kill myself,” she vows, determination burning bright in her eyes.
“And you think I’ll let you do that?” Anger catches fire inside my ribs.
I hate it when she talks about killing herself.
The nightmares of her doing exactly that have been haunting me for the past seven days.
Sometimes she’s drowning. Sometimes bleeding.
Sometimes jumping from a cliff. The images don’t even fade when I wake.
“You won’t be able to stop me for long.”
My jaw locks tight. “Let’s see if I can or can’t,” I bite out, yanking her bottoms down.
“What are you doing?” she shouts, shoving against my chest with her free hand. Her wounded hand is in my grip. She tries to yank it free but fails.
I move my hand inside her panties, my fingers stopping just above her folds.
Tears spill from her eyes. Anger, hurt, disgust—every wrong thing fills her reddened brown eyes.
The sight of her like this claws at my gut.
The pain splinters through every vein, until there’s nothing left but rage and agony twisted into something I can’t control. It’s pushing me right to the edge.
I crash my lips onto hers. She doesn’t kiss me back, she bites.
Her teeth sink into my lower lip, and I taste copper and salt.
The taste of her hatred. She claws at my face, nails raking furrows into my skin.
I know she wants to tear me apart. She would, if she had the strength.
I wish she did. I wish she could rip me open.
I would cherish that pain. I’d cherish any pain she gives me—the stronger, the better.
Just stop this one. This one in my chest. It’s fucking killing me.
I release her lips but don’t move away, staring into her hatred-filled eyes. Every second I spend looking into them drives the shard deeper inside me. I pull my hand out of her panties.
“What’s this drama for, huh? You don’t want your husband to touch you, when not very long ago you couldn’t get enough of it?”
“I hate you, you monster,” she cries out. “I loathe your touch. You and everything about you disgust me. I want to rip off every inch of my skin that you’ve touched. I hate my body because you used it. I fucking hate you.”
I release her completely and move away. She hugs her knees, burying her face in them, wailing. The day she cut her wrist, I saw her skin scrubbed raw. What I didn’t know then was that it was because I touched her.
“Did you cut your wrist because you hated yourself… because I touched you?” The words scrape past my throat like glass, and I taste blood at the back of my tongue.
She lifts her head, her face red and wet with tears. The eyes that made me love life are shouting at me that I was never worthy of that life. I’m the most disgusting thing she has ever seen.
“Yes. I wanted to kill myself because I was disgusted with myself. You used me like your fucking whore, ruined me for the man I love, using his name. I am disgusted by you and by the body you touched.” She hurls the words at me, each one a blade tearing through my soul.
I stare at her for one more minute, memorizing the wreckage on her face, then turn.
I walk out of the room. Her words keep looping in my head, shaking my whole body. I leave the house and sink onto the steps outside as the door shuts behind me.
My hands tremble as I stare at them through the blur of tears in my eyes. Drops fall onto them, and the shaking worsens.
She hates her body because I touched her.
Am I that disgusting? I must be.
After all, I lied to touch her. Used the man I ruined her for.