Chapter 12 #2
“What?” she signs, frowning, breathing hard, eyes moving back and forth across my features, desperately returning to my lips. Her hands fidget in her lap, then end abruptly on my forearms now that I am clutching her chair from both sides, giving my hands somewhere to go before I lose control.
“I know what you’re like,” she signs before clutching my arms again. I shake my head.
“I’m holding back, sweetheart. I’m holding everything back so I don’t scare you away, but it’s killing me, Ella.
I’m trying to be a good man. I’m really trying, and I swear I’ll stay where you want me to be for as long as you need, but it’s getting difficult.
It’s, it’s…” Her hand catches the collar of my shirt and tugs me hard toward her as her lips crash against mine.
And I say crash because our kiss is a collision, a rocket ship, and a shark jumping out of the water all at the same time.
Ravenous. Desperate. Hungry. So hungry I dig my nails into the wood of the chair.
“I’m going-” I pull back for a second. “I’m going to let go of the chair,” I warn her between kisses.
“Push me away if you want me to stop.” I kiss her again and let go, grabbing her waist less delicately than I should.
Then again, everything right now is the antithesis of gentleness.
Lifting her up, standing, her legs fold around my abdomen, her mouth devouring mine as I mark hers, harsh and unforgiving, walking us to my bedroom.
Our bedroom. Because there is no world in which I am letting her go.
Her hands run over my shoulders, tugging at my shirt, losing control.
Her innocent side leaving for a much wilder version of herself.
Still hesitant in ways, I notice little spasms course through her, like two parts of herself are battling against one another.
I lower her onto the bed and try to step back, just to let her breathe.
To give her space to tell me to stop, or just have a second to herself, but she catches my arm, deepening our kiss, and fireworks explode behind my eyes as I live through the best kiss of my lifetime.
“Ella,” I gasp. “Sweetheart, we’re going…
” A trail of kisses follows, from beneath her ear to her throat, earning me a silent whimper caught in her staccato exhales.
“Too fast.” Forcing us to stop, I connect my forehead to hers.
“Just tell me. Sign to me. I don’t want to hurt you, Ella.
I can’t.” She looks down, hiding her face with her palms. “Hey, no, don’t-” I catch her delicate fingers.
“None of that. It’s not what I meant. I’m really into… this. More than I should be, really.”
“Then why stop?”
“Because I can’t risk losing you.”
“But…” Her hands move, hesitant and trembling. “I just… I want to try.”
“Try what?” Her cheeks flush deeply, and she looks away.
“I can’t sign it.”
“Sweetheart.” My voice lowers. “Just tell me, I’ll do whatever you want me to do.” Her eyes meet mine again, wide and bright and braver than she knows.
“I want…to be close to you,” she signs at last. “Make the hurt go away, please.” Undo what happened there, protect it with a spell of love and care and worship.
Copy that. I take her hand and press a kiss to her knuckles, giving her every chance to pull away.
She doesn’t. Instead, she reaches for me.
Slowly, carefully, with more trust than I deserve, she guides me closer until there is no space left between us but breath and the fragile line of what we are both afraid to cross too quickly.
For a while, the world grows quiet. It’s only us, learning each other again in the dark, moving slowly, carefully, until her breathing turns uneven and her fingers curl into my shirt.
Later, she rests on my lap on the bed, still in her pajamas above my fully clothed body, her face tucked beneath my chin while I trace slow circles over her back.
“I love you,” I murmur in her hair, “so much that I wouldn't know how to live in this world without you by my side.” She gave me her trust on the most intimate level.
Today was a milestone, a step to remember.
Leaving a hard, wet kiss in her hair, all my love mixed with frustration, I murmur in her ear.
“Husband and wife, Ella. That’s what we are here for, sweetheart. This whole life thing. To be husband and wife.” Can she hear me, or is she already asleep? I am about to pass out as well when my phone vibrates. An unknown number gives me the creeps before I even open the message.
A photo appears.
A birdcage, open. Gray metal, worn and dirty. On its floor lies something tiny and blue, almost imperceptible. A beautiful blue bird, dead. The photo is accompanied by a text.
Little birdy, I’m coming for you. Sleep tight. I’ll be there soon.
Every god of war channels through my synapses as I let calm descend over me, emotionless, with no reaction but a kiss to her hair and the need to make sure she is safe.
Then I get out of the bedroom and go into my office, calling the police immediately.
Against all odds, I will allow an operation at the ball two weeks from now.
Cole will not be stopped before then, and I intend to watch him cuffed, taken into the back seat of a police car, and sentenced to life for every crime he has committed.
In the meantime, my girl will stay here.
Hidden. Protected. Unlike his bird. I will be her shield, her protector.
Cole might have thought this was a smart move.
If only he knew. That I have fallen in love with Ella and intend to tie myself to her in every way society allows.
Now that I have settled this part of the equation, all I need is to bait him and watch him fall.
Cole Vodianov, look over your shoulder in the street.
I will be your monster, your shadow, your worst nightmare.
His photo appears on my internet search, and I glare at it.
A dead man walking, that’s what you are, Cole.
A lot of things have changed since Ella came back, and I have changed too.
I made peace with violence, and realised it was okay to use it for the right purpose.
So I hope the police succeed for everyone’s sake, because if they do not, I will be the one to catch him and make sure he never breathes again.
Ella
“And how did you feel when he told you?” Dr. Madeleine Voss asks while I try to focus on her and not the memory of what happened last night in this room.
She sits across from me in the library, one leg crossed over the other, a notepad resting on her knee and a black fountain pen held loosely between her fingers.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with muscular arms that make her white sleeveless silk blouse contrast with the sheer force she exudes.
Her skirt is pencil-straight and black, her practically white-blond hair cut bluntly at her jaw, and her eyes are as pale as a frozen lake, holding dozens, if not hundreds, of patients’ secrets.
She is in her late forties, maybe, though age has done nothing to diminish her unsettling charm.
I imagine she leaves most people slightly dazed after shaking her hand.
This is already the third time I have sat in this chair in the last ten days.
She was highly recommended by the clinic, and I know Tristan ran a background check on her before agreeing to let her come here.
I am wearing an ankle-length burgundy wool dress with long sleeves.
It is almost lunchtime, and the sun does not quite meet the horizon on this cloudy morning.
Something in the air is eerie, out of this world, as if a fake fog machine has been turned on to set the scene in a theater.
Enter a sad, sad girl, too mature for her age, because that is how people praise young women whose traumas altered their brain chemistry and turned them into barely functioning humans, although on the outside, we can fool most. I have been told this by so many people.
Coworkers. Teachers. All of them carrying this strange smile that said too much and too little at the same time.
I never had anything to reply to that, because how can you explain to someone that you’ve lived so many years in a house in flames that you don’t know how to act when the fire is finally out?
Tristan is at work right now, and I remain here, safe but still caged.
I understand why, but some days I catch myself grazing my fingers over a window, leaving traces behind, my breath blurring the glass.
I need to remind myself that I am free. That Tristan gave me a key on my nightstand.
That I can walk away, even with all the risks, I still could.
Soon, it will be over. The only true cage is in my head, and no one but me can open it.
From my chair, I notice one of the guards passing by the house, rounding the garden every ten minutes.
I remain here, behind gates, with cameras, locks, and a not-so-small army of men that seems to have doubled since the threat we received ten days ago.
He did this. Tristan. He built a fortress to protect me, so that I could stay out of harm’s way.
I wanted to work but it’s still too dangerous so I have taken up reading instead, beginning with the not-so-small task of making my way through the English classics in Tristan’s library, hoping it might benefit me if I manage to go back to studying in September.