Chapter 27 – Ashley #2
The silence that follows is thick, suffocating. For a second, he just stares at me, his chest heaving, his face drained of all color.
Then, his entire body jerks as if he’s been struck.
“Don’t,” he spits, the word vibrating with a raw, ugly hunger. He shoves the chair aside, the metal screeching against the floorboards, and storms toward me. He looms over the chair, his hands coming down on the armrests, effectively caging me.
“Stop it!” he bellows, his voice cracking with a mix of fury and genuine pain. “Do not talk about those people as if they’re real!”
His face is inches from mine, his eyes wild, the pupils blown wide until they swallow the iris. He is trembling, his breath hitting my face in hot, panicked bursts.
“They aren’t your life,” he hisses, his voice dropping to a terrifying, possessive growl. “They are the shackles! He took you from me. He stole the time we were supposed to have, and he filled your head with these…these domestic delusions. You think you belong to him? You think you’re his wife?”
He laughs, a harsh, jagged sound that holds no mirth. He reaches out, grabbing a fistful of my hair and pulling my head back, forcing me to look up at him.
“You don’t belong to a Rusnak,” he snarls, his face contorting into a mask of pure possessiveness.
“You belong to the potential we had. You belong to the version of you that didn’t settle for a monster.
And I’m going to purge all of this from you.
I’m going to strip away the ‘mother,’ the ‘wife,’ everything that keeps you from me. ”
He leans in so close our noses touch, his intensity radiating off him like a fever. “You’re not going back to them, Ashley. I’ve burned the bridges. I’ve cut the ties. By the time I’m done, you won’t even remember the sound of their names.”
I look at him—really look at him—and the cold, hard truth sinks in: There is no de-escalation here.
He isn’t listening to words. He’s waiting for me to surrender.
And as he stares down at me with a terrifying, absolute certainty, I realize he’s already convinced himself that he’s saving me from myself.
Under the cover of his shadow, I slowly rotate my wrists.
I force my muscles to stretch, trying to slide my hands down the back of the heavy chair, searching for even a fraction of an inch of slack in the thick plastic bindings.
The zip-ties bite viciously into my skin, their sharp edges scraping my raw flesh until a warm, slick trickle of blood begins to coat my palms.
I ignore the pain, gritting my teeth, and pull harder, trying to find a weak point in the lock.
Nothing. They’re industrial grade, cinched so tight they’re cutting off my circulation.
Desperation clawing at my throat, I try to shift my legs, testing the cords around my ankles, but the frantic movement causes the heavy chair to slide a fraction of an inch, the legs scraping against the floorboards with a tiny, agonizing squeak of friction.
Daniel freezes.
The manic sorrow on his face evaporates, replaced instantly by a chilling, razor-thin sneer. His eyes slide down my body, tracking the tension in my arms, the blood on my wrists, and the slight, defensive angle of my shoulders.
“Still trying to run,” he whispers, his voice dropping to a dangerous, flat vibration. He steps back, looking at me as if I’ve just committed the ultimate betrayal. “Even now. Even when I’m pouring my heart out to you, you’re looking for a way back to him.”
“Daniel, wait—” I begin, my voice catching in my throat as he pulls a small, silver casing from his jacket pocket.
He doesn’t hesitate. His movements are terrifyingly swift, practiced, and precise.
He steps into my space, pinning my shoulder against the back of the chair with a heavy, unyielding hand.
I try to thrash, to throw my weight from side to side, but with my arms and legs pinned, I’m entirely defenseless.
The cold bite of the needle sinks deep into the side of my neck.
I gasp, a sharp, choked sound. The fluid burns as it enters my bloodstream, a searing trail of ice that spreads rapidly toward my chest and brain.
“I wanted to do this the gentle way,” Daniel whispers, his face a blur of disappointment as he steps back, discarding the syringe onto the desk. “I wanted you to choose me. But you’re too sick, Ashley. Samuel Rusnak has poisoned your mind, and I have to cure you. I have to make you clean again.”
The room begins to tilt violently. The dark mahogany paneling stretches and warps, turning into a dizzying vortex of shadows. My head grows impossibly heavy, my chin dropping to my chest as the strength drains out of my limbs like water.
I try to hold onto the anger, onto the image of Samuel’s face, of Ethan’s laugh, but the chemical tide is too strong. It washes over me, heavy and suffocating.
Through the gathering dark, the cold truth finally settles in with absolute, terrifying clarity.
He is never going to let me go. There’s no negotiating with him, no appealing to his humanity, because the Daniel I knew is completely gone.
This man will keep me in this room, or he’ll kill us both trying.
My eyelids flutter, the weight of the drug dragging me under. The last thing I see is the outline of his silhouette standing over me, waiting for the dark to claim me once again.
And then, there’s nothing.