20. Scarlett #2
Shaking and sick in my stomach, I palm the mattress on my side of the bed, along the smooth sheets and up, under my pillow, until I stop on the hard exterior of the phone I held onto even in sleep… or Sebastion cared enough to bring it with us when he stole me from the bathtub.
I bring it out from under the pillow and scrunch my eyes most of the way shut to combat the backlight and the clock that reads 05:34.
Exhaling a weary sigh, I lower my hand again and peek to my left. To Sebastion’s sleeping face. To the long, dark lashes kissing his cheeks, and the thin scar marking the front of his stubbled chin. Another scar sits just half an inch above it. Another on his jaw.
I’ve never taken the time to look before, but for this moment, while he’s unconscious and not nearly as intimidating to be near, I study the scar lining the side of his neck, and another just below his ear.
Pulling back, I find more, so many more, settled along the bridge of his nose. On his cheekbone. On his brow. On his forehead.
Some are barely more than a thin line. Others, thicker and probably needed stitches or glue to close. Dark hair sits short almost all over his head, but the top is just a little longer than the sides. Barely, but still.
His brows are dark and angled, a shape many women would kill for. And the stubble around his chin and lips creates a shadow he hasn’t, in my experience knowing him, allowed to grow beyond a single day.
Tattoos cover his chest and arms. His neck. Some stretch up to tickle the underside of his jaw. He wears ink like armor, designs like a brand he’s proud of. Some are in color, others are mere shades of the same black.
He wears faces amongst the designs, like these people are his gods.
A woman in the center of his chest. Another on the ball of his shoulder.
A man bleeds, bruised and broken, by his hand.
And birds fly among the busy designs. Feathers—the beautiful, dark green kind—flitter not so far from his ribs, and some others take up prime position over his heart.
Sebastion’s ink was clearly not the work of a single, thought-out design.
Rather, years and years of new ideas, of separate days spent in a tattoo artist’s studio, and when each new sketch got a little too close to another, the artist created a bridge of patterns and words, shadows and color, to make the entire canvas flow.
If I didn’t dislike the man so much, I might consider asking about each drawing. Why that face? Why that bird? Who were you thinking about when you decided this? Does it look exactly how you hoped it would? Will you get more? When?
But I can’t, because that’s not the kind of relationship we have. Worse, he carried me to his bed last night without my permission.
Swallowing the nerves pulsing in my throat, I fist the phone and drag the blankets off my body. I move silently, carefully, and when Sebastion’s breath hitches for a beat, I freeze and wait him out.
Will he wake? Will he hold me down?
Please, God. Please don’t hold me down.
Nausea makes my stomach ache, and anxiety makes the ache a million times worse. Holding my breath and keeping my movements slow, I push up on the mattress, twist, and set my feet on the floor.
Please don’t squeak. Please don’t squeak. Please don’t squeak.
Gritting my teeth and dragging the end of my hoodie down, I inch off the bed and stop in complete silence. Clamping my lips shut, I peek over my shoulder at a still-asleep Sebastion.
I draw a shuddering breath and tiptoe away from the bed, dropping the phone into my hoodie pocket and casting a glance toward the window.
To the rhythmic consistency of exercising men outside.
Bending at the door and carefully inching the chair out from beneath the handle, I set it aside and peek back at Sebastion one last time.
He fell asleep on his belly last night, but now he dozes on his side.
His arms are folded up, his hands curled beneath his chin.
His shoulders are large, too large, and slump from poor posture, but none of that matters nearly as much as knowing he’s still asleep.
He didn’t grab me. Didn’t pull me back. And he didn’t shoot up on the mattress and cock a gun in my direction for sneaking away.
Shaking my head, I turn and carefully squeeze the doorknob, pulling the door open and squinting in response to the blinding light in the hallway.
Do they never turn them off?
Crossing the threshold on my toes and twisting back to close the door again, I peek along the hall to my right.
Empty.
Then to the left.
Empty.
Drawing a shaking breath, I straighten my back and turn in the direction we walked last night, along the freezing hall as goosebumps race across my exposed limbs.
For every step I take, I keep my ears pricked in case anyone else wanders nearby.
For every foot I put between myself and Sebastion’s room, I count the thuds of my heart.
For as long as I feel those, I’m alive, and if I’m alive, then I suppose I still have a chance, someday, in some faraway fantasy land, to stop being such a whiny bitch and actually take part in saving my damn self.
So far, the stats aren’t really in my favor.
I lick my lips and tiptoe toward the next door, the one I know leads to the family’s private kitchen, and though I could search for the large room, the one with all the bench seats, it’s a little too close to six o’clock for my comfort.