Chapter 11 #3
“Lindy, darling,” he starts and I know he somehow is a mind reader and knows the effect his cute names have on me. Jerk. “I wanted you to be comfortable. Yes I took your dress off but I put you right in bed. Aside from lifting you to get you there, I never touched you.”
“You didn’t want to?” Stupid, stupid girl.
“More than I want my next breath,” Cassius says. “But, I’m never going to take anything from you that you aren’t willing to give me.”
“And you so easily could,” I whisper, because it’s true. I wouldn’t even have to be black out drunk. I’m defenseless. He could easily overpower me. There’s a twisted part of me excited by that thought.
“If that’s something you’d like to explore,” he says, clearly reading my mind again, “I’ll chase you, dominate you, push your limits.”
“I’ve never thought about it before now.”
“If what you want is to be chased and pinned and told when to breathe, I’ll give you that.
But only on your yes.” Cassius's words linger in the air.
My skin prickles. I think of the bathroom and how easy it was to say yes to him.
I think of all the men before. Boys, really, who never made me curious about the edges of myself.
How does Cassius see me? As na?ve, untouched by the complexities of desire and intimacy that he seems so well-versed in?
The thought sends a flush of self-consciousness through me, a silent echo of inadequacy.
And then, there's the inevitable question that creeps into the corners of my mind, unwelcome yet persistent.
How many women has he known? The thought of him with others, those who've undoubtedly shared his bed with more confidence, leaves a tight knot in my stomach.
It's not jealousy, not exactly, but a keen awareness of my own inexperience laid bare by his casual observation.
“You know too much about me,” I say. “I know almost nothing about you.”
“That isn’t true, you know more about me than most. What do you want to know?”
“How long have you been watching me?”
“From the start. The store was the first day I saw you, the first time I went to you. But, I had my brother Atlas watching you before that because I was working. I’ve had eyes on you since the start.”
There’s a man leaning in my hallway mirror with a wet collar, water dripping down his cuffs, a black widow charm winking red from the back of his slit throat.
His lips don’t move, but I hear him anyway.
He sang me to sleep, the voice says, like the rush of a faucet. Cold water. Warm blood. Easy death.
I flinch. “I—uh—” My brain tries to file that under hangover hallucinations.
It doesn’t fit. Nothing ever fits when the ghosts come.
They’re worse lately. Like being near Cassius feeds them and they want me to starve.
I think about that, but the enormity of it isn’t something I can process in the length of a phone call, so I switch back to his admission.
Is it so bad that he wants to keep me safe?
He’s been stalking you.
Shut up. I answer my stupid self.
“Lindy?” His voice sharpens. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I lie. If I say ghosts, the world tips.
If I say a man you killed in a bathtub, he’ll go quiet in that surgical way that means he’s tracing the leak.
Phone, friend, me. I shouldn’t know these things.
I can’t know them. I can’t know what his hands have done.
And he won’t believe me when I tell him the dead keep leaving me breadcrumbs.
Soap in their hair, blood on their collars, truth on their tongues.
He’ll never believe it came from the grave, and I’m terrified of what a man like him does to close a mouth.
They’re all telling me what Cassius did, not to scare me, though it’s doing that, but to turn me.
They want me to tell. To betray Cassius before he ruins me.
It’s only the Bolo-Hat who is encouraging me to trust Cassius and I’m not sure if that makes him the only one I should believe or the only one I should ignore. Ghosts pick sides, same as the living.
I’ve never been so conflicted in my entire life.
I want to jump in with two feet. Get so wrapped up in this man that I lose myself completely.
I want him to break me and put the pieces back together.
I want to know what it feels like, soul-crushing love and heartbreak, and sex with a man who wants to explore things I’ve never even let myself think about.
He’ll ruin me. I know it. He probably does too.
The question isn’t will I let him, it’s will I live through it?
“Lindy,” Cassius interrupts my thoughts. “I have to go. I’m out of town for work and I have to walk into a meeting.”
“Where are you?” I realize I want him to be here. I know he said someone else was watching me, but I wish it were him.
“London,” Cassius says. He doesn’t offer any more details. “I’ll call you later.”
“For real this time?” I challenge.
“Yes. I’m not sure when, but I will call. Don’t give up on me.”
“Be safe, Cassius.”
“Have a good weekend, my darling,” He says and then the phone goes dead.
The mirror man is gone, but something else lingers, another presence, off to my right.
I don’t look at him directly, because if I do the details sharpen and they never blur again.
I catch the edge of his profile anyway. A smile too wide, a tongue green with crushed herbs.
Tasted like pizza, he says in a voice I recognize from a grocery aisle.
He shoved the leaves in and I couldn’t breathe.
I watched you and smiled. That’s all it took.
My stomach turns. I fold the blanket again, slower this time, corners kissing corners, and lock the deadbolt with two twists, then a third.
I check the stove even though I haven’t cooked.
Off, on, off. The ritual quiets the static.
The emptiness after his voice is gone weighs heavy on my chest. I laze around and marathon movies all day.
I send a text to Nathan letting him know I reached out to Cassius and I also text Victoria to make sure she lived through her hangover.
I order Chinese food and eat it straight out of the container.
By nine o’clock, rain needles the windows.
I peek through the curtain, counting drops on the glass until I hit nine and start over.
A figure stands under the streetlight with his hood up, shoulders squared, soaked.
Cassius’ watchdog I assume because he’s the only person out front of the apartment building in this rain. Let’s go find out.
I take the stairs two at a time, my anxiety screaming at me the entire descent that this is a terrible idea. I push the door open and wave the man over. No need for us both to be soaked. He steps into the apartment building entryway.
“Do you belong to Cassius?” I ask once the door shuts behind him.
“Wouldn’t word it that way, but yes, I work for the Ashenheart brothers.”
“I’m Melinda,” I say, though he obviously knows who I am. He’s tasked with watching me.
“Logan.” He wipes some rain drops from his forehead.
“Do you want to watch me from inside so that you’re not getting drenched?”
“Cassius would never go for that.”
“Call him,” I say. Logan raises his brows, but pulls his phone out of his chest pocket anyway.
It’s freezing out. The rain is surprising in this normally dry desert, but the nights have been frigid the entire month of December.
Logan hits a couple of buttons, including speaker, and holds the phone out to me.
“Logan.” Cassius’ voice sends goosebumps over my body. “Is she okay?”
“Yes,” Logan says. “She’s fine. She uh, well, she wants to talk to you.”
“Why is she within two feet of you?”
“Cassius,” I interrupt. “Don’t be mad at Logan.
I saw him outside. It’s raining. Freezing, truly.
Can he watch me from inside my apartment?
” It’s silly to ask for his permission. It’s silly that he has someone watching me to begin with.
And inviting a total stranger into my apartment because a man I barely know has him babysitting me is the silliest of all.
But, from what little I’ve gathered about Cassius, Logan isn’t going anywhere. He may as well be comfortable.
“Put him on the phone.”
I hand Logan the phone and he takes it off speaker before placing it up to his ear.
“No, I swear, I didn’t even know she knew I was outside,” Logan answers the question I can’t hear.
“I won’t.” Pause. “I’d never do that.” Another pause.
“I know,” Logan says, nodding his head the entire time.
Cassius must’ve hung up because Logan puts his phone away and gives me a nervous smile.
“He said if I so much as stain your couch I’m a dead man. ”
“I won’t let him kill you.” I try to laugh, but secretly wonder if I could stop Cassius from doing such a thing. Would he listen to me? “I have a lot of leftover Chinese, let’s go warm you up.”
“I’ll be up in a few. I’m going to grab my go bag,” Logan says, opening the exit door to step back into the rain. I return up the stairs and leave my front door cracked for Logan. He walks in a few minutes later, locking the deadbolt behind him.
“Keep that locked, okay?” Logan says as he surveys my living room. “Cassius will literally kill me if anything happens to you. Help me out.”
“I’ve never really thought about anything happening to me before,” I admit. It’s true. I’ve always walked through life blissfully unaware of its possible horrors.
“You don’t have to think about it now. Just keep the door locked. Lock your car when you get in it. Just be aware of the things you can do to add that extra layer of preventative measures.”
“I can do that.” I extend a glass plate filled with Chinese food to Logan that I warmed up while he got his bag. “I’m excellent at following rules.”
The ghosts don’t stop. They stand at the edges, whispering he’ll do this to you.
There’s one with a neat carved web on his chest I refuse to look at directly because that one hums, and if I hear the song, it’ll live in my marrow.
I try not to blink too long in their direction.
We marathon scary movies all night, with Logan interrupting every three minutes to tell me how the scene would be done in real life.
Logan reminds me of Nathan. He’s funny, nothing like the serious man he works for.
I turn my attention away from the others who Logan can’t see and back to him and ask him to explain, again, why the heroine shouldn’t run upstairs.
He showers after he eats, a detail we both agree Cassius doesn’t need to have.
He has extra clothes in his black leather duffle bag and has made himself right at home on my couch.
Cassius doesn’t call. Logan’s phone buzzes at the top of every hour and he answers with a clipped copy and clear and on it. I don’t ask who’s on the other end. I line the remote with the edge of the table.
At midnight, I check the locks, then check them again. And the third time. Logan doesn’t comment. I leave him with a pillow and some blankets at the end of the cushions. When I look back at him from my hallway, he’s got a pistol sitting on the coffee table. Oddly enough, it makes me feel good.
I lay in the dark, watched from every angle. A man who swore he’ll keep me safe. The dead who want me to push him away. A choice that tastes like a yes no matter how many times I count to odd numbers.
They keep whispering, he’ll do this to you.
Call the cops. Tell your brother. Tell anyone.
The pressure builds like a second heartbeat.
If this keeps up, I’ll have to take sleeping pills.
But Logan’s here and his pistol on the coffee table makes me feel safe.
The Bolo-Hat ghost is here and even though I’m unsure whether I can trust him, he makes me feel safer in Cassius’s world than with my own rules.
I’m not fearless. I’m not brave. But I’ve never wanted anything the way I want what he turns on inside me.
Maybe that’s the scariest part. Maybe that’s the point.
God help me, maybe that’s what scares me most of all.