Chapter 12 #2
When I wake up again, I feel cloudy. Hazy. As my eyes adjust and the groggy feeling dissipates, I make out a figure beside me. Damon. I could tell even before his form came into view. I can always tell when he is near. He is my magnetic counterpart.
He is sitting up and awake from how he is breathing.
“How long have I been asleep?” My voice sounds scratchy and only slightly better than before.
“Twenty-three hours.” Wow. I need to get my hands on more of those sedatives.
“He knew me. Said my name.” The sound of it rings in my mind—the total opposite of how it sounds when Damon says it. Just hearing the echo in my thoughts makes bile rise.
A long time goes by before Damon speaks.
“Do you know who it was?” He sounds calm. But even in the dark, I can tell he is anything but that.
I shake my head.
“Have you noticed anything strange? Perhaps an uneasy feeling when you walk to the bookshop or get groceries?”
How does he know about the bookshop? I must have told him at some point.
I shake my head.
But…There is the mystery man who leaves me seeds, pots, and notes.
Could it be him, my stalker?
“But,” I croak, hesitating.
Damon would be angry with me. For not telling him before. What if he thought I was cheating? Not that we were even in an official relationship or anything. But what if he thought badly of me?
“But?” Damon prompts, an edge in his voice.
“But there was a man who was leaving me things.”
Damon leans over to his side table, and the next minute, I feel him gently take my hand before putting a glass in it.
I sip it, expecting to taste sedative water, but instead, it is a soothing honey drink—sweet and parching a thirst I didn’t know I had.
“If it's too painful to continue, we can discuss this later.” I shake my head in response, and after a couple of seconds, he continues.
“What kind of things did this man leave?”
“It started with handwritten notes with flower references and seeds, then pots with soil.” I sip the honey drink in between. I wanted to talk about this. I wanted to help find The Reaper.
“The ones you wanted the movers to be careful with,” he states, his tone even. Not revealing anything about how my words are making him feel. And with the dark concealing his face, I am clueless.
“Yes. There was even a gift for my birthday.”
“The necklace you are wearing?” he asks just as my hand finds the black gem hanging from it. I should take this off. What if my rapist gave it to me?
I don’t bother unclasping it. I yank on the chain, the pinch at the back of my neck not even making me flinch.
“Yes.” I roll over and place the necklace on the side table before returning to face Damon.
“Then, about two months ago, I started receiving pages from books, with paragraphs highlighted for my attention. These were different from what I had been receiving.”
At the time, they seemed innocent enough. Like the seeds and flower references.
Damon straightens up, the movement slight but noticeable.
“What type of books? Do you still have the pages?” His voice now holds restrained rage.
I expected it, but I am surprised that out of all that I have said, it is the book pages that have angered him the most. Perhaps he loves books as much as I do and feels offended by their desecration.
I had those same mixed feelings whenever I received a page .
“Yes, but I don't know where the movers would have put them. We will have to ask them. They were in the top drawer in my room.”
Damon’s phone screen lights up as he types a message, the little glow giving me a brief view of his features. He looks tired. And is that a cut on his cheek, next to his scar?
“What happened, Damon?”
His hand flicks up in the air dismissively.
“Just a scratch. It’s nothing.”
I don’t push for more. I don’t have the energy even after the lengthy sleep I have just had.
Silence and darkness stretch on as I try to think of anything other than The Reaping.
I feel alone. Even with Damon inches from me.
“You can blame me. I can take it.” His words surprise me. Like he can see into my mind.
“I don’t.” Lie. I do. And I blame myself.
“Don’t lie to me, Sienna. Anything but that. I can handle your feelings, as dark and as ugly as you think they are. Just don’t fucking blame yourself for this. It wasn’t you. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t want it. You didn’t deserve it. Nothing you did caused it.”
I think back to what we were doing before, how I had let Damon fuck me with the vibrator and butt plug in front of all those people. How he was watching.
“You like it like this. I could see it on your face earlier. Come for me as you did then.”
Thrust. Pain.
Oh god, don’t do it. Rough fingers squeezing my clit painfully before circling it. Moan.
“Yes. Moan for me.”
Thrust. Pain .
“Stay with me, Sienna.” Damon's voice pulls me back to the present, and I realize I am crying. Again. Damon doesn’t move to hold me, and I am grateful. I don’t want him to. I don’t want anyone to. I am a grain of sand. Slipping through your fingers. A speck of dust blowing in the wind.
“ He was watching what we did earlier. In the hall. He said I wanted it.”
“He is turning something beautiful into something shameful. Do you think a female stripper or even a sex worker deserves to be raped?”
No. No, I didn’t. I shake my head.
“He wants to think you want it to justify his actions. But in no world will what he did ever be fucking okay.”
It’s so much harder to deny the blame when looking at yourself. The blonde woman I’d been watching with the sub and her boyfriend—despite what she was doing, I would never say she deserved this. Yet why could I not say the same thing about myself?
A phone ringing startles me from my thoughts when I realize it is my ringtone.
“You have my phone.” Damon passes it to me, and the name on the screen makes my stomach clench with unease—my brother, Liam.
“Yes. I made sure we got it when we left Lady Chatman.”
“Thank you,” I mumble, my throat over this talking thing.
I watch as the call carries on ringing.
“He has been calling nonstop. I think Brad told him something happened, but not all the details. No one besides you, me, and Lady Chatman know. And she won't say anything. This is yours to tell, to whoever and whenever.”
Would I tell my brother what happened? He would just worry, and what good would that do anyone? But I couldn’t talk to him sounding like this. The phone stops ringing, and a message pings. One of twenty-two. All saying the same thing.
‘Call me, I am worried.’
‘I went past your house, but you don’t live there anymore. Why didn’t you tell me you moved?’
‘Why aren’t you answering me?’
The last message confirms what I need to do.
‘If I don’t hear from you in an hour, I’m calling the police.’
“Could you please check if the movers brought my slippery elm tea and make me a cup, Damon?” Perhaps if my voice sounded less croaky, I could say I had laryngitis.
With him and his wife, Dee, just having their second child, I would tell him I didn’t want to pass it on and maybe delay us seeing each other until the bruising around my neck went away.
Damon returns, handing me the cup.
I sit up and sip on the liquid, the warmth immediately easing the irritation. With half the tea down the hatch, I decide that a test run is in order.
“How do I sound?” Only a pinch better.
“He will know something is wrong.” Honesty. Always. It’s what I can rely on Damon for.
“I won’t be far,” he states, leaving the room.
I can hear him talking to someone. Probably one of his IT guys. Jordan or Kai. I haven’t met them, but Damon has them working here at my new place as he doesn’t want to leave me alone. I don’t want to be here alone. So, for now, the IT can stay.
I take a deep breath and then hit the dial button, the call connecting immediately.
“Geezus, Si, you better have a good reason for ignoring me. Brad told me there was an incident at his mother's house?”
“Wow. Straight in there. Calm down, I’m fine.” I try to sound cheery, but my voice distorts it.
“What is wrong with your voice?” Liam asks while one of the kids cries in the background. Good, maybe this would force a swift conversation.
“I have laryngitis.” Let's hope he believes me.
“How did you get laryngitis? You never go anywhere.” Shit, he has me there. Think. Think. I can’t tell him I work at Sin . That will open up a whole line of new questioning.
“I went out with Gloria the other night and must have caught something.” My cheeks are on fire as the lie flames them.
He and Gloria have never met, so this will never come up as a lie.
“Well…that's not good. But I am glad you are getting out. Brad says you were at one of his mother's parties with a man. He also says something happened there. An assault?”
Dammit. I wish Brad would keep his big mouth shut.
“Something happened, but I’m fine. Besides, I’m thirty-five, Liam. I can do what I want. And I can look after myself,” I croak, taking another sip of the tea.
There is a long sigh on the other side, followed by a long stretch of silence. I can imagine my brother running a hand through his hair in frustration, as he always does with me.
“I know, Si. I am just worried about you. After James and what happened, I don’t want something to trigger a repeat. If you tell me you are okay, then I’ll believe you.”
I choke back a sob, my eyes blinking rapidly as tears once again well. I am not okay, but I can’t tell him that. He has his own life. His own stresses.
I swallow and then take a breath, trying to steady myself.
“I’m fine. Really. When I am feeling better, we will get together and catch up. Then I will fill you in on everything.” I try to add cheer to my voice again, hoping he believes me. I don’t have the strength for this right now.
Another long pause followed by another sigh.
“Fine. But send me your new address. I’m glad you moved. I don’t think living there with all the memories of James was good.”
My niece cries in the background, and I can tell Liam is distracted as he tries to soothe her.
“Well, you have your hands full, and I need to rest, so I will chat with you soon, okay? Send my love to Dee and give my little terrorists big kisses from their aunt. I love you, Liam.”
“Get well, sis. I love you, too.” And with that, the call ends, and I slump back against the pillows.
He believed me. Or he didn’t. But what could he do? If I said I was okay, then I was okay.
Was I? Would I do what I tried doing before? When I search myself and my feelings, hopelessness and sadness are the predominant emotion, but did I really want to die?
The Reaper would win. Could I live with that? The conundrum itself. Die and let him win, live and let him win. Unless I tracked him down first. And then made him pay.
Damon’s presence beside me forces my eyes open. He is holding the book pages and the handwritten letters. The movers must have told him where they were.
My eyes meet with the nearly black eyes of the man who looks like the devil himself in the dim light of this room.
“I want to find him. I want to make him pay.”
“So we will. I will be your tool for vengeance, Sienna. I will make him beg on his knees before you for mercy and then show him your wrath. My hand will be yours. My darkness will do the bidding of your light. ”
Light. There is no more light.
“It’s gone, Damon. My light. My soul.” A tear rolls down my cheek from all that I have lost.
“Then we will use mine in the meantime. Until we get yours back. As for the light, Sienna, the darkness cannot exist without it. And I am still here. You will understand this with time.”
Damon slowly reaches a hand out, his thumb grazing my cheek softly as he catches another tear.
“I will tear through this world for you, rainbow, until we find what you are looking for. Even if you don’t. But we will do it together.”
Damon's words comfort me in a way that gentle ones cannot.
Perhaps, just maybe, I would survive this.