Chapter 25 Scarlett
Scarlett
I was so excited! My first movie! We had been so busy, our schedule so full, that I had almost forgotten that we were going to do this, and what better night than tonight?
Azrael led me down the hall on the top floor. We turned several corners until we came across a door that I had never had access to. “They were building on this for quite some time,” Azrael explained as he grabbed the handle. “They only just finished it a few days ago.”
I gripped my cane tightly, the excitement bubbling under my skin, as he pushed open the door and gestured for me to go.
Without hesitation, I walked right in, taking in the large room filled with six rows of comfortable looking chairs and a large wall covered completely in a black screen.
My eyes widened, my hand releasing my cane without thought. “Is that a television?” It was the biggest television I had ever seen. Although, I suppose, anything bigger than Azrael’s monitor was the biggest I had ever seen.
“No,” Azrael answered as he walked by me, my cane in his other hand. “That is a movie screen. The movie plays from a projector up there,” he gestured to the opposite wall where a little cutout near the top could be seen, “and projects it there.”
I studied the cutout where I could just barely see the reflection of a lens in the dim light of the room. “How does it make the picture bigger?”
But Azrael was already heading to the center seats, still holding my cane.
I stared at that cane for a moment before looking down at my leg. It still hurt, but I could manage the few steps, I was sure of it.
I steeled my spine and took a step forward, instantly gasping at the added pressure. I grabbed my thigh, glaring at it. I could do this. I could. I had survived whippings. I could push through something as small as this.
With a deep inhale, I straightened my spine again and took another step forward, my knee threatening to give out on me, but I pushed through. It was fine. Limping was fine. I could make it to the chairs without the cane, I was sure of it.
But the moment I stepped between the two rows of chairs, I was grabbing the backs of the ones in front of me, panting, ashamed. Okay, maybe I couldn’t do it, but I could feel that it was better than it was yesterday which was something.
Azrael was waiting for me in front of the chairs we were going to sit in, watching me carefully as I made my way towards him.
“You’re getting better, sinner. You can survive anything if you never stop fighting.
” He paused for a moment as I joined him.
“Limits are constructs. If you don’t allow yourself to have one, you’ll be shocked at what you can survive. ”
I studied him carefully before taking my seat in the soft, comfy chair. I rubbed my thigh a few more times. Limits were just constructs, which was true, I suppose, in a sense, but everybody had a limit. Maybe not the one they believed they had, but they did have one.
I couldn’t help but wonder what his was.
He took a seat next to me, leaning our canes on the other side of him before he leaned back in his chair.
I leaned back in mine, admiring the beautiful red leather of the seats we were in. I had never sat in a chair like this before. It felt as if it could swallow me whole, it was soft—
The lights began to dim until we were in a room of such darkness, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, but it only lasted a second.
The screen suddenly flickered to life, the whole room filling with the bluish hue of the picture.
My eyes widened as the noise surrounded us on all sides, the pictures on the screen moving just as we did on the security cameras on Azrael’s monitor.
The sound was beautiful, the pictures beautiful, and the singing was absolutely mesmerizing.
I didn’t know most of the words the man was saying, but I recognized Alice the very second she stepped onto screen in her white nightgown.
And when her father told her “You’re mad, bonkers, off your head, but I’ll tell you a secret, all the best people are,” it felt as if he were speaking directly to me.
“What does it mean?” I asked Azrael without looking away.
“Those in the European countries use the term ‘mad’ for insane.”
I glanced over, immediately finding his eyes. “Am I mad?”
His eyes darkened, that unfamiliar look taking over his expression again. “Yes,” he said on a bare whisper.
I felt a smile touch my lips. “As are you, Azrael.” I turned back to the screen, every ounce of attention I had now completely focused on that movie. On every word, every breath of Alice’s.
I don’t think I moved even a muscle until I saw the Mad Hatter first come on screen. My heart did a flip, my lips parting, my eyes widening. I sat forward, staring intently at him, at the way he smiled, the way he spoke.
Mad indeed, I would say.
But not as mad as my Azrael.
My Azrael was far madder than this character could ever be. My Azrael was going to flood the rivers red, this Hatter would never do such a thing. He was too…soft.
When the Queen of Hearts came on screen though, I straightened, my brows furrowing. “That’s not how I imagined her,” I signed. “She’s so…sad.”
“This is the writer’s interpretation of the story,” Azrael explained quietly. “You can perceive it any way you like.”
But I shook my head, my hands digging into the arm of the chair. She was so cruel to Alice. Why was she so cruel? That is not the Queen of Hearts I wanted to be. Alice didn’t have tar in her eyes. She was kind. I would never hurt a kind person. Not ever.
Azrael’s warm fingers grazed over mine, my muscles instantly relaxing enough for his hand to slide under mine.
He gently lifted it and eased me up out of the chair, turning me to face his chair.
I glared at him, unable to sign, but I knew that he knew what I was thinking. He always knew what I was thinking. Even before we were married. Before we were friends. Before we were anything at all.
He gently pulled me closer, forcing me to crawl onto his lap, my knees on either side of his thighs, his pants rough against my own, against my bare cunt. “Today, you have felt a range of emotions that you didn’t like feeling,” he told me, releasing my hand and reaching into his pocket.
I adjusted my position, falling onto his lap, my thigh screaming in pain, but it was a good kind of pain. It felt as if I were stretching a muscle that desperately needed stretched.
“Irritation over the doubt your family has felt. Anger and perhaps sorrow over the memories you had to relive. Excitement and now irritated confusion for what you have seen.” His eyes searched mine, his brows pulling together and relaxing slowly, as if he were contemplating something that perhaps made him uncomfortable.
After a moment, his features relaxed and darkened. “What I want you to feel now is euphoria.”
I frowned, but the irritation was easing. It had been easing the moment he put me in his lap. The moment I could feel the warmth of his body against mine.
I missed him so much. I missed feeling his touch. His lust. His feral need. I missed releasing my control for him to use however he saw fit, but it had only been two days. How long will the days feel when I was living in Absolution?
Poppy’s words drifted through me again, her anger shifting into my doubt.
It was the right thing to do. For the mission. For the people who deserved their freedom. I would prove to the world and myself that my limitations were nonexistent. I could fight through anything to protect those without tar in their eyes. To protect our Hysteric Wonderland.
Azrael pulled something out of his pocket and let it fall between us, a chain gripped in his hand.
A necklace.
It was a necklace.
My eyes widened, every ounce of emotion falling away for the warmth I always felt when it was just the two of us.
The pendant on the end of the silver chain was a blood red heart wrapped so tightly in black vines, it looked as if the vines were squeezing the life out of it. Between the vines, carved into the heart itself, was a ‘A’.
He unclipped the clasp and gently wrapped it around my neck, causing my entire body to shiver at the soft touch of his hands.
The pendant fell halfway between my breasts and the hollow of my throat, and it was absolutely beautiful.
My eyes lifted to his, my heart pounding, my pussy throbbing. It felt like a lifetime since we had been intimate.
His eyes were near black as his hands fell from my neck. He searched my eyes, his own expression unreadable. Seconds passed before his eyes hardened. “I’m going to say this once and then I’m going to let you fuck me just like this, do you understand me?”
My legs tightened around his, a breathlessness filling me. I was going to be on top? I had never been on top before.
He slid his hand around my neck, his fingers digging into my skin, and pulled me forward until our breath mingled together between us.
“Fight. This is not the church. You are not to act like Scarlett Harris when I make that call. You are to be you. Whatever they do to you, follow the instinct we’ve worked so hard to build, do you understand me? Whatever that may mean.”
My brows pulled together, half my mind focused on his hand, the other half on his words. “I will earn punishments, won’t I?” That was my assumption.
“You will.”
I watched him carefully. Follow my instincts.
I wouldn’t know what they said until after I got there.
I already knew I wouldn’t be Scarlett Harris, she was dead.
She had been dead far too long for me to even remember how to successfully pretend to be her, but if I acted out too much, I wouldn’t find what I needed.
Was he…was he worried?