We should have just run away.
But I couldn’t. The vengeful fire that burns within me hasn’t abated - it’s just been temporarily smothered by my torment and despair. My plan to wreak revenge, interrupted by Dornan’s sick fascination with my blood and screams.
My most primal desires, my basest emotions, are still tied to my desire to see Dornan suffer and die. In the long hours as my legs cramp and my arms go numb, I fantasize about the different ways it could happen.
Maybe he’ll put the knife down. Maybe I could pretend I was still unconscious and take him by surprise. Hide behind the door and storm him as he enters, dig my fingernails into his eyeballs until they burst. Oh, the pathetic fantasies that swim in my mind.
But I can’t get away. I’m always tied to either the bed or the chair – or—more humiliatingly—held by a wrist as I pee in a bucket in the corner. Thank fuck he takes me to the toilet once a day. But even in there, I’m chained to the wall and given exactly ten minutes to get done before he comes back in to get me. So there’s no escaping from there, either.
He’s smart. He knows that no matter how much he hurts me, I’ll always try to run away at the first opportunity. There’s no Stockholm shit going on here. I hate him and he hates me and only one of us is leaving this fight alive.
So until I find some kind of way to outsmart him, to overpower him, to just fucking get past him, I’m screwed. I’m as good as dead.
When I come to I’m still tied to the bed, face down in a pile of bedsprings. A sharp pain in my arm lets me know the needle has found its vein. I moan as liquid burns a fire inside me, spreading from my elbow to my shoulder and then enveloping my entire body. It hurts like nothing else I’ve ever had injected into my body, and I panic as I wonder if he’s decided to just be done with me and kill me already.
He must see the panic in my eyes, because he laughs.
“Don’t worry,” he practically sings. “It’s not poison. At least, not the kind you think it is.”
My limbs feel heavy and my brain feels like it’s been stuffed with tissue paper. It’s all scrunchy and vague inside, and I can’t quite see from one thought to another, each synapse shrouded from the next.
“I thought you were going to kill me,” I say, confused. Why am I talking? I curse myself for engaging with him and bite down on my lip to try and wake myself up a little.
“Are you afraid?” Dornan asks.
“Yes,” I answer without hesitation.
And that’s when it dawns on me. He’s given me something that makes it almost impossible for me to resist his questions. A sedative. A truth serum of some kind.
The name of it swims somewhere in my brain, the brain that no longer has a filter.
“You’re a fucking coward,” I say, noticing that my words are slightly slurred. “You should be the one strapped down like a fucking animal.”
He grins. “Maybe. But look who’s top dog today?”
He traces a line down my arm, and though I can barely feel it, the casual affection he feigns makes me quiver noticeably.
“Do you like it when I touch you like that?” he asks quietly, his gravel voice rattling my chest.
I blink slowly, groggily. “It confuses me,” I answer. I’ve never felt more vulnerable in my life. Well, maybe once. But right here, stripped of every ability to resist his questions, I feel dumb and drugged and completely fucking at his mercy.
And so very, very alone.
I glance up at him and I can see how much he’s enjoying this - this absolute position of power and domination. Not even my mind is safe from him now. All of my secrets, the ones buried deep, are his for the taking.
Elliot. Jase. Grandma. Kayla. Oh, Jesus. Nobody is safe right now. Please, fucking please don’t ask me about them.
He seems to read my thoughts, or perhaps he’s just reading the panic washing over my face in crushing waves that threaten to drown me.
“Tell me,” he says conversationally. “Did you like it when I fucked you, Juliette? I’m not talking about six years ago. I’m talking about in the clubhouse just weeks ago.” He trails his hand down to my ass, covered only with a pair of black panties. He slides his hand under the thin material and grabs a handful of ass, squeezing tightly.
“When you gave me your body to use exactly as I pleased? When I licked you here?” he slides his hand out of the material and reaches through my legs, pressing against my sensitive nub.
“Yes,” I reply blankly, staring off into the distance. I can’t lie. My brain won’t let me. But I can tell the truth.
Memories of our horrifying tryst come back to me like a tidal wave. His mouth on my most sensitive of places. The way he filled me, every last part of me smothered by his larger-than-life presence, until I was drowning in his darkness.
“Ask me what my favorite time was,” I say quietly. He seems taken aback.
“You’re going to kill me anyway,” I shrug as much as my restraints allow, which isn’t much, but he gets the idea. “Don’t you want to know how I liked you best?”
My voice is shaking, but I speak quickly. I want to get it out before he punches me or strangles me unconscious.
He laughs throatily, regaining his self-control. “Of course,” he says. “Tell me all about it, baby girl.”
I smile to myself as the words begin to form through my drugged haze. “I loved it when you held me against the wall and fucked me until I saw stars,” I say in a calm, measured voice. “I loved the way you made me come alive as you choked the life out of me. Because I’d just licked the tears from your face, and I could taste your grief on my tongue while you squeezed my sorrow away.”
My lips quiver into a smile as he roars loudly. Fucker. I’ve still got it, even drugged, bound and half-naked. I’ve still got that fire burning inside me that just wants to completely fucking obliterate Dornan Ross and everything he’s ever touched.
He snatches the knife up and for a moment I think he’s going to completely lose his shit and stab me to death, but instead he flips me over. I moan as the bed springs grab at me, trying to keep me face down. After he’s finished I’m laying on my side, my blank hip pressed into the bed and my tattooed, scarred hip sticking up toward the ceiling.
“I don’t like that you covered my marks, Julie.” He brings the blade down and now I know what he’s got in store. I feel my eyes widen as I take a sharp breath, and then the searing, ripping pain begins.
“No matter,” he spits, cutting into my skin. “I’ll just put them back.”
The only thing that relieves the pain in any tiny way is making a lot of noise. It gives the pain somewhere to go - a voice in the world. It acknowledges what’s happening to each screaming nerve ending that’s being ripped apart.
So that’s what I do. I open my mouth, and I scream, and I don’t stop screaming until he’s finished cutting any trace of Elliot’s beautiful work from my flesh.
THREE
After he’s finished cutting my tattooed flesh away, leaving a mess of weeping blood and pain, he leaves. But first, he unties me. I wonder why, until he throws me a stained towel that used to be white and gestures to my stomach.
“Keep pressure on it,” he says, his black eyes gleaming in the harsh light. “If you fucking die on me before I’m finished with you, I’ll come down and drag you out of hell myself.”
As he slams the door, I stare at it blankly, holding the towel to my stomach to staunch the bleeding. The pain is worse than the needlework from any intricate tattoo, and more intense than any blunt-edged knife dipped in fire and pressed to unmarred flesh. But I don’t cry anymore, despite the flames of pain licking at my torso. I’m just relieved that I’m alone, and untied, and for the moment, alive.
It makes me think of the last thing he said before he slammed the door and left me in here.
If you fucking die on me, I’ll drag you out of hell myself.
I believe him.
Mostly, though, I’m glad that my comment had the desired effect
– get him so angry he forgot what he was here for. Getting the truth from me. My mind already feels a lot clearer than it did, and relief soothes me like a balm. He didn’t ask me about Elliot. He didn’t ask me about Kayla. He didn’t ask me about Jase.
I’d give every last scrap of my battered flesh to keep them safe. He can cut it all away so there’s nothing left but blood and bone, and I’ll die happy if it means they all survive Dornan Ross.
A few hours later, I can tell night is approaching. The air around me has turned from thick and muggy to slightly chilly, making me shiver violently, still damp with my own blood. I have to peel the blood-soaked towel from my torso to get it away from my skin, and then when I look, I wish I hadn’t. My entire left side is a mess of blood and bits of torn flesh. Hacked is about the only word that could accurately describe what he’s done to me. He’s effectively excised the top layers of my skin so that no trace of ink remains.
It looks horrific. It hurts more the longer I stare at it, wondering how it will ever heal with no flesh to knit back together, but then I remember that it doesn’t need to heal, because I’ll be dead soon.
At some point I must nod off, because when I come to, it’s to a tray of food sliding along the floor toward me, and to the door slamming shut quickly behind it.
A chance to escape, and I was too fucking slow to even open my eyes.
Too fucking slow to even try. I’m pathetic.
I survey the food tray with interest; I’m suddenly reminded of the grueling flight I took to Thailand to have my surgery. I cringe inwardly as I realize that was mere months ago, and now I’m sitting in a death chamber, waiting for the Reaper to take me.
The same feeling of claustrophobia I experienced on that long flight is kind of like what I’m going through now. One shitty meal delivered at some point during the long hours. I’m uncomfortable, and I’m not in control, and I just want to get off this ride.
I crawl over to the metal tray and survey today’s contents. A sandwich made with dry bread and deli meat, a small red apple, and a glass of water used as a makeshift vase, holding a bunch of the most potently sweet-smelling flowers I’ve ever encountered. I don’t touch the flowers, despite how pretty they are with their long, thin green stalks and sprays of tiny, white bell-shaped blossoms hanging down. I swallow thickly as I wonder what kind of message Dornan is trying to send by including a deliberate gesture reserved for lovers and mourners.
I grab hold of the sandwich and disassemble it as best I can. Salami and cheese, cut in half, two seemingly innocent triangles on a plastic plate. I’m so hungry, and yet every time they bring me food, I’m terrified. Eating something Dornan has served me always makes me nervous with every bite, convinced I’ll bite into a human ear or a piece of glass or poison. So far I’ve been fine, but I still don’t trust.
Thorough inspection done, I grab one of the triangles and devour it. At first I tried to eat slowly, but I can’t. I’m starving, and this one meal a day is barely sustaining me. Plus, I’m afraid if I take too long to eat it, someone might come in and take it off me before I’ve finished.
As soon as the food hits my stomach, a wave of nausea shakes me. I hurry to the bucket in the corner of the room and retch painfully, vomiting up everything I’ve just scarfed down.
The food tastes strangely metallic on the way back up. Desperation and hunger rises with the last heave of food and I spit the taste away from my mouth as fresh tears prick at my eyes.
Poison. He’s fucking poisoning my food.
I’m starving, and I look upon the other half of the sandwich with both desperation and disdain. I want to eat it. I want to devour it. I’m ravenous and I need something to fill my hollow stomach. But not something that’s going to make me vomit.
I sit on the floor, huddled against the wall opposite the door. Watching. Waiting. Glancing at the half sandwich. The seemingly innocuous apple that’s probably full of maggots. The glass of water that has the stems of a highly poisonous flower immersed within. He’s fucking poisoning me.
Finally, I can’t stand it any longer. I hurl myself upon the last half of the sandwich, ramming it into my mouth as fast as I can, unable to stop myself even though I know the end result will likely be more vomiting and subsequent hunger.
The second half of the sandwich eaten, I pep-talk my fragile self. Even if it’s poisoned, you need sustenance. You need to eat or you’ll die. I brace myself against the wall and choke uncomfortably as fresh nausea rises in my chest, burning like acid. Keep it down, keep it down.
Finally, after what seems like forever, the urge to open my mouth and bring everything back up gradually lessens. My stomach still churns away, but the food stops trying to escape.
I sit there for what seems like hours, waiting. For what, I’m not sure.
Maybe for death.
And death returns eventually, his knife back in his hands. I slide up to my feet unsteadily, feeling fragile as a feather, like I might crumple if he breathes on me. He smiles as he watches me waver unsteadily on my feet.
“Nice flowers,” I huff. “Did you think I was too stupid to realize they’re fucking poisonous?”
He ignores my words. “I was trying to be romantic, Julie. You’re my baby girl, aren’t you?” He’s playing with the blade in his hands, the same slim switchblade he stabbed into my thigh months ago, when he thought I was a girl called Sammi.
I shudder. “What did you put in the food?”
His smile turns to a look of irritation; a frown and a smirk all in one. “That won’t work, Julie. Distracting me. You should know that by now.”
I snort, the energy it takes to converse almost too much to bear. “You put something in it that made me sick. Why don’t you just kill me already?” I glance at the blade in his hand. “Aren’t you tired of this?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer, just stares me down with those back eyes that remind me so painfully of other eyes. Jase. I push the thought of his beautiful face away. Because it hurts too much to even think of him.
I will never see him again.
I take a tentative step toward Dornan and his blade, my legs shaking with the sheer effort of trying to move limbs that are literally starving and wasting away.
He doesn’t step back. Doesn’t stop me. I guess he knows at this point that I can’t overpower him, can’t outsmart him, can’t get past him. There is nothing I can do to him that could cause him to worry.
I reach up slowly and curl my fingers around his fist, the one that clutches the switchblade.
“You could do it now. Slice my neck open.”
I don’t want to die. I’m not encouraging him to pull the proverbial trigger and splatter my brains on the wall out of any bravery or lack of regard for my life. It’s not about being brave.
I just want this to be over.
Amusement fills his face as he uses his free hand to peel my fingers from his fist.
“I’m not tired,” he says, chuckling. “Do you really think you’ve suffered enough?”
I think of when the suffering started, of the seven scars that are now gone from my flesh, of the burning and the agony and the sorrow of it all.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I do.”
“Well I disagree,” he says. “In fact, I think we’ve only just started.”
Anger wells up in my chest and I snap. “You’re poisoning me now?” I screech. “You’re fucking poisoning me?” I point emphatically at the bucket of puke in the corner. “You coward. Use your hands. Use your knife. Only a coward would poison his fucking prisoner.”
He reaches out and stabs my chest with his finger, making me step back until my back is up against the wall.
“I’ll tell you why you’re sick,” he says. “It’s not the sandwiches, baby girl. It’s the poison inside you. It’s the souls of my sons tearing you apart from the inside out.”
He grins, his words nonsensical but nevertheless a disturbing visual. I shudder as I imagine worms that look like Chad, Maxi and company cr
awling in my veins like sludgy syrup, black and toxic, burning through my veins until I’m nothing but a bleeding, infested corpse.
“Is that the sons I’ve already killed?” I snap, “Or the ones I’m still going to?”
His wide grin twitches, and suddenly, I’m so fucking over this dance that we’ve been doing for the past few weeks, so fucking tired of everything.
“If you’re going to poison me to death, you might as well just shoot me,” I say morosely, before I can stop myself. Jesus Christ! I want to slap my hand over my mouth, to shake myself by the shoulders. What’s wrong with me? I’m strong, I’m unbreakable, I’m vengeance personified - and yet I’m asking my enemy to just hurry up and shoot me already.
“You’re pathetic,” Dornan growls, amusement in his voice.
I feel crazy. I am literally going insane in this room with him.
“So are you,” I reply, before I can stop myself. “Four sons dead before you even fucking noticed me.”
His amusement at my apathy transforms to unbridled rage as my words hit home. He bunches his fist and draws it back, aiming directly for my face.
At the beginning, I used to flinch. I used to shield my face with my hands, trying to avoid the pain, but as Dornan’s fist travels toward my face in slow motion, I smile and ready myself for the pain.
Crack! My head snaps back, hitting the wall behind me with enough force to knock me out for a moment. I feel my body crumple to the floor, paper-fragile and ready to shatter completely, my eyes slammed shut but my lips are pursed into a triumphant smile.
Because every time he strikes out at me is one step closer to death, and with it, an eternal sleep; a blissful relief from the tyranny of this agonizing existence.
And I’m so very, very tired.
FOUR
Something cold pours over my head and I gasp, spluttering as I jerk awake.
I peer up to see Dornan standing above me, an empty water glass in his hand and a look of irritation on his face so scathing, it makes me want to giggle.
I’m a pile of tangled limbs on the floor, and I can taste blood in my mouth. The fresh blood swims around on my tongue, mixing with my saliva and the old blood that’s stuck to my teeth after weeks of being hit in the face. So much blood, it has become a normal thing for me to taste.
Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series Page 35