Chapter 21
Cassandra
“Get up.”
I startle awake to iron fingers wrapped around my upper arm and Mikhail’s penetrating blue gaze boring into mine. For a moment, I’m sure I’m still dreaming, because I’ve never once seen Mikhail wear this expression before.
Dead. That’s the only way I can properly describe the gaze that drowns me, suffocates me.
He’s not the man who softly kissed me on his balcony a few hours ago, tracing reverent kisses down my neck and lifting me into his arms like I was something precious.
No, this is a different man.
And he’s terrifying.
Before I can even find my bearings, I’m being yanked from the warmth of the bed into the chilled open air. My feet tangle desperately in the sheets, trailing a corner of the blanket along with me.
“Mikhail, what’s going on?” Panic bleeds into my words as he drags me out of the room, my legs stumbling helplessly behind him like a broken doll.
“Not now, Cassandra,” he spits in a harsh tone.
What the hell is going on? What caused his entire personality to flip?
He continues to pull me through his apartment with an unforgiving grip on my arm, and my gaze rips over the beautiful space I had enjoyed sharing with him merely hours before this nightmarish awakening.
The balcony where we shared our kiss. The couch where I fell asleep, sweet nothings whispered into the crook of my ear.
Why won’t he speak to me?
Why won’t he even look at me?
I chew the inside of my cheek until I taste copper, following helplessly as fear overwhelms my mind.
We stop at the elevator, and that’s when I finally realize what must be happening. He’s throwing me out of his house.
Tears prick my eyes in stinging pain at the revelation. What did I do wrong? He’s the one who unstrapped my heels with gentle hands and tucked me into his bed like I belonged there.
All he had to do was ask me to leave, and I’d be gone. I’d disappear without a word.
Why is he throwing me out with his own fucking hands? I look up at him, planning on confronting his horrifying behavior, but find my jaw trembling violently the second I lock eyes with his cold gaze. I’ve never seen him quite so...detached. Hollow. Has this been the real him all along?
The elevator doors open, and he shocks me all over again by coming in with me, maintaining his demeaning hold on my limb.
I’d expected him to just toss me in and get on with his night.
“Mikhail, I’ll leave by myself, just let me go!” I gasp, working up the courage to try to yank myself free from his grasp, but his fingers increase their pressure to a bruising grip that makes me whimper.
“Be quiet,” he snarls.
Tears of terror and betrayal course down my cheeks, dripping a trail across my throat.
I knew better.
The words are a vicious chant in the corner of my consciousness, condemning my pathetic vulnerability. I knew better than to trust him. I should’ve known he was too good to be true. Should’ve known this tenderness was just another weapon.
When the elevator doors open once again, they reveal a strange, bland hallway I’ve never seen before. Maybe he’s taking me out the back entrance or something? I shamefully stumble behind him, forced to follow along as he unlocks a nearby door.
The door’s hinge screeches open to a small, empty grey room. The stale air rushes from the space like it’s begging to escape, tinged with the chemical notes of bleach and cleaning supplies—and something else. Something that makes my stomach clench with dread.
Before I can so much as look up at him in confusion, Mikhail shoves me across the threshold with unexpected force.
The action seems to shock me from my terrified silence, finally releasing my brain into its well-trained fight-or-flight reaction.
I scramble to my feet and rush to the door just as Mikhail goes to close it, my palms slamming against the cold metal.
Throat shrieking in effort, I shove every piece of strength I have into the stiff metal, but his deep blues pin to mine a second before he smacks the door shut. In that final moment, I see nothing. No recognition. No regret. Nothing.
The bolt twists in the lock.
I scream into the air, but just like it does in my recurring nightmares, the high, desperate sound merely bounces against the bounds of the room before circling back to me in lonely torment. The sound of my own terror.
No, no, no.
The corners of the grey walls begin to blur in my vision as they curve in against my small form.
I’m seventeen years old once again. Time warps like molten glass, each particle in my sight bending and pooling to form new shapes and structures.
The room shrinks. The walls darken to the bronze hue of chipped wood.
I drop to the ground, seeking out the crack in the hinge for a breath of fresh air, but this door is immaculate. Not even a gap to catch the rising and setting of the sun. No glimpse of hope.
Legs scraping against the floor, my ass drags back until my spine collides with a wall. I choke on the heavy chemical twist in the air, desperately pulling more down my throat faster and faster. My lungs burn. My chest constricts.
I curl my knees to my chest and bury my face, rogue tears tumbling over the legs bared from my hiked-up dress. Phantom floorboards from my childhood closet brush the soft skin of my feet. The smell of decaying cedar floods my nostrils.
Trust your instincts, Cassy. When they tell you to run, you listen the first time.
But what if every single one of my instincts told me to stay?
What does a woman do once the time for running has passed?
The only sound in the air is hyperventilating breaths and the choking gasps drawn from my throat in a desperate attempt to avoid passing out from CO2 overload.
I can’t let myself pass out.
I remember what it’s like to wake up here.
I remember everything.