Chapter 8 #2
“How?” His voice is softer now, not demanding, not even sure if he wants to know the details.
But he’s asked, pushed me to share the darkest years of my life with him, so I don’t hold back.
“Mid-tattoo, he possessed the artist. Crawled right up on top of the table and held me down while he destroyed the piece he’d already poured an hour into.
I tried to get free, pull away, but it only made things worse.
” My thumb rubs over the scarred bits from where I struggled and he dug in.
“But he left just a little bit of the tattoo intact, a reminder of what he can do—take.” Tearing my eyes away from the painful reminder, I meet Hawthorne’s gaze.
There, I find the care and sympathy anyone would want to see.
Bubbling beneath it is a roiling protectiveness, awakening something hungry and needy within me.
With everything that I am, I yearn to reach for him, to open up to him, to reconnect with him, despite the distance of time stretching between us.
The strain is uncomfortable after being huddled in my little box of safety for so long with no attachments except for the malevolent one who refuses to leave my side.
This brief remission is the longest I’ve gone without Ivan’s oppressive presence.
The levity of it threatens to make my hopes fly high.
Leaning back in my chair, I pull away, shifting my attention to my coffee, where I find the reflection of a woman I hardly recognize—one who’s too easily forgetting the damning consequences of being a fool who dares to hope or want.
“And that’s why I didn’t stay long in Texas; it wasn’t safe. ” I meet his eyes.
“Apparently no one’s safe with you,” he says dryly.
“Exactly. Nobody is safe with me, especially not you. Ivan is—” Emotion attempts to trap my words again, but I refuse to be silenced by my own body.
“Ivan is jealous and spiteful and desperate. He has nothing to lose. He’ll do anything to ensure I’m his and only his.
He takes pleasure in reminding me of that. ”
“Well, that we have in common.” A wickedly possessive smirk spreads across his pretty lips.
“This isn’t a game, Hawthorne.” My glass meets the wood tabletop in a jarring smack. “The stakes are too high to make this into some pissing contest.”
“That’s not what this is.” Abruptly, he gets to his feet and leans forward on his palms. “This has never been a game to me. I’ve dedicated my whole damn adult life to finding a way to free you from his grasp.
To allow us to have the future we always dreamed of.
The one we deserve. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, and believe me, I’m more than prepared for it. ”
“No.” I stand. Although I’m several inches shorter than his six-foot-two stature, my voice eats up that space until my frustration is a match for his. “You just don’t get it.”
“Then explain it to me.” A rasp of pain enters his voice, pain that I put there. “Give me the missing pieces of the puzzle so I can help you solve it.”
Isn’t this what every woman dreams of? A man who would do anything for them?
And yet, it’s the one thing I can’t bear—the potential of losing him to the thing that’s taken so much already.
The possibility stokes a bout of nausea, forcing me to turn away as I try to keep the beverage in my near-empty stomach.
He doesn’t give me the space to breathe, though; his tattooed hand finds my inner elbow as he forces me to face him again.
At his proximity, I give ground but find myself pressed against the wall.
There’s no escaping the palm that reaches up and captures my cheek or the thumb that slips beneath my chin.
There in his hold, I’m captive to the most dangerous thing of all—the unfiltered light of his love.
It’s there in the shine of his eyes and the brittle tension of his jaw, threatening to break him.
“Thorne,” I whisper in terror. It’s a horror of adoration.
He would never lay a violent hand on me or spew hateful words—those are the threats I learned to handle in my formative years—but this tenderness, this honesty, this selflessness, that’s become so foreign to me.
It’s what I truly fear. Above all else, what petrifies me the most is reclaiming his love and then having this taken from me against my will.
To succumb is to risk the greatest loss of all.
The need within him calls to me. A possessive, haunting song in a tongue only the two of us understand. My ears perk up, my pulse jumps, my mind quiets. For just a few seconds, I allow it to tempt me, the words pulling me into a trance.
But my survival instincts dominate me after years of being forced into overdrive.
Beneath the yearning and devotion, I find reason and restraint.
“You don’t understand. Ivan might be absent right now, but only because he wants to be.
When he reappears—and he will come back—he’s going to do everything he can to break us.
I can’t make you any more a part of this than you’ve already made yourself.
You can’t fix this.” My stomach churns, and I press my hand against my underbust corset.
My lungs work hard, my heart hammering as the anxiety builds.
“Tell me that you’ll let this go. Let this be goodbye.
” I slip my fingers beneath the structured fabric, reaching for the cold metal that I keep tucked there in case of emergency.
“You know that I can’t do that.”
“I’m begging you.” The request wavers with the unsteadiness of my resolve.
“There is nothing you can do to make me give up on you.” His lips crush mine as he traps me against the wall. Forcing my body to go limp, I give no resistance, kissing him back, my tongue sliding between his teeth and teasing his. “It’s me and you in this life and the next.”
Hawthorne’s moan of pleasure turns into a grunt of pain when I manage to pull my hand from between us and drive the small blade into the hand clutching my hip. “Ah, shit,” he gasps and immediately releases me.
Seizing the opportunity, I slip out from under him and run to the back door. My heart flies a mile a minute as I bound down the porch steps and tear through the backyard in a sprint.
An onslaught of rain pours from the cloud-riddled sky. Even with so much tree coverage, it quickly drenches my hair and weighs down my skirt. The ground is muddy, sucking at my shoes like grabbing hands that want me to stay just as much as he does.
The crack of the door thudding against the house causes me to flinch and nearly slip.
He’s determined in his pursuit. Years of soccer made him agile and quick-footed, whereas I struggled with depth perception and have—until now—considered myself lucky that I haven’t had a reason to sprint since high-school gym class.
There are mere feet between us. Our breaths and feet pounding on dirt drown out the rainfall.
His panting might as well be screams, the way they rattle against my eardrums with every inch he gains on me.
The telling absence of it as he braces himself gives me the warning before he grabs me, but I still don’t lunge quickly enough, my mind and body needing more time to coordinate.
Arms wrapping around my waist, he easily drags me back into him, turning us so his back hits the ground when we collide.
Like a cat, I dig my nails into him, attempting to pry his hands away from where they’re linked around my stomach. It becomes useless when his strong thighs wrap around my hips and his arms bring my own across my chest.
“Trying to fly away is useless, Nightingale. I’m always going to be right behind you.”
My muscles flex in rebellion, attempting to reject the obvious truth. Just like I’ve been scheming, he’s been planning for this very opportunity. “You’re digging your own grave.”
“Maybe.” He kisses the top of my head and holds me tighter. “Please, just give me a chance.”
Desperately searching for a convincing argument, I fall silent, and we sit there beneath the weeping clouds that are a mockery of my inner turmoil.
My frustration ebbs as my teeth chatter and my skin pebbles, the chill seemingly seeping into my veins.
Where there was molten resolution just minutes ago, it cools to bitter acceptance.
The fight goes out of me like a blown-out candle.
I’m so tired.
My bones ache with the lifetimes I’ve lived, always on alert, always looking over my shoulder. Only thirty-two, but I feel like I could easily be entering my sunset years. I suppose I have, though. I know there’s no way out of this. There never was.
For the better part of my life, I’ve known that my death would be painful and full of sorrow. A grief and a loss that I would feel more than anyone because there would be no resting in peace.
I sold myself to the devil. He waits, somewhere in this house, a hungry, jealous thing.
And no matter what I do, there’s no getting rid of him—I’ve been told so over, and over, and over again.
The truth is that I’ve just been trying to put off the shitty fate I’ve been destined to meet, and he’s been trying to push me over the edge.
On the ground that had once been my sanctuary, in my rain-soaked clothes, the weight of everything becomes too much, pinning me down and holding me there in this moment.
In an exasperated sigh, I admit defeat. “Okay.”
“What?” He’s breathless.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” he says through a laugh, his voice light with joy that I don’t feel. I’m just defeated. “Come on. I have something I want to show you.” Pulling me to my feet, he steadies me, then wastes no time tugging me behind him to whatever it is that’s suddenly so important.
I’ve never been a fan of surprises. With surprises, you can’t prepare yourself for different outcomes, can’t make sure you wear the right expression for the occasion. But I follow him anyway. If I’m honest with myself, I’d follow him anywhere.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but it isn’t the stunning structure before me.
A mausoleum that stands amongst the trees at the back of the property, I’m genuinely shocked.
It towers over me, a solid mass of stone with several intricately carved Gothic spires reaching toward the sky.
I stop right where I am, struck by the beauty of the structure that’s both out of place amongst the redwoods and looks like it’s always belonged here.
Engraved above the entrance is the phrase, ‘Not Even In Death Do We Part.’ My breath catches, the words an echo of a memory that I’ve tried my best to forget because it’s too excruciating to reflect on all the ways I’ve betrayed it.
Those were the words Hawthorne uttered when he slipped that perfect onyx and citrine ring on my finger, a promise, a vow, so much more than an engagement.
Something precious I broke when I left that ring and a short note behind, then vanished into the night.
Guilt gnaws at me that he still wears his.
The blood-imbued ring is exactly where I left it.
Stepping closer, I run my hand along the detailed trim of the door that feels like something you’d see in Germany, not on the acreage behind a house on California’s central coast. Like something from that vision board I had for us and our bright future.
When I was still that girl who drank from Hawthorne’s optimism like it could keep the shadows at bay.
But I should have known an eclipse was inevitable.
“What is this?” I ask, even though it’s obvious, because I need time to process the real meaning behind this.
“A mausoleum.” He licks his lips. “You told me once that if you could choose, this is how you wanted to be commemorated, where you wanted to be laid to rest. Entombed in something beautiful.” Hawthorne takes a few wandering steps away from me, his hand trailing across the stone. “Is it?”
“What?” My mind tries to catch up with his words.
“Is it beautiful? Is it what you imagined?”
“Yes.” It’s all I can say because I’m still in awe.
That this is possible. That he remembered.
That he was capable of bringing something like this to life—whether he had a hand in building it or hired contractors, it doesn’t matter.
This is the singular most thoughtful thing that anyone has ever done for me. The ultimate grand gesture.
“You did this for me?”
“For us.” He turns to face me. “There’s room for both of us inside. Matching caskets.”
“This must have cost a fortune. What if you didn’t find me? What if I didn’t come back?”
“That was never an outcome I was willing to accept. Whether I found you dead or alive, you were coming home. You were being put to rest the right way.”
The vehement love that vibrates from each and every word is undeniable, irresistible.
I can’t keep running. But maybe I can give myself one last act of rebellion. One last gift of selfishness. One final taste of something good and sweet.
I’m not ready to give in to Ivan, but I can surrender to this.
The rightness of it flows through me, unclenching my jaw, loosening my limbs, releasing the breath I’ve been holding since the day I left.
I exorcise my fear and doubt in a plume of mist that evaporates far easier than the uncertainty that still clings to my lungs like the residual toxins that linger within the vital organs.
For so long, I’ve been inhaling the second-hand smoke of his noxious existence, all that hatred and all those vile thoughts.
An energy like that stays with you, tar-like and irreversibly damaging.
But I’m tired of being sick. I just want to pretend for a bit.
What if I allow myself to remain here? What if I let him take care of me? What if I don’t have to do this alone? Maybe he’s right. Maybe we can finally end this…together.
“Okay.” Breathing heavily, I have to work for each syllable. “You win.” I swallow hard against the acidic fear that rises within me. “I’ll stay.” The resignation is the upheaval of a thousand-pound weight.
The kiss on my temple is a stamp of approval. For better or worse, we’re going to try to do this together.
But if it comes down to it, I will always choose him over me.
I’ll do what needs to be done.