Chapter 16
The smell of burning flesh has me waking with a panicked start, and that’s when the pain hits me like a thousand knives stabbing into my skin, over and over again.
I shriek from the pain that’s currently burning into my calf.
I try to move, to pull myself away from it but I can’t, I’m trapped and the agony just won’t leave.
My arms are strapped to my side with leather belts and every time I move, they bite into my fragile skin.
Where the fuck am I?
What’s happening to me?
My eyes dart around the room, doing everything I can to try and figure out where I am. The last thing I remember is being made to crawl across the stones with a bullet wound in my leg, then a hard boot cracking across my face, and my.. my husband.
Panic seizes my heart in a killer grip, squeezing until it struggles to beat.
“Please.. please stop this!” I cry out to whoever is in the room with me but my pleas fall flat as the burning sensation continues, filling the room with a rotting stench.
A black haze creeps along my vision but I refuse to give into the sweet temptation of silence.
I can’t let myself be that vulnerable again.
I can feel my body begin to shake and spasm, the metal bed underneath me creaks and groans at my erratic movements and I scream again, I scream like I’ve never screamed before until my throat strains and my voice box breaks from the force.
Sweat beads across my forehead and I can feel the veins at my temples threatening to burst as I thrash around in my binds.
“I’ll fucking kill you, Ricky!” I fire out with blazing hot anger. “I’ll end your pathetic little life!” The threats just keep on spilling from my mouth, but I make no attempt to stop it. I’m too far gone.
The fiery pain in my leg stops for a moment and my body flops heavily onto the bed, relishing in the small window of reprieve before a door opens behind me, the old hinges creaking.
I try to move my head to see who it is but the tell-tale sound of expensive shoes clicking against the floor gives me my answer.
Hell himself rounds the table, coming to stand at the side of me and if looks could kill, my husband would be dead a thousand times over with the way I’m looking at him right now.
His once perfect face now makes me sick and my fingers tingle with the need to scratch at his flesh, to feel his blood beneath my fingernails as I rip it away.
Ricky’s gaze burns into mine as he looks down at me before tipping his face to whoever else is in the room.
“You can leave now, I’ll finish up here.
” He orders, and footsteps shuffle around at the end of the bed before quickly retreating out of the door and letting it close softly behind them, leaving me alone with the devil.
“Why don’t you just kill me?” I spit out.
“And why would I do that? We’re having so much fun together aren’t we?” He taunts, like this whole thing is a fucking joke to him, and maybe it is.
Choosing to ignore his stupid questions, I throw one back of my own. “Why am I here? I don’t make you the money you want, and I’ve never been bought on Selection Day, so what is it?”
Ricky’s jaw ticks, a tell-tale sign of frustration at my questions. He grips the bed tightly before lowering his face to mine, the signature smell of whiskey washes over me and I recoil at the scent. “You wanna know why you’re here?” He whispers over my skin. “Why, I’m keeping you here?”
I know he’s waiting for me to answer back, that’s one thing Ricky has always had a dislike for, not being answered when he asks you a question so I simply nod my head, my gaze never straying from his.
He pulls back a fraction, his lip tugging into a sinister smirk before he speaks.
“Because I can, and I want to. It’s as simple as that, wife.
” The term has me gritting my teeth so tightly they begin to ache in my jaw.
“You thought you could run away from me, and that I’d just let you leave?
I own you. You’re nothing but a fucking pet, an obedient little dog.
You’re not even a person anymore, you lost the right to yourself when I slipped that ring onto your finger, claiming you as my fucking property. ”
His words spread across my skin like a toxic poison and I can feel the simmering anger coursing through my veins, just bubbling below the surface like a resting volcano, one that could so easily erupt and wipe out towns and cities within seconds.
My gaze drops to his lips for a fraction of a second before meeting his storm filled eyes, and I lift my chin towards him, a sinister smile pulling at my cracked lips and bleeding gums.
“Fuck. You.” Two simple words, and they’re enough to have Ricky’s eyes widening with anger, his pupils blowing wide.
I feel it before I see it, the pain of his hand cracking against my cheekbone, successfully splitting the thin skin open until blood pours down the side of my face. It’s warm and soft as it pools in my ear.
Ricky catches his breath for a moment before gripping my cheeks together and turning my head to face him.
“You think you can speak to me like that, hm? That I’ll just take your fucking attitude?”
He’s spiraling and he doesn’t know what to do about it now. I can see the chaos in his clouded eyes, the frustration and anger running wild throughout him. He’s on the edge and I wanna be the one to push him, even if it is stupid on my part.
“What’s the matter, husband? Feeling frazzled?
” I taunt in between the blood that’s seeping into my mouth from my split lips and he spins on his expensive shoes, his back now facing me as he runs his hands through his hair with clear aggression.
I hear his heavy breaths entering his lungs in perfect rhythm as he tries to calm himself down.
A heavy silence hangs between us for a moment, then he turns to face me again, a mask of complete composure slipping over his face. It’s frightening how fast he can change his identity, how quickly his personality can slip from one to the other. A wolf in sheep’s clothing stands before me.
Ricky hunches over the bed again and drags his thumb across my bottom lip, pulling the sensitive flesh taut.
He wants a reaction from me, a sound of hurt to slip past my lips but I won’t give him that.
He might have ruined my outer shell, shattered it into a thousand pieces but my heart remains locked in a box inside a small wooden cabin with sprawling green trees and a crystal river that warms to the perfect temperature in the afternoon sun, and another man holds the key to that box.
A man who showed me what real love is. It can be painful, yes; but that pain can teach us that we’re just human at the end of the day.
And we feel so deeply that it can seep into the marrow of our bones but it’s also wonderful.
It’s bright, and burns like a raging wildfire through our bloodstreams. It can leave us breathless also, from moments that are filled with so much passion you can feel the euphoria spilling from your pores like a tidal wave.
That man has claimed me wholly, he’s picked up my shattered and jagged pieces, cuts be damned and glued me back together.
I’m not the original shape I was, I’m different now, more unique and that’s exactly what he loves about me.
He hasn’t forced my pieces back into where they should be, instead he’s let them fall exactly where they want to be and I’ll forever be grateful for that, for him.
For loving me every single day, even when I couldn’t love myself.
“You’re thinking of him, aren’t you?” Ricky spits out, his vicious tone of voice yanking me back into the present. “It’s a shame that he’ll never find you, and if he does, well let’s just say there won’t even be enough of you to bury.”
I turn my face in his grip so my eyes are staring right into his soul, to the deepest pits of hell.
“Do you’re worst, but let me tell you something.
If I’m not the one to rid you from this earth, you best believe he will, and he’ll stop at nothing to rip you apart, piece by piece, limb by limb until there is nothing left of you. . to bury.”
The words tumble from my lips, and a maniacal laugh breaks free, a wild frenzy taking over my body as I throw myself around on the table, the leather straps pulling and digging into my bare arms but I can’t even feel it anymore, my tether to reality has snapped like a string pulled too tightly.
I feel like my soul is leaving my body and it’s being replaced by something much darker, a foreign entity slipping under my skin, wearing my body like a suit.
“You’re a crazy fucking bitch but I’ve got the perfect thing to make you behave.” Ricky says and I swear his words filter in through my ears then swirl around my brain before leaving again, like a botfly digging a hole into your scalp and making a home there.
I continue to laugh like a mad woman, feeling myself slip away from reality and into that dark place again.
Into the arms of the only place that can protect me now.
The dark embrace is warm and fuzzy as it wraps itself around my being, doing everything it can to protect me from whatever Ricky is planning to do to me, and I let it.
For the first time in a long time, I let it climb inside of me, its spindly legs and arms slipping effortlessly into mine until we become one.