Chapter 9
Seraphina
“Careful, sweetie! Look where you’re going!”
I cry out, fear and thrill tangling in my throat as the beat-up blue bicycle barrels down the hill, the pedals spinning out of control.
Mama had promised me a bicycle for three years, but never managed it before. I’ve spent years falling asleep to dreams of a pretty pink bicycle with a white, flowery basket, and streamers tied to the handles.
On my ninth birthday, it happened at last. I woke up to a battered blue bike, about three sizes too big, its paint so badly chipped it looks more grey than blue.
“I did the best I could,” says Mama defensively, as she notes my deflated gaze.
It’s one thing to not get a bicycle. That would have kept my bicycle dreams intact. But this ugly blue bicycle forces me to accept that the pink, flowery one is forever out of reach.
Still, it’s mine. My one belonging, apart from the two books I own: a Peter Pan storybook and an encyclopedia of animals.
“The brakes! Use the brakes!”
But I don’t want to. There’s something so thrilling about losing all control. I close my eyes, letting the air stream through my hair, and suddenly, I’m toppling over onto the stretch of grass that borders the street.
Tears spill down my cheeks as Mama runs over. I’m not hurt, not really. Well, my knees are skinned, and I’m covered in bruises, but that’s nothing new. I’ve been beaten a lot worse by the Beast and never shed a tear. I don’t understand my reaction right now.
Mama holds me in her arms. “Shush… don’t cry, baby. Don’t cry. Everything will be alright. I promise you everything will be alright.”
One thing Mama has never been good at is keeping promises.
-
Everything comes in threes.
Three. That’s how many days I’ve been locked in this apartment. Three days and three nights. Time hangs heavy when every moment is haunted by the memory of Damien. The way he touched me. The way he left me needing more. The way I hate myself for all of it.
Three. That’s the number of times a woman enters each day, bearing a tray of food. I eat it, and she takes it away again. In the evening, she cleans the apartment, though there isn’t much to do. I don’t make a mess.
The woman never speaks, and I don’t ask questions. But I notice how her eyes avoid mine. I wonder why.
These short visits are the only human company I’ve had since Damien’s last visit.
Three. The number of nightmares I’ve had. One every night. I didn’t have nightmares in the cell, but now that I’m in the apartment, they’re back.
And for the first time, I start wondering if living in luxury is really enough.
I’m not locked in a tiny damp room anymore.
My new prison is nicer than the house of that murdered politician, Cole.
My fridge is stocked with food and my walls are lined with books.
I even have a balcony, and more potted plants than I know what to do with.
But the door is locked, and I can’t get out.
At first, it’s a tiny pinprick of a thought that worms its way through what would otherwise be the closest to happiness I’ve ever been. Comfortable, well-rested and well-fed. I used to dread a lot of things, but now, I only dread him. And his absence.
But then, the thought becomes, little by little, an obsession.
I can’t get out.
And then, there’s the loneliness.
I spent so much time hoping for someone to stop me, to look me straight in the eye and say, “Enough,” but I never gave much thought to what would come after.
I guess what comes after is a tiny, dark cell, and a large, empty apartment. I feel lonelier than ever.
-
Yesterday morning, I stopped eating. When the quiet woman came in with a tray of pancakes, eggs, and bacon, I picked up my fork, prodded the stack of fluffy pancakes for a second, then placed it back down.
She returned twenty minutes later to find the tray pretty much untouched. She hesitated, then took it away.
Same with lunch. Roast chicken, green beans, potatoes. Chocolate cake for dessert. I never dreamed, in my old life, that I’d get the chance to eat anything so delicious.
But again, I couldn’t conjure up an appetite. I sent it away uneaten.
Dinner was crab cakes. I couldn’t bring myself even to nibble them. It made me nauseous.
And it continued all day today. I feel myself growing weaker, but I can’t eat. The loneliness crushes me.
I’m lying down on the couch, a book resting unopened beside me, my eyes glazed over with a deep kind of fatigue that has nothing to do with lack of sleep, when I hear the lock turn in the door.
Then it opens, and in walks Damien, holding a tray of food.
I try to sit up, but the room tilts around me. I sink back down into the comfortable couch.
My heart hammers as he nears me. I wonder if he’ll touch me again. Slip his hand under the hem of my dress, make me feel a pressure in my lower stomach I’ve only ever felt with him, or if he’ll do something else this time. Maybe edge his hand down to the place that throbs with need.
He walks toward me, sets down the tray, and sits beside me on the couch, his face absolutely impassive.
His thigh brushes against mine, the heat of his body sending a sharp current through me.
My body arches toward him, and even my mind wishes it had enough strength to go to him.
I don’t even have the energy to be disgusted by my reaction.
But then he withdraws his leg, suddenly, as if I repulse him.
“I hear you’re not eating,” he says, his voice cold. “Why not?”
The words are like an ice pick in my stomach. He’s never spoken like that before. He’s always been warm, a little dark, a little threatening, maybe. But warm.
I open my mouth, try to tell him that I’m just not hungry, but I can’t seem to get the words out.
“Answer me,” he snaps.
I shake my head wordlessly, incapable of speaking even though I’m convinced my silence is making him furious.
He grabs me, yanks me over his lap, and before I’ve even had time to register his warmth surrounding me, his arms holding me too tight, too sure, he pries open my mouth with two fingers, and with the other he shovels in a heaping forkful of mashed potatoes.
Then he clamps his hand over my mouth and nose, until I swallow.
He’s force-feeding me.
I want to tell him it’s not necessary, all he had to do was ask me to eat and I would have done it. But I can’t speak. This time, it’s not my fault. He won’t let me.
The moment I’ve swallowed the food, he pries open my mouth again, and shoves another heaping forkful of potato and turkey into me.
He doesn’t stop until the plate is nearly clean. My jaw hurts, my stomach hurts, the control he has over my breath makes me nauseous and dizzy, but worst of all, something splinters in me.
I can’t help it. My eyes start to prick, and soon he and the entire room are blotted out as tears flow freely down my cheeks.
I’ve been crying for a while when he realizes it. He puts down the fork and stares at me. The anger in his face drains, leaving something unreadable.
I keep sobbing. I can’t help it. The last time I actually cried, I was nine, trying to learn how to ride a bike. I fell, and Mama ran to me, picked me up and held me in her arms. I felt so safe and loved as I cried.
Damien is holding me in his arms, but I feel neither safe nor loved.
Still, the floodgates have opened, and I can’t figure out how to close them again. I’m aware of Damien’s gaze boring into me, and I can tell he’s hesitating.
Hesitating to force-feed me again? To walk away? To… comfort me?
No, that would be ridiculous.
The one thing I don’t expect is what happens next.
His body tightens around me, one hand finding my wrists and pinning them together, the other fisting my hair, pulling on it, angling my face back. Then his burning lips claim mine, his tongue forcing its way in, his breath hot against my cheek.
I don’t react, partly from shock, partly from ignorance. I’ve never kissed anyone before. I don’t even know how to begin.
With Ben, there were no kisses. Just his hands, his needs. I floated through it like the jellyfish I am. Same with the other two men whose fingers have touched me.
But this is nothing like that. After the first moment of shock has passed, after my jaw has stopped throbbing… I suddenly realize I do want the kiss.
His lips conquer the last remnants of my resistance. In that moment, I decide that, no matter how fucked up it is, I want it. I want the kiss. I want his hands on me. I want him to keep holding me like this forever.
Too soon, though, he pulls away. Shoving me abruptly back onto the couch, he grabs the tray and leaves.
The pain I feel as he shuts the door behind him is sharp, gutting.
What’s wrong with me? Why couldn’t I show him I wanted it? Why didn’t I resist? Why did he leave me alone?
He just force-fed me, I can feel the bruise forming on my jaw, and yet my thoughts spiral in an entirely different direction.
Maybe he hates me. Maybe this kiss meant nothing. Maybe he thinks I’m pathetic.
Or maybe he thought I didn’t want it. Maybe I should have kissed him back.
Somehow, my mind latches itself onto that thought.
He left because I didn’t kiss him back.
I should have kissed him back.
And even as my mind screams at me that I’m crazy, I go to bed desperately clinging to that thought.
My captor kissed me. I should have kissed him back.