Beautiful Inferno

by Abby Gale

  I was alone the day he left me. Even though he showed up in my life, out of the blue and saved me, he didn’t deserve my tears or my pain or my emotions. I couldn’t trust him again. I couldn’t afford my heart to be broken all over again, the shattered pieces he left were still hurting me every day.

  So, I just watched the ceiling until the sun showed itself from my window.

  CHAPTER 14

  ZEKE

  I was standing outside of Maya’s door, one hand hovering over the doorknob and the other trying to decide if I should knock.

  I wanted to check in on her earlier, as I kept turning in my bed, fighting with myself not to go to her and hold her close to me all night. But I didn’t. Instead, I listened, carefully, hoping maybe she’d have a nightmare and would give me a reason to be there with her, but there was nothing from the other side of the wall. The only thing I heard was silence, deafening silence.

  Sighing, I opened the door slowly, I didn’t want to wake her if she was sleeping. Her bed was empty. I frowned, but before I could worry, the door of the in-suite opened, and she stepped out with a towel wrapped around her slender frame. She was so thin, malnourished. Her skin was pale, and her eyes had purple circles under them, but she was still the most beautiful creature I had ever set eyes on. Her eyes widened when she saw me, but she schooled her expression fast and put on the cold mask she armored herself with.

  The bandages on her wrists looked damp, and I used it to my advantage to be close to her.

  “Your bandages need to be changed,” I said, walking closer to her.

  “I’ll handle it,” she said.

  Where was the girl who loved me to take care of her?

  She grew up, my self-hatred reminded me.

  I sighed. “Get inside the bathroom, Maya. I’ll do it.” My voice was the one I used in the club, my dominant voice and it seemed to work on her. She looked at me with her big doe eyes, almost too big for her small face, and entered the bathroom like a good submissive. My cock twitched in my grey sweatpants with the sudden image of her on her knees, head bowed, hands behind her back, and nothing on her but the small, sweet smile of trust.

  You’re fucked up Zeke, my self-hatred sneered. It was right as always. I shouldn’t have been thinking of her that way, especially not when she was just recovering from the attempt to end her own life. She was broken, and even that turned me on. I was just a disgusting pervert.

  She was standing in front of the vanity, looking at me under her lashes. Even though the look in her eyes was indifferent, it still made me want her even more. She was like a siren to my soul, always had been and she didn’t even know it. Her call was luring me, and even though I knew it would be the end for both of us, I couldn’t stop falling deeper and deeper into the ocean of desires.

  I stood behind her, our bodies were close enough to feel each other’s warmth but distant enough not to touch. Our reflections in the mirror was like a punch in my gut; the resemble between us was unnerving, same dark eyes, same shade of dark hair, and same slightly crooked nose. I didn’t know if she were thinking the same thing as she looked at us, but when her eyes met mine something sparked in them just for a second.

  “I want to leave,” she said.

  I was excited she willingly talked to me, even though my answer was nonnegotiable. “Where do you want to go?”

  Her response was silence.

  “You know I will never let that happen, right?”

  She only sighed, not giving me any sort of emotion to work with.

  “You can be angry at me all you want,” I said, touching her shoulder. She tried to get rid of my hold, but I didn’t let her. “I made a mistake by leaving you alone. I shouldn’t have done that, okay? But I’m not letting you go now.”

  Her lips parted like she was about to say something, but the coldness in her eyes returned as she sat on the countertop and outstretched her wrist to me. Opening her gauze, I applied the red liquid the nurse gave me to coat her wrist with. I didn’t know if it hurt, but her mask didn’t slip off, she didn’t try to escape from my touch or showed any kind of emotion.

  After I bandaged her wrists again, I sighed. “Do you hate me that much that you won’t give me anything? Even your anger?” My voice wasn’t above a whisper. She had the power no one had ever had over me, the only woman, the only person who could bring me to my knees and make me self-conscious about myself.

  She got down to her feet, murmuring a thank you like I hadn’t asked her a question or gave her my heart to shatter. I stayed there as she left the bathroom without a second glance.

  CHAPTER 15

  MAYA

  My fingers carelessly caressed the bandage on my wrist as I stared blankly at the wall. A knock on the door interrupted my productive moment. The door opened, and Zeke came inside, carrying a tray full of food. The delicious smell filled the room, and even though I was hungry, I didn’t have an appetite to eat a thing.

  My emotions were chaotic under the blanket of numbness. I was disturbed, almost haunted by the memories of our pasts; the time I cherished and felt the happiest. I was also excited by being close to him, seeing him after years. I felt a longing to hear him talk, laugh. I craved to touch him, hug him, kiss him, even though it was wrong, forbidden. I was angry… at him for leaving me, at myself for being weak to let him leave me, for having sick desires about him that he had every right to be disgusted with me. And above all, I was hurt. Hurt because of the time we wasted apart, hurt because he was unaffected by my absence in his life while I was constantly reminded of him in my hole of a house. I was hurt because he looked like a God himself in front of me, strong and collected as I felt like mud on his shoes, dirt, trash that waiting to be discarded.

  All these emotions turned my skin inside out, even the numb coating didn’t hide them. Like the princess and the pea, I could feel them under every layer I put on the pile. I snort with the description my mind brings out. There was no princess in here, only a prince; a prince who had it all, a prince who didn’t give a fuck about the little girl with a sick mind.

  “You need to eat,” he interrupted my self-shaming.

  I pushed the tray away from me. “I’m not hungry.”

  I saw him crossing his arms over his chest. I couldn’t help but let my eyes drink him. His arms were muscular, veins sticking out on them. His chest was broad and strong, the chest I always dreamed of snuggling at night. As he stood beside me, I hoped for him to leave, so I didn’t have to worry about doing something ridiculous, something I promised myself not to do when I saw him, something like jumping into his arms and kissing him with the longing and anger inside of me.

  He sighed as he waited for me to eat.

  “I’m not hungry, I’m tired, and I’m gonna sleep. Leave… please,” I murmured, hoping he would leave me alone, but instead he leveled me with a cold and authoritative stare and with a strong, demanding, and husky voice he ordered, “Eat, Maya.”

  Before I could protest, my hand was already reaching for the toast he made. Like his voice was some kind of magic that turned me into a puppet. Gritting my teeth, I cursed myself for being so weak around him and focused on the toast in my hand. The crusts of the bread as cut off, just the way I liked, just the way he used to make it for me.

  He didn’t forget.

  I wondered what else he’d remembered about me, about us. I wondered if he’d ever felt something for me like the way I burned with need and love for him, even before I knew what the meaning of love really was.

  “Good girl,” he murmured, and the chaos inside me stopped for a second.

  He was a sorcerer like he needed any extra power over me.

  I ate in silence as Zeke watched me. It would be so much easier if he just left me alone in the room… in my mind, and in my heart.

  I pushed the tray when I was done and continued staring at the blank wall.

  “I’m not going to work today. Do you want to do anything?” Zeke asked.

  “Yes, sleep,” I snapped at
him. The irritation of not knowing what he was doing for a living was too much to ask.

  “Maya.” His voice was full of warning, but I ignored it, my focus was on how much of a stranger we became. Did I even know anything about the man in front of me?

  “Will you keep acting like a brat?” he hissed.

  My eyes shot to his with anger and shock. How dare he could talk to me like that? He left me alone. He left me alone in a craziness I didn’t know how to deal without a second glance, without a phone call, a text, without a fucking visit, anything. And suddenly he came back into my life, demanding my attention?!

  “Leave. Me. Alone,” I gritted out. I was so close to losing it. The hurt and anger I sported were too much I didn’t know how much longer I could keep myself in check before lashing onto him.

  He sat on the bed, so close to me that our knees were touching. He wasn’t aware of the storm that ran inside me.

  “No,” he said with certainty.

  “Go to hell,” I snapped.

  “I’m already there!” he fired back.

  I couldn’t do anything else but be a prisoner in his gaze that looks like a black hole. Our breaths were fast and mixing with each other’s. We were so much closer than we should have been, and my mouth went dry with the warmth radiating from his body. He now had a better cologne, probably more expensive but I could still smell the man I knew. I could see the scar he had under his ear. The scar he got to protect me from hurting when I tried to ride a bike. I would have fallen and hit my head on the pavement if he didn’t throw himself under me. I didn’t realize I was reaching for his scar until he tensed beneath my touch. Our lips were just a breath away, and I couldn’t think of anything else but to feel his lips over mine again, just one more time.

  He cursed under his breath and stood up quickly, causing my hand to fall to the bed like a lifeless branch. And the only thing I saw in his face was disgust before he left the room in a hurry, slamming the door behind him.

  “Well done, Maya. You scared him away again.”

  CHAPTER 16

  MAYA

  It’d been five days since he brought me to this castle where he lived. We were like two inmates in the luxury of this loft. We always had breakfast, lunch, and dinner together. Zeke tried to make conversation as we ate our meals, but we’d become stranger to each other, there was nothing we could talk about. Except for the sketchbook and pencils, he bought for me as a gift, it was hard to prove that once upon a time we were the closest people to each other.

  As soon as we were done eating, I always went back to my room of nothingness. I thought I would’ve gone mad in this place when I first saw it, but strangely the room calmed me, made it easy for me to push back every emotion that tried to reach the surface. In this room, I only drew and drew. I let my sketches tell everything I’d felt but couldn’t express. This place became my hiding spot, but I could feel his eyes on me all the time, that hard gaze of his never left me day or night. At night, when he was in his own room, I could feel him stare at me through the wall. It was unnerving, I wished for him to go to work. But he didn’t go to work, though I still didn’t know what he did for a living. He must’ve been earning a lot since he could afford a life like this. Now, he had everything, but we weren’t the way we used to be. I would’ve given everything to be back to the way we once were, even though it meant we would turn back to have nothing.

  We were the happiest then. At least, I was.

  I didn’t know when I fell in love with him, but I knew I’d been loving him since I knew the meaning of love. I was irrevocably, without a doubt, head over heels in love with him. And my 15th birthday was the turning point. He was my first date. Though I knew he didn’t mean it like a date, but in my pathetic heart, it was.

  I was grinning like an idiot when we reached the restaurant. We’d been walking for an hour. Zeke offered to take the bus, but I didn’t want him to waste more money than he was already going to. I saw the glances people sent our way. I knew we looked like a couple, and I wished we were. While walking hand in hand with Zeke, I let myself enjoy the fantasy. My feet ached as we stepped into the restaurant, but I was at my happiest as Zeke held my chair like I was a princess.

  We ordered our meals, something we could afford - two tuna sandwiches and two sodas. Waiters looked at us silly because of our orders, but I didn’t care at all. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted.

  The next destination was a cinema in Zeke’s plan for my birthday celebration, and as we sat in the dark room side by side. I felt the buzzing tension and strange vibration in my skin. The air was charged with something I couldn’t quite name. I kept stealing glances at Zeke instead of watching the movie. We shared a small package of popcorn and this night was more than anything I would dare to dream.

  Around the middle of the movie, the tension between Zeke and I got palpable. My arm touched his muscular one that was covered with goosebumps. I heard Zeke mutter a curse under his breath before placing his arm around my shoulder and pulling me closer to his body. My breath hitched with the contact, but as soon as I was enveloped in his warmth, I sighed contently. In his arms, with his steady heartbeat in my ears, this was my happy place.

  I bit my cheek with the emotional pain I felt. It was silly how good memories hurt us the worst. The loss of something we once had was now haunting me, making me long to feel the same kind of happiness even though there was no chance of going back to who we once were.

  I ruined us. I ruined the magical thing we shared. I ruined us by falling in love with him.

  As the emotions I tried to suppress stormed inside me, I dug my nails on my leg, replacing the pain in my heart with the pain on my skin. While my leg throbbed in agony, my mind stopped showing me the things that hurt my heart. So, I dug harder.

  And harder.

  Until the only thing I felt became the angry throb on my leg.

  CHAPTER 17

  ZEKE

  My hand hovered over the doorknob of her room while her heart-shattering cries kept coming from the other side. I knew these voices so well. She’d finally fallen asleep, but like every time she slept alone, she was having nightmares. I think this was what happened when you’d grown up with a drunk father and druggie mother who loved to overdose every chance she got.

  I turned my hand into a fist and slid down to the floor, resting my back against her door. I wanted to go inside, take her in my arms like I used to, and hold her close until she found peace, at least in her sleep, but I knew this wasn’t a good idea.

  “No. Please, no!”

  I was on my feet the moment I heard her scream. I cursed when I entered her room. I was trying to put some distance between us since my mind was playing tricks on me with inappropriate thoughts featuring her, but I would’ve never left her alone as she suffered.

  “Shh, I’ve got you, Maya. I’m here,” I whispered until she opened her eyes. Her gaze was full of panic until it focused on me.

  “Zeke,” she breathed out. The way she said my name was like a prayer. It was like the sweetest praise.

  I pushed away the thoughts how I could make her whisper, moan, and scream my name over and over again. My stomach rolled with the self-disgust I felt for the thoughts that ran through my sick mind.

  She’s fucking fifteen. She’s fucking fifteen.

  And she’s your niece, you psycho bastard.

  She’s your fifteen-year-old niece.

  Off limits.

  Cannot be touched.

  Cannot be even thought about that way.

  She is your fucking niece.

  I chanted this sentence repeatedly, but the way her lush lips parted, the way her dark eyelashes fluttered whenever she looked at me made it hard for me to believe my own mantra. I closed my eyes for a moment to center my fucked-up thoughts, but her hesitant touch on my cheek forced my eyes to open.

  “I love you,” she whispered. I cursed at her sultry voice. Everything about her was a curse to my traitorous body. A siren call to the lost pirat
e in the stormy ocean. The tempting light in the angry darkness.

  You need therapy, Zeke. You need to be kept as a prisoner for the thoughts in your sick mind.

  I reminded myself she loved me as a brother before laying down next to her.

  “I love you, too,” I gritted out.

  Her body melted in my arms as she molded her soft curves to my hard lines. I made my hand into a fist just to will my dick to behave, but it was no luck. As she pushed her ass to my groin, I swallowed a groan and forced myself to think of something else, anything but the fact that she felt amazing flushed against me.

  I let out a strangled growl when her breathing evened out, and I kept holding her with a fucking hard-on between us.

  I shouldn’t have replayed the history. I should’ve stayed on the floor and let her door stay closed, but I couldn’t. When I heard another scream from her room, I shot to my feet and opened her door. Padding slowly to her bed, I turned on the light and touched her shoulder. She let out another cry when she saw my shadow next to her bed.

  “Maya, you’re having a nightmare,” I said.

  She nodded, leaning back, so my hand no longer touched her. “I’m okay,” she snapped.

  “You sleep, I’ll wait here,” I murmured, not giving her time to protest before going to the corner of her room and sitting against the wall. This was the most distance I could put between us while still giving her some kind of comfort.

  She opened her mouth to say something but decided against it. Finally, with a sigh, she turned off the light on her nightstand and lay back in her bed.

  I listened to her breathing in the darkness of her room. I knew she laid awake for a while, but she’d been sleeping peacefully by the time the sun showed itself through the floor to ceiling windows of her room. When I stood up to leave her room, I let selfishness get its way one more time. Leaning over her fragile form, I kissed her forehead, breathing in the scent I was addicted to.