Chapter 21
Seraphina
“What the fuck, bitch?”
I turn toward Mama’s broken body, her eyes open in shock, her mouth twisted into a grotesque shape.
It’s her. Only it isn’t. Nothing is right. It’s like some bad fucking modernist rendition of her. All lines and shapes and colors. But it’s not her.
I’ve always hated Modern Art.
Then I turn back to him. He’s staring at me, and I watch passively as his dark grey eyes flash with fury before growing cold with terrified understanding.
And then, only then, do they glaze over.
He crashes to the ground, his eyes turning up to the ceiling, to the polar bear. Only it’s just a spot of humidity now.
Red. Blood. Bloody hands.
I stare down at them numbly, then back at him. Pink-tinged foam is bubbling at his lips. His eyes are unseeing.
Blood everywhere. On my hands. Bloody hands.
Oh, no. What have I done?
I wake up screaming. An arm pins me at once to something hard and warm. I breathe in the dark, musky, cedar-scented cologne, and it soothes me at once. Damien.
I open my eyes in confusion. What’s he doing here?
I try to look at him, but his arms are crushing me to his chest. I bury my face in him.
“You’re here.”
“You were having a nightmare, my pet,” he murmurs in his deep, smooth voice.
“You stayed.”
“Close your eyes,” he orders. “Go back to sleep.”
He pulls me back so my head is resting on his chest. His hand finds its way to my hair and strokes it. I shut my eyes and soon, wrapped in his warm embrace, I’m drifting off to sleep again.
-
When I awake, the sun is streaming through the open window. I’m alone in the big bed, and my heart sinks, though I know he’s already stayed far longer than I had any right to expect.
So I startle when the door opens and he walks in, carrying a breakfast tray.
“Lucy’s been bringing you filtered coffee,” he comments, setting the tray down on the bed. “I told her to come back with a cappuccino, or not at all. All girls like cappuccinos. Don’t you?”
He hands me a cup topped with frothy milk.
“I’ve never tried one,” I say.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything. What do you usually eat for breakfast? Toast with jam and butter? Eggs and bacon? Oatmeal?”
As he speaks, he fills a heaping plate. I can tell he’s playing dumb, though.
He must know from watching the cameras that I usually just eat a slice of dry toast and gulp down a cup of black coffee so quickly it burns my throat.
Eating has always been a chore. Even now, with the delicious dishes Lucy prepares.
Sure enough, he doesn’t wait for a reply, setting the plate in front of me. “I want you to eat at least half of that. But try the cappuccino first.”
I take a sip, and I have to admit it’s good. The foamy texture fascinates me. Before I know it, I’ve downed the whole cup.
Damien looks pleased. “Now eat.”
That’s harder to do, but I know better than to defy him again. I shovel down the food, each bite tasting like chalk.
He nods approvingly. “Good girl.” He leans in to kiss me. “I have to go now.”
“Can’t you stay a bit?” The words leave my lips before I have time to think.
He pauses on the threshold of the door. “I have a lot of work.”
“Please.”
He turns to me, and I can see a touch of aggravation in his face. But then his eyes lock on mine, and his expression changes. Maybe he senses my unspoken words.
If you leave, you’ll find out just what I’m capable of.
My anger sits right beneath the surface.
I’m not angry that he locked me up, or dangled me off a balcony, or possibly ordered Logan to push me into the Oakley River, or beat the shit out of me with a belt.
Or any of the other fucked up things he’s put me through since he kidnapped me. I’m angry that he won’t stay.
I know that’s absurd, but my mind has long ago grown weary of trying to make sense of my absurd thoughts.
He hesitates, and I repeat the words in my head like a haunting refrain, willing him to read them. He’s usually so good at mind-reading, and he doesn’t disappoint me this time either.
You don’t want me to lean over the balcony railing? I’ll fucking jump. You want me to eat? I’ll starve. You don’t want my nails to cut into my skin? I’ll rip my body to shreds.
That last thought seems to have more effect on him than the others. He goes to the bathroom to retrieve a pair of nail scissors, and sits down on the bed in front of me.
“Hands.”
He doesn’t give me time to obey, though, taking each of my hands in his, one after the other, and beginning to clip at the nails. Soon they’ve been reduced to blunt, somewhat uneven shapes.
“It’s not a professional manicure, but it’ll do,” he grunts.
I don’t even have to tell him I’ve never had one of those. I’m sure he knows.
Then he bends over and kisses me on the tip of my nose. “I’ll stay with you tonight, if you behave.”
For all my failings, I’ve always considered myself to be somewhat intelligent, but he’s got the upper hand again. Yes, I do want him to stay tonight. My threats melt away, leaving me with the promise of boredom today… but of him tonight.
-
True to his words, he returns to me that night, and it’s the start of a new pattern, one which makes my captivity easier to bear.
During the day, I’m forcibly reminded that I’m a prisoner.
My activities are mainly limited to walking around the apartment, which, though bigger than any place I’d stayed in until then, feels cramped.
I guess it’s because in my previous life, I spent so much time walking outside.
I also try to do what I imagine Damien would want me to, though apart from telling me to wake up at seven, choosing my clothes, and expressing his distaste of TV, he hasn’t given me too many indications of how he wishes I would spend my time.
I try to eat at least half of everything Lucy serves me, and work through the books on the shelves.
I’ve never been one to read, but slowly, I start to enjoy it.
Somehow I end up reading most of them in just a few weeks.
When I first arrived, the number of books felt neverending, but I guess I do have a neverending amount of time at my hands.
I don’t read in case he’s watching on his feed. I read because I know he’s watching—and also, because I want him to be proud of me when he comes to see me at night.
I’m well aware of the irony. During the day, alone in a luxury apartment, I feel like a prisoner. At night, though I’m in the arms of my captor, I feel free.
So free that I speak more than I ever have in my life. I’ve even gotten better at asking him questions about himself, now that I see how willing he is to answer them.
Over the next few weeks, I find out a lot about him.
About how abusive his father was, how he became friends with Logan in first grade, how the two of them made a pact in third grade to one day leave Oakley far behind.
How they accepted hanger-on Everest into the pact.
How in sophomore year, they both dropped out and started doing odd jobs for the mafia.
How they met Vale, then, and Igor, his henchman, who were a lot higher up on the ladder.
How all five of them managed to launch Devil when Damien was just seventeen, thanks to those connections.
How they quickly became the most powerful criminals in the state.
“All because we never got tattoos, so people thought we were respectable,” declares Damien, though the dangerous glint in his eyes tell me he’s keeping certain things from me.
Maybe he thinks I can’t handle it. But I’m keeping just as much from him, for the same reason, so I can’t exactly fault him.
I also learn a lot of other things about him, things I never would have thought could interest me. I don’t think I’ve ever been interested in another person before. But I cling hungrily to every morsel of information he gives me.
I learn the title of his favorite book (The Stranger, by Camus), his favorite movie (The Duel by Spielberg), his favorite food (pasta), even his favorite color (he doesn’t have an immediate answer for me, but after thinking about it for a while, he says it might as well be red.)
I don’t tell him about pink being mine, because it feels a little silly. But he guesses it right away.
He answers every one of my questions, and I get a lot braver. Until one evening, when I ask a question I really want to know.
“Why am I here?”
It seems to take him by surprise, and for a moment, he stops rolling his tongue around my nipple.
“Please continue,” I beg, and, shaking his head in amusement, he goes back to pleasuring me.
In those weeks of closeness, his touch is far more important than the thoughts that haunt me during the day.
In the evenings, they’re mostly forgotten, lost in some far away place along with the nightmares. I haven’t had another bad dream since he’s begun to stay with me at night.
Still, even pleasure can’t entirely keep the thoughts at bay.
It takes a full week for me to ask him again. “Why am I here?”
“Because you belong to me,” he growls.
“I don’t think so. I don’t think you would have taken me if it had been up to you. You’re not that kind of man.”
He scowls, his eyes flashing dangerously. “You have no idea what kind of man I am, pet.”
“And you have no idea what kind of woman I am.”
His face softens at that. “You’re a very cute, very sweet little pet, and you’re mine.”
So I’m right. In spite of his uncanny ability to read my eyes, deep down, he really has no idea about me. For the first time, I find myself wanting to tell someone, to tell him, but my tongue is still tied when it comes to that night when everything changed. “My father died,” I manage.
“Yes, you told me. And I read the article,” he murmurs, kissing me. “A murder-suicide, if I remember correctly. I’m sorry, my pet.”