21. Ripley
CHAPTER 21
RIPLEY
CHOKEHOLD – SLEEP TOKEN
With the sound of Xander’s shower running, I finally wriggle out of the wrist restraints that have rubbed my skin raw. I can reach down my body to my ankles now. I’m tied with some kind of thin, flexible nylon rope. Fuck knows how he sourced it in here.
My limbs are like liquified jelly. I’m not sure how they’re even still attached after the past few hours. Fumbling with the rope, I’m trembling too hard to even attempt unfastening the expertly tied knots. Xander left nothing to chance.
The glint of black steel catches my eye. He discarded the folding pocketknife once he’d licked my blood from its blade, his tongue an inch away from being sliced open. I was fascinated, watching that twisted display. And fucking soaked too.
Straining as hard as I can, my fingertips brush against its curved handle. I manage to seize the knife then quickly set to work slashing the rope from my ankles. It’s tough and doesn’t cut easily.
Once the restraints have given way, I try to stand up but crumple instead. I’m weaker than a newborn baby. The ordeal he put my body through, equal parts pain and pleasure, has left me exhausted beyond measure.
Wincing at the sting of bruises across my skin, I can’t find the clothes I wore when I nervously tiptoed over here, too curious for my own good. I wanted to know if he would live up to his threats. If I could survive a night in Xander Beck’s bed.
Snagging a t-shirt that smells like him—spearmint and something darker, somehow more primal—I quickly dress. My panties are peeking out from beneath the bed. That’ll have to do.
I flee before his shower is finished. My mind needs time to process what we just did together. The lines we crossed. His confusing blend of sick fascination for pain and attentiveness for my pleasure. The scarred iceman hides many perplexing secrets.
Those scars weigh on my mind as I creep back to my room. They were everywhere. Littered all over his arms, biceps, stomach, thighs. Not an inch of skin was untouched. And neat, regimented lines too. Some deeper than others. But so clearly self-inflicted.
What internal pain does Xander have that’s so great, he has to expel it on to himself? And at what point did that blade stop serving its purpose, and he switched to hurting others instead?
Reaching my door, I realise I don’t have a keycard to unlock it. I left it tucked inside my sweats, still lost somewhere in Xander’s room. I’m not brave enough to return yet.
Instead, I head for Holly’s door. She has a fancy, all-access pass, courtesy of her perks. I can’t tell her where I’ve been. I’ll have to find an excuse.
If she knew I’d slept with Xander, she would blow a gasket. But as I lift my arm to knock on her door, my silent plotting halts. Realising that it’s ajar, unease swarms in my chest.
For the year that I’ve known her, Holly has always been paranoid about her privacy. She would never leave her door unlocked. Licking my lips, I gently knock on the door frame.
“Hol? You in here?”
Silence answers me.
“I’m coming in.”
My state of undress long forgotten, I creep inside. Light emanates from a lamp deeper in the room. It’s as neat and organised as ever. She’s particular about her space. But then the broken light on the ceiling with knotted bed sheets looped through the exposed fixture draws my attention.
I look lower.
Squeeze my eyes shut.
Reopen.
Still there.
I’m not sure how long I stand here. At some point, I must start screaming. But I can’t feel or hear it. People arrive, and hands usher me outside where I collapse against the wall. Vision unfocused, all I can see is my best friend. Or rather, the remains of her.
Guards arrive. Staff arrive. Medics arrive. Footsteps. Shouts. Barked orders to clear the floor. None of it registers beyond the basic observations of a detached mind. I’m left here, huddled in a ball and gasping for each breath as they take a body bag out.
That’s when I look away. Only for a moment. My head turns, allowing me to catch sight of the two patients who haven’t been escorted to another floor. They stand at the end of the corridor, shoulder to shoulder. United in their success.
Seafoam rage.
Midnight detachment.
Something fractures inside me. It’s almost a visceral thing—the breaking of my sanity. Like an overstretched rubber band that snaps and recoils but never reverts back to its original shape. I watch Lennox’s lips lift into a grim smile. Like he’s performed a hard but necessary task.
Xander’s expression doesn’t change a bit.
He just stares.
Transfixed by the sight of my life falling apart at the seams as my best friend’s corpse is removed. That’s when I start screaming again. I don’t stop until the sedatives are administered.
Thunder rumbles.
Deep. Sonorous.
Enraged.
My mum used to say that thunderstorms are just God moving furniture. She was religious in the way that most Brits are—made to endure weekly Sunday school as a kid but never truly committing themselves to the idea of faith. Being force-fed the notion of religion kinda destroys that possibility.
The rumbles continue, each louder than the last. I wonder if the reception is flooded now? I really should go check on Raine. I wouldn’t want him to get stuck or hurt.
Raine.
With the distant memories of Holly’s death still swimming in my mind, awareness slams back into me. Finding Raine unconscious. Blue and lifeless. The medics taking him away. Lennox’s threats. Passing out.
With each mental flashback, my senses trickle back in. The frigid cold hits first, then searing heat in my wrists and arms. Groaning in pain, I force my eyes to open.
It makes no difference. I’m in total darkness. My body is shivering, it’s so cold. I can feel that something tight and painful binds my wrists together.
It feels like I’m tied to some kind of metal pipe. The pain in my arms must be from hanging all my body’s unconscious weight on whatever binds restrain me.
Attempting to move, I feel water slosh around my legs. The sound of torrential rain echoes all around me in what sounds like a cavernous space. It collides with whatever water I’m submerged in. I’m soaked to the bone.
“Hello?” I call out hoarsely.
The emptiness answers me.
Thick, desolate silence.
“Hello!”
Echoes tell me I’m somewhere spacious. It feels empty. Still. The smell of old chlorine burns my nose, shoving out the last dregs of drowsiness. Kicking around in the water, my foot collides with an unknown object, causing me to yelp in fear.
A sudden burst of lightning cracks above me, illuminating my surroundings for a few seconds. I look around as quickly as possible, ignoring my sinking sense of dread. Then everything falls back into blackness.
Lennox. Fucking. Nash.
I’m in the swimming pool.
My rapid look around revealed the zip ties securing my wrists to the bottom rung of the pool’s steps. I’m surrounded by discarded furniture and rainwater that pours from the broken windows and ceiling.
Rapidly rising rainwater.
It’s fucking flooding.
That twisted, vindictive man couldn’t just kill me. Oh, no. That would’ve been too easy for the bitch who supposedly threatens his precious family, right? Instead, he’s left me to slowly drown as the pool floods.
Hysteria quickly sets in. It’s human instinct. Inescapable. I scream myself raw and contort my body at every available angle to escape bondage. Muscles burn and protest, but I don’t stop.
Nothing breaks the layers of zip ties fastened around my wrists to form an unbreakable plastic chain. He’s done his homework. I’m completely immobile.
“Fuck you, Nox!” I yell to the emptiness.
Part of me wishes he’d respond. Even to laugh or bait me. Revel in his victory. Anything but the lonely silence he’s condemned me to die in. The lack of humanity is cold, even for Lennox.
By the time my voice gives out, the water has risen a few inches, now up to my thighs. Each flash of lightning reveals its progress. The storm shows no signs of letting up and halting the flood.
Working my wrists back and forth, I’m taken back to that night. The excitement and anticipation I felt as Xander sprawled me out, pinned me down and fastened each limb to his bed frame. All with that predatory gleam in his eye.
It sounds fucked up beyond words. I can admit that in the safety of my own thoughts. But that night, I found a sense of freedom that I’d never had before.
All the money in the world can’t buy the ecstasy of handing your autonomy to someone else. Someone who will leverage it to torture you in the most exquisite way. The pleasure he found through hurting me only intensified the satisfaction.
I shove Xander from my thoughts as I battle against the layers of zip ties. My skin splits and bleeds, but I can’t stop crying. Not when the freezing cold water is slowly creeping up to my waist.
“Please!” I wheeze uselessly. “Someone help me!”
Rumble. Crash.
All I have is God moving furniture and the ghosts of everyone who has damned me to die like this. Even if I didn’t supply the pills swimming in Raine’s system right now, I might as well have.
It didn’t stop me from doing exactly that to so many others and with the same outcome. Harrowdean’s list of victims is lengthy. I’ve contributed my fair share. Perhaps this is what I deserve. I shouldn’t be allowed to go home when they never will.
Villains don’t get happy endings for a reason.
How would the good guys cope if they did?
The tears come thick and fast. Tears for Raine. Rae. Everyone I’ve hurt in order to survive. The other version of Ripley who walked into Priory Lane, deluded enough to think it was her chance to get better. She died like so many others.
Wrists throbbing with each rivulet of blood flowing down my arms, I give up and hang here. Dead weight. Defeated. Powerful Ripley, reduced to a sobbing wreck in an abandoned pool. Without a single soul to miss her.
No one will find me in time.
Not when there’s nothing to miss.
Water tickles my ribcage. The shivering has stopped. I’m numb now. Slowly sinking into the abyss. I won’t even fight it, there’s no point. Maybe Lennox was right. Raine deserves a better friend than me.
He will be better off without me.
Everyone will.
Letting my head loll, I listen to the violent slam of the torrential rain. It becomes rhythmic. Trance-like. Lulling me into a state of detached calm as my body is engulfed by water, inch by inch.
It feels like an eternity has passed when the crunch of broken glass rouses me. Water laps at my clavicles and forearms as I peer around sightlessly, wondering if I’ve finally lost it. I’m probably hearing ghosts now.
Lightning flashes again, illuminating the outline of someone at the pool’s edge. I blink through my crusted, swollen eyes, trying to discern if I’m imagining things in my desperation.
Another strobe of lightning. Reflections dance off platinum hair and alabaster skin. I’ve definitely lost it. There’s no way he’d be here to save me, not when he’s obsessed with bringing about my end.
A beam of light breaks through the obscurity. It’s pointed in my direction and moving closer. Squinting, I realise that I’m seeing a phone’s flashlight heading towards me.
“Found yourself in a spot of bother?” he utters in a cool voice.
Light shines in my face, making my eyes water. I blink through the haze, waiting as the image of Xander settles. Hair rain-soaked and plastered to his face, his polo shirt is soaked through and jeans mud-streaked.
“You’re not really here.”
He stops at the pool’s edge. “Hearing whispers, little toy?”
Another loud clap of thunder rumbles overhead. The water is tickling the base of my throat now. Even if I crane my neck, I don’t have much time left. It’ll be in my mouth and nose soon.
“You disappeared.” In his phone’s weak light, I see him frown. “I dislike losing track of my own property.”
“You’re normally more focused than that,” I rasp.
“I was searching for Raine. Only to find him passed out in the medical wing and you gone. Is this some kind of elaborate suicide plan?”
“I didn’t tie myself up!”
His forehead puckers in concentration. “Ah. Lennox was rather cagey about how he discovered Raine in such a state. But it wasn’t him, was it?”
Half-drowned and gasping for each breath, icy water kisses my throat and chin. I tilt my neck at a painful angle, hoping to preserve my air supply for as long as possible. Perhaps long enough for someone to follow Xander and find us both.
Watching my predicament, he takes a seat on the tiled edge. Xander studies me unhurriedly, disregarding the rapidly rising water. His eyebrows are pulled together like he can’t decipher his own thoughts.
“I suppose he’s making a point,” he muses. “Drowning his problems instead of burning them alive this time around.”
“X-Xander.”
“Yes, little toy?”
I can’t bring myself to beg. Not to him. Not again. So instead, I suck in each precious mouthful of air left, battling to keep the water level beneath my chin. The rain has to stop sometime. I can still make it.
Xander watches me bob, his head cocked to one side. “I’ve dreamed of watching your corpse turn blue so many times. In the Z wing, I played out different scenarios in my head while they tortured me.”
Funny that.
I’ve done the same thing for him.
“Then I came here. I started watching you. Following you each day to observe your new routine and patterns. Learning about the person we created, rather than the obsession I once had.”
He watches me spit up a mouthful of water that crashes into me in a miniature wave. His stare has hardened from one of intrigue to something akin to concern. If soulless psychopaths can display such emotion.
“I’ve watched you beat and threaten. Sob when no one is watching. Eat, sleep and take medication. Fuck for the thrill of it. Fall for the one person you never intended to. Hurt those you so clearly care about.”
The water sloshes over my mouth and touches my nostrils.
Xander just watches me struggle. “I stopped seeing an object.”
Whatever epiphany he’s having, I don’t want to hear it. Not with my last gasps of oxygen. Water laps at my nose, rising those final few centimetres faster than ever. The panic has come swarming back with a vengeance.
“I want you broken.” Xander gracefully draws to his feet. “But I don’t want to watch others break you.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a familiar black pocketknife. The same one I used to free myself once before. Taking a final breath before I’m taken under the surface, I see him frown at the blade.
Then… nothing.
Xander is gone.
I keep my eyes screwed shut as the cold water covers them. That way I can pretend I’m floating out to sea on a blissful wave, content to let the current carry me back to shore when it’s time to return.
Chest burning with each passing second, the pressure is a slow build. Lungs seeking to expand once all the air has escaped as dying bubbles. But there’s no air underwater. No reprieve from the inevitable conclusion.
Just nothingness.
The watery grave of Harrowdean’s whore.
I hear a crash ringing all around me as something collides with the water. When the first bit of water pushes into my mouth and lungs, causing me to gag, I feel hands grasping at my wrists.
Snap.
The plastic zip ties give way. More water spills into my mouth, filling my lungs with each new iteration of panic. Something sharp nicks my wrist as the bindings release, tie by tie.
I feel the last bubble escape my mouth. My throat, chest cavity… everything feels like it’s on fire. The snipping of my wrists being set free feels faraway, lost in the expanse of the pool’s inky depths.
I hope Lennox is satisfied.
I hope Raine is safe.
I hope Xander learns to feel again.
One wrist suddenly breaks free, floating at my side. I’m too weak to even move it. Sharp nicks from a blade pierce my other wrist, working its way through the plastic trapping me in place.
On the verge of fading out, I feel the last piece of plastic leave my skin. I’m left afloat, sinking deeper into the welcoming nothingness. Until arms wrap around my waist. I’m propelled upwards, through layer after layer of umbra.
Rain showers down on my head as we break the surface. I frantically try to suck in a breath, but the oxygen can’t seem to find its way into my airway. Nothing penetrates the blockade of swallowed water.
“Breathe, goddammit.”
The voice offers what should be a cold command, but it comes out sounding more like a plea. The desperate call of salvation from the unlikeliest of sources. I wish I could appease that voice. I want to breathe.
Wet clothing slaps against hard ground. Pain radiates up my spine. Hands slip and slide all over me, searching for signs of life. I feel his arms band around my ribcage before I’m jerked—once, twice, three times.
On the third painful manoeuvre, water comes spewing up. It pours from my mouth and nose, burning so fiercely, I may as well have swallowed fire. When the heaving stops, I’m laid back down, and a mouth seals over mine.
Short, sharp bursts of air are pushed past my lips. The five rapid rescue breaths force my airways to reopen and accept sustenance once more. Lips disappearing from mine, I’m free to drag in my first excruciating breath.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Each ragged gasp brings life back to my soul. I can feel my limbs twitching and wrists throbbing. I’m flat on my back, still being hammered by rain. But something must be braced above me, protecting my face from most of the downpour.
Fingertips smooth wet curls back from my face. Gentle. Almost tender. The same hand that clasped mine in the medical wing despite thinking I wouldn’t remember his momentary compassion.
My eyes flutter open. His face is shadowed but visible. Water drips from his hair and clothing, the continued flashes of lightning revealing what I’d never believe without seeing it myself.
Emotion.
His almost-black eyes are full of it.
“Y-You… saved me.”
Xander’s features seem to cave, overcome with sudden exhaustion. “You’re worth more to me alive.”
“But… you h-hate me.”
His lids close, as though bracing for impact.
“I thought I did too.”