Chapter 15
The rippling freedom
I know I should get up and face reality, but it is too good in here, even though my fingers pruned up and the water is just warm now.
I finally had some time for myself, and I wanted to prolong it as much as possible.
I don’t care we are in the middle of a crazy war that I don’t even know how the fuck I ended up in.
I try moving a little because I am getting numb, but I feel an extreme discomfort in my sensitive zone. I put my hand on it to massage it, but it is getting worse, so I give up.
I close my eyes and sink for a couple of seconds in the pink water. When I get up, I hear someone opening the door. Through my red hair strands, I see Lucas looking at me. I don’t even try to cover myself. He already saw me naked, so I don’t really care for the moment.
I take the hair strands off my face and watch him slowly approaching, looking me in the eyes to see if he does something wrong by getting closer. He’s also trying to keep my eyes and not look at my boobs.
He succeeded… mostly.
“I want to tell you that I got rid of the mattress and I brought a new one. Also, Blake took Paul and locked him in one of the rooms from the basement I found a key to. We’ll take care of him later. Now, I wanna know what that motherfucker did to you so I can fuck with his face later,” he frowns.
“Well, given the fact that he is your brother, you won’t do anything. I mean, it is just his appeal, but still your brother,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“What do you mean?” he asks me, confused.
“That is not Paul, not the one you knew your whole life, and you need to be careful around him. He will not consider you his brother, but an enemy as in your dream,” I huff, closing my eyes.
It seems like those 30 minutes of relaxation were a waste of time, as I am already feeling as tense as before I got in the hot water.
“Tell me what he did to you, Anmara. Don’t make me find out on my own,” he growls seriously, making me open my eyes and move my gaze to his.
“Oh, really? And how would you do that, mister I-am-a-negociator-who-works-for-a-fucking-crazy-man-who-kidnapped-us?” I ask him, and I see him smirk.
“Wanna hear my detailed plan? I’m sure it’ll be better than your plan for rescuing Paul in one piece.”
“I think my plan ended well, given the fact that he is in the same building as us,” I say in a superior tone.
“Yeah, with my help. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have reached you in time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cathal freed me before something worse could happen to you. Even though I felt the consequences of my actions on my own skin.”
I sigh when he turns and lifts his t-shirt.
I was paying too much attention to myself, and I didn’t realise that he didn’t escape unhurt either.
A lot of red lines surround his back, almost tearing it apart and cleaving the tattoo on his back.
A tattoo I’ve never seen before. It is a gigantic tarantula, full of intricate black details yet elegant at the same time.
Dark flowers, vines, spiderwebs - everything comes around the tarantula, creating a beautiful work of art that is stained through his suffering.
“Oh my God, what did he do to you?” I ask softly.
He puts his shirt back in place and turns to face me. He comes closer to me, putting his big thumbs on my face and wiping the tears I didn’t even know I had. He kisses my forehead and retracts slowly. His gaze goes from my eyes to my half-open lips before he talks.
“He punished me for provoking him and took away all my liberty. I barely even got to enjoy it.”
?
One hour later, I am still shaken up by Lucas’s words, and I have to decide whether to get out of the bathroom or not. I tried to process it all until the water got cold and all the pink bubbles disappeared.
What did his liberty mean exactly?
I figured he needed to continue working for Cathal, but what would entail in a detailed manner scared the hell out of me.
Finally, I slip out of the bathroom with a white towel wrapped around my body.
When I open the door, a masculine figure I quickly recognise turns to face me.
He watches me while grinning with his intense black eyes, scanning my body like I was an exhibit, and it makes me realise I only had a towel covering me.
And it goes just two fingers under my butt.
Not bringing a change of clothes with me was the best fucking decision, what can I say? I almost frown and shiver from the image I am putting myself in my head of the old man masturbating in a big and luxurious bathroom while thinking about what he saw and could’ve seen if the towel slipped.
Always thinking about nasty things, Anmara.
“Keep me posted, Lycos,” Cathal says to Lucas while looking at my body. More at the hand above my boobs that held the towel tightly.
He shoves his hands in the pockets of his pants and gets out of the room without saying a word. I am stone still with a hand on the handle of the bathroom door and one on the towel, trying to get rid of my stupid thoughts.
When I hear the main door closing, I come to my senses and go to the other room to dress up. I change into a pair of black shorts and a black top, but also lingerie underneath, not caring what kind of crazy person was looking at me. I then go back to the safe room.
Lucas is still on his feet, and he looks at me worriedly when I enter the room.
He wants to say something, but he stops when the front door opens. I calmly exhale when Blake comes into the room. I don’t feel like having another uninvited guest this close to me.
“It’s your turn, brother. I’ve got it from here,” Blake says, a little too relaxed.
Something is weird, but he always has this calm aura around him, so I ignore the feeling.
Lucas comes to me and takes my face in his hands, looking in my eyes.
“I promise I’ll quickly come back, and we will get the hell out of this place as soon as we can. You’ll be fine,” he encourages me.
“We’ll talk later about where I will stay, considering Marshall’s true nature,” I say, his name coming out with a little too much acid in my voice, but he deserves it.
“Just… think about how you’ll break up with him without making Marshall suspect a thing until I’m back,” Lucas says in a serious tone, making me freeze under his gaze.
“I’m not saying this because I want you, but because I know what kind of man he is and I don’t wanna see you suffer more than you already did,” he whispers, and I begin to get too hot.
Deep down, I know I have to do this to not end up like the others. I can’t risk a fate so cruel. Not when I have so many things to achieve before getting to an obscure universe.
His suave whisper takes over my senses and brings warmth to the most dangerous zone, which makes it worse in this moment, feeling it more as a burn, as my little one is too devastated.
I want you.
His words are the only ones circulating in my mind, leaving me without a voice.
I just nod while watching the two full-of-hope emeralds, seeing that he is waiting for a confirmation from my side.
He takes his warm and soft hands off my face and moves away without looking back.
The air in the room gets colder when the warmth of Lucas’s body disappears from near me, making me shiver a little.
And so I end up with Blake.
I sit on the bed, wanting to hear his side of the story too.
I know that Lucas didn’t lie to me on that part, but I want two opinions.
Like the books I started writing. I didn’t have a second point of view and couldn’t continue my crazy ideas.
I just stopped after 200 pages and threw all of it away in a dark corner of my laptop, at the bottom of the furthest folder, because my perfectionism got the best of me, judging me too harshly.
“Are you ok?” Blake asks me, but I am still not looking at him.
When he sees that he doesn’t get an answer, he sits down next to me and puts a hand on my right leg.
Directly on my skin.
I look at him, confused. He has this strange grin on his face. My thoughts go the way Paul was, giving me the chills down my spine.
I hope with all my heart that I am wrong.
“What are you doing, Blake?” I ask, trying to appear calm.
He doesn’t answer me. His hand starts to move up my shorts. These tiny fucking pants were the worst decision.
And fuck those positive thoughts, because I don’t even think I’m wrong. I’m just too scared of what could follow.
“Blake, stop!” I say while trying with both my hands to move his, but he takes my wrists with his other hand.
This isn’t Blake anymore.
“Why stop, dear Anmara? I want to continue what I started on your birthday,” he smirks. “I know you wanted for me the day after, all wet for me, and I stood you up. You became mine that night, and I wanna make up with you for having you wait for me for so much time.”
“This is not you, Blake. Wake the hell up and leave me alone!” I scream, but he only tightens his hold and leaves his weight on my legs.
“How could I not be me?” he asks while getting his lips closer to my face.
“I’m the same man I always was, just as obsessed over you as on the first day I saw you.
I would’ve gotten closer from the beginning, but Lucas kept staying in my way.
I’m glad he was taken, and I could make you mine,” he smirks, biting my earlobe.
“I’m not yours, dickhead!” I scream in his ear. “I’m no one’s! Let me go!”
“Or what?” he growls. “You won’t escape this time.”
I try to process how to get him off me fast, but I’m immobilised. Physically, I have no chance.
“Or I will make you wish you’d never met me,” I say, conceiving a stupid plan, but I have to try anything.
He laughs and gets up to look at me, close enough for me to yank my head into his nose.
The impact makes me instantly dizzy, but he reduces his hold on my hands enough for me to punch him in the face. A fist I then regret I hit with, because it transmits pain through my whole body, but it is too satisfying to see blood running down his nose. Even more than before.
“You bitch!”
I try to take him off me, but he abruptly rolls me on my stomach and takes my hands over my head in a stronger hold that makes me scream.
“Now I have to punish you for being such a bad girl,” he whispers dangerously close to my ear.
Full of adrenaline and anger, I join my legs and push his back with all the force I gathered from the workouts I had in the past weeks. I manage to roll him over his head, right down the bed. I quickly get up, trying to make my brain cells process my next move.
I’m so glad that my muscles still remember some moves from that defence class I took, even though I never put them into practice. I don’t know why I took that class. I just got bored and went with Bianca to do something different. I guess it may come in handy after all.
Blake manages to get up on his legs. When I see him climbing the bed to get to me, I impulsively pick up the bedside table and hit him in the head. He collapses straight down on the bed, with his head hanging over the edge of it.
I put the nightstand down and silently pray for him not to be dead.
I tremble when I get closer to him and see a big bloodstain dripping from the side of the head I hit him in.
I exhale with ease when I put two fingers on his neck and notice that he’s still alive.
His pulse is weak, but strong enough not to make me panic because of this, too.
However much the man next to me scares me now, I can’t have on my conscience that I killed someone. Especially him, who was next to me when I needed someone. I still care so much about Blake. I really hope we will reverse the effect of this idiotic drug that runs through his veins.
Same for Paul.
I run to the closet from the other room and rummage around until I find some zip ties to put over Blake’s wrists and legs.
And because I had half his weight and the arm workouts didn’t go that far, I don’t have enough force to get him up and put him on the armchair next to the window, so I let him lie on the bed.
I move to that armchair in the corner of the room and painfully fall into it, taking my knees to my chest. I wish Lucas would finish what he has to do faster. I want to know what the hell we will do with the unconscious man on my bed, who behaved too much like Paul.