37. Scarlet
THIRTY-SEVEN
SCARLET
“Where are they?” Clint roars, kicking the rickety chair he called a loveseat hard enough to send it flying into the metal wall.
“What are you l-looking for?” I wheeze, covering my head as wood splinters fly through the air.
He glares at me, waiting silently for me to amend my question.
“What are you looking for, Sweetheart?” The pet name tastes like acid on my tongue, burning with a wrongness I’ll remember the rest of my life. Assuming I survive this. No, don’t think like that. You will survive. Ellis will come.
Appeased, he resumes his pacing. “Our rings, Petal. How can I make you my bride without a ring?”
“You bought me a r-ring?”
“Bought?” He inclines his head. “No, no, no. I didn’t buy your ring. It’s a family heirloom. Passed down from my great grandmother.”
“Oh,” I choke on the single syllable, wondering if his mother knows he took it for an unwilling bride. “Wow.”
“It’s beautiful. You’ll love it.” He flips the desk with a hotplate he called a kitchen. “I just need to find it.” He starts pacing again, roughly tapping his temple. “Think, think, think. Where did you put it?”
A bead of sweat rolls down my back, causing me to whimper. It might be cool outside, but in this metal box of horrors, it’s sweltering. The weight of the god-awful dress he has me in doesn’t help either. It will be a cold day in hell before I ever touch tulle again.
Where are you, Ellis? I clutch my necklace, watching in frozen horror as Clint tears the place apart like a man possessed.
I don’t realize I’ve spoken out loud until he’s in my face, shouting, spittle flying. “Where is who?”
“No one,” I try, but he snarls, roughly gripping shoulders, causing me to cry out in pain.
“Who are you looking for, Scarlet?” He shakes me like a rag doll, my head snapping back from the force. “Is it him?” he spits.
“H-him who?” I stutter, my ears ringing.
“Ellis. Fucking. Wilder.” His lips curl like an angry dog.
“Should’ve fucking killed him.” He throws me to the grimy, dirt-covered floor.
“What do you even see in him? What can he possibly give you that I can't? What's so good about him?” Each shouted question is louder than the last, until he’s red in the face and practically vibrating with rage.
“You’re mine, Scarlet. Not his. Mine.” He thumps his chest for emphasis.
I don't know what comes over me, but it's like a haze of reciprocal rage settles over me. “I’m not yours and I never will be. Ellis is twice the man you could ever dream of being.”
A flash of movement in my periphery is all the warning I get before Clint backhands me, sending my head crashing into the wall. A trickle of blood drips down my lip, spreading in a macabre pattern as it lands on the dress.
“You...” I stare at him in horror. “You hit me.”
The psycho actually looks proud. “That'll teach you to run your fucking mouth.”
The fear clinging to me since I woke up here takes a backseat to an all-consuming rage. “How can you claim to love me and actively hurt me?”
He purses his lips and mocks me. “How can you claim to love me and actively hurt me? Do you even hear yourself, Scarlet? Pathetic. A woman like you needs a strong hand. You should really count yourself lucky that I’m such a patient, forgiving man.
” He runs the pads of his fingers along my jaw before fisting my hair, tugging hard so I have no choice but to look at him.
“You know, it didn’t have to be this way. If you would have just noticed me from the start.... But you didn't. So, here we are.” He morphs before my very eyes, from man to monster. It’s almost as if he’s a real-life Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. “And now, you have to atone for your sins.”
He releases his grip on me with a forceful shove, once again sending me to the ground.
I spit a glob of blood that lands on the floor inches away from him.
“You're actually blaming me?” I wrap my arms around myself if only to keep my thundering heart from beating right out of my chest. “You're insane.”
He laughs, the sound dark and maniacal. It makes my skin crawl. “I'll show you insane,” he grits out the words as he digs in a drawer from the overturned desk.
I rack my brain, trying to think of a way out of this, but the sound of my pulse pounding in my ears proves to be too distracting.
Playing along didn’t help. Fighting back certainly isn’t either. But sitting here, hoping and praying Ellis makes it in time feels... wrong.
What would Nora do? I ask myself, forcing myself to calm down. Panicking won’t help.
“We will be happy together, you know?” He asks, finally locating whatever he was looking for, but I pay him no mind.
At least, outwardly. On the inside, I’m aware of him down to a molecular level. But maybe ignoring him altogether will throw him off enough to give me the upper hand.
“Did you hear me?” he bellows, nostrils flaring. “We will have everything. You were always meant to be mine, and there’s nothing, I mean nothing, I won’t do to keep you.”
He stomps to a stop right in front of me, looming over me so close that he fills my vision. “Do you understand what I mean?”
I try to stand strong, to hold my tongue, but Clint’s not having it. “I said tell me!” He leans forward, squeezing my jaw in a bruising grip with his right hand.
I shake my head as best I can with my face immobilized.
“That’s okay I’ll put in the time to make you understand.” He pulls his left hand from behind his back, revealing a tangle of rope and a wicked looking knife. “I’ll make you love me.”
“I'd rather die,” I shout, trying to lunge for the knife.
But he anticipates my movement, and I end up belly down on the floor with his knee forced painfully into my spine. My ribs scream from being pressed against the floor.
“If that’s how you feel,” he says, making quick work of binding my wrists.
“It can be arranged. But first, I’ll bleed your love out of you.
Drop by precious drop. Make no mistake.” He skims down the length of my arm with the tip of his blade.
“You will be mine. I tried to give you a choice, Petal. But you’re too damn stubborn for your own good. So now, I’ll take it—by force.”
He pierces my skin with the blade, slicing down the same path he just traced.
I scream out as white, hot agony engulfs me, trying and failing to buck him off of my back.
“I’ve long since grown tired of your foolish games. After I kill you, I’ll hunt down that piece of shit who stole you from me and kill him too.”
“Then I still win,” I sob. “Because if you kill us both, we’ll still be together and you’ll be exactly where you belong—alone.”
Clint flips me to my back with rough hands, my arms screaming from the pain of their binds and this angle.
He straddles me. “If you won’t walk down the aisle to me in this dress, what purpose does it serve other than keeping you from me?
” He pokes the tip of the knife through the neckline of my dress, the cool metal making contact with my skin.
Fear coils around me like a boa constrictor, winding tighter and tighter, closing off my windpipe, choking the air from my lungs.
as he pokes the tip of the knife through the neckline of my dress.
“Get off of me,” I screech, nothing but sheer panic coursing through my system.
“He’s gonna find you and he’s gonna fucking kill you. ” My words are a prayer and a taunt.
Even if Ellis doesn’t get here in time, I refuse to go down begging for mercy.
“Shut. Your. Whore. Mouth,” he growls, slicing open the front of my dress, nicking my chest in the process.
I open my mouth, but my scream never comes out.
Clint falls eerily silent, staring intently as a bead of blood wells up between my bare breasts. He groans, rubbing himself against me as he presses either side of the cut, causing more blood to trickle out. “I bet you taste so good.”
“I swear to god, if you don’t—” Shock steals my words as he brings his bloodied fingers to my lips, smearing them with the warm, coppery liquid.
He dives down, sealing his mouth to mine, licking and sucking at my blood-soaked lips.
I’m damn near feral trying to get him off of me. Without the use of my arms, I do the only thing I can think of—I bite him. Hard.
He bellows like an angry bull as he jerks his head away from mine. My victory is short-lived though, as his fist barrels into my temple.
“You stupid fucking bitch.” He wraps his hands around my throat, squeezing like his life depends on it. “Useless. Fucking. Bitch. Whore.” His grip tightens with every word.
My face feels like it’s burning right alongside my oxygen-deprived lungs as silent tears slide down my cheeks. Please stop. Please, please, please, I beg silently as my head begins to pound.
My throat joins the inferno raging through me, even as my feet go ice cold. My body’s at war with itself, desperate to stay alive but losing the battle with every second that passes.
A loud roaring sound fills my ears as my vision flickers, and I know.
I’m going to die here. In this weird, hot metal building, all alone at the hands of a man I was foolish enough to call a friend.
This is it…
I’m not walking away from this alive.