by Bea Paige
I’d be a fucking virgin for the rest of my life if she had her way, so it’s just as well I’ve made sure she doesn’t get her way. Remembering Emmie’s flushed face as I’d made love to her spurns me on. I want her back in my arms, beneath me, panting and whispering my name.
“Be back by teatime,” she says.
“Sure, Ma.” Whatever.
“Mother,” she corrects me.
“Mother,” I repeat, opening the door and jogging towards the beach. I don’t have to look back to know she’s watching me from the doorstep. I feel relief when I get far enough away from her line of sight.
Emmie isn’t at her usual spot.
Today, though the sun is high and bright and it’s warmer than it’s been the past few days, she isn’t swimming. My heart sinks as I climb the rocky outcrop and look out to sea and to the stretch of beach along the other side of stone. That side is empty too. My heart sinks like a rock. I haven’t told her what she means to me. I haven’t told her I want to go away with her. That I’d run away with her if she’d still let me.
“Fuck!” I shout into the wind.
Climbing down the rock onto the other side of the beach, I jog some more, veering left along the path towards the only other place we spent time with each other this whole summer. The field is wide open and just in the distance is the distinct mound of the Maeshowe, a Neolithic cairn built a ridiculous amount of time ago and still standing. Currently it’s not open to visitors and Emmie and I have snuck in countless times to have sex, talk and laugh hysterically at the Norse graffiti left on the walls. I guess every teenager in the history of time likes to mark things they shouldn’t.
Pretty soon I can see the familiar shape of the grassy mound and the dark entrance. A breeze ruffles the long grass as I slow down to a walk. Something, some weird sixth sense, tells me I should approach with caution.
Then I hear laughter.
I hear her laughter, loud and tinkly in the darkness.
I smile, figuring she must’ve seen me approach and is happy that I’ve finally turned up.
Then I hear another laugh, a deeper sound. One that is definitely, horrifyingly, male.
I pull up sharp, sidestepping the entrance, and listen.
“… Hmm. I’ve missed you…”
Words are cut short, only to be invaded by the sloppy sounds of kissing. Someone’s kissing my girl.
MY GIRL!
I grit my jaw so hard that I feel a piece of tooth chip away. I swallow it. Not fucking caring. I’m like a statue unable to move, only able to listen as my heart fucking cracks...
“It’s only been a few days,” she responds, giggling.
My scalp prickles as her laughter- the sweet, sexy sound I thought she only reserved for me- scatters over another man’s skin. My hands clench, nails biting into soft flesh.
“Too long, baby. Way too long,” he responds, a deep rumbling groan lifting from his throat.
I imagine wrapping my hands around it and squeezing until there’s no breath left.
“If you missed me so much, you can always run away with me. I know someone in…”
I don’t hear the end of the sentence. There’s nothing but the whooshing sound of blood rushing in my ears as rage explodes from my chest. She didn’t! She didn’t just fucking say it.
Just like my violin, I’ve been played.
Used.
Fucking strung along.
I feel the strings within me, the ones holding onto my anger, snap. They ping inside my chest one by one as a cloud of red mists my vision.
Rage takes over pushing down the hurt, the pain, the betrayal, the fucking abandonment.
Ducking inside the entrance, I stride down the dark passageway, pulling up straight as I enter the domed section. Before me, Emmie and this cunt who’s stolen my girl pull apart, scrabbling for their discarded clothes. They’re both flushed, their lips bruised, hair messed up, fucking naked.
Emmie is the first to react. “Erik, this isn’t what you think…” she says weakly, knowing it’s exactly what I fucking think. The bitch. She yanks on her t-shirt, her puckered nipples taunting me from beneath the thin material.
“This is our place,” I say, my voice low, steady, but full of dark rage.
She flinches, shame filling her eyes. But it isn’t enough. I want her to hurt. I want her to hurt as much as I do right now.
“How long have you been fucking me over?” I sneer, stepping closer to her.
The man she’s with, and when I say man, I mean a kid a few chin hairs older than me, steps towards me.
“Don’t fucking move!” I growl at him. He looks shit-scared. He fucking should be, because in a moment I’m going to rip his damn head off.
“I’m sorry,” she says weakly. “We were just a summer fling…”
“JUST A SUMMER FLING!” I roar, striding towards her.
She stumbles backwards, her back hitting the stone wall as the rage seeping from me presses her against the wall.
“Please, Erik. I’m sorry.”
Tears spring in her eyes, but they don’t affect me. They just make me feel angrier. She has no right to cry. No fucking right. I’m the one whose heart has been ripped out and trampled on. I’m the one who has been betrayed in the worst possible way.
I’m the one who gave her my love only for it to be thrown back in my face.
I’m the one who’s fucking dying inside.
Am I not good enough for anyone? My mum fucking abandoned me. Ma and Viktor force me to be something I’m not. Now Emmie, the one person I thought got me, has been lying to me this whole time. Lying to me, laughing at me, and fucking another man behind my back.
“I’m a fucking fool. I gave you my heart. I was going to run away with you. But it was all a fucking game. How many other people have you been fucking this summer, Emmie?!”
She whimpers as I trap her body against the wall with my own. Before I know what I’m doing, my hand is wrapping around her throat. Her eyes bulge at the tightness.
“Get your fucking hands off her, prick!” the bastard behind me shouts.
I let her go, vaguely aware of her sucking in choked breaths as I turn on him.
“The fuck you gonna do about it?” I stalk towards him, my whole body shaking with violence. One more word from this fucker and I’m going to do something bad.
Something I might never return from.
“Don’t be a prick, man. Emmie’s made her choice, now fuck-off!” he retorts.
Is he fucking insane? Can he not see I’m about to commit fucking murder?
“Layton, don’t,” Emmie says, warning her bastard lover off me.
She steps in front of me, getting between us. Protecting him.
“Erik. I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you…” it sounds lame, even to her ears.
I see the red marks I made on her neck, but I don’t fucking care. I don’t fucking care. I want to make more. I want to make her pay. I want to make him pay.
“Never meant to hurt me? I told you everything. I gave you my heart, Emmie, and you fucking took it. This might’ve been a summer fling to you, but it meant fucking everything to me. You meant everything to me…” I snap, my nostrils flaring in anger.
She has the audacity to reach for me, her eyes lighting up at the passion she sees in me.
“Erik…” she murmurs, reaching for me and giving me her best puppy dog eyes. What the fuck is she doing? Is she coming on to me now, like this, with him here? Fuck!
I slap her hand away, not caring that it must hurt. “Get the fuck out of my way, Emmie,” I seethe.
She doesn’t.
So, I make her.
Drawing my hand back again I slap her hard across the face. The sting is as satisfying as the sound, but it isn’t louder than the fucking shattering of my heart.
Nothing is louder than that sound.
Nothing is louder than the roar that erupts as I launch myself at her lover. Nothing is louder than the monster that takes over telling me
to finish him. Fucking finish him.
Not her screams.
Not his cries.
Not her tears.
Nothing…
Chapter 21
Rose – Present Day
I wake up with a jolt. My eyes flying open. Erik’s standing in the centre of the room. Eyes open, fucking screaming.
On the other side of the glass is both Anton and Ivan. Ivan is yanking at the door handle, Anton pressing the control frantically.
The door isn’t opening.
And Erik is still screaming.
Fear, real dark, suffocating fear fills my lungs. It’s the same kind of fear that stripped me bare in the cupboard beneath Cerulean Blue.
My demon roars in my chest in response.
Yet, the thrill I feel is intoxicating. My body snaps to attention, the last remnants of sleep evaporating. This. This is what makes me feel alive.
Erik is gone, replaced with the monster ready to rip me to shreds, and in this state he will.
Danger, darkness, death…
It’s all a heartbeat away.
“ERIK!” Ivan roars, pounding his fist against the glass wall.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck! It’s not opening, Ivan. It’s not fucking working!” Anton shouts, gripping his hair in his hand.
I sit up in bed slowly, cautiously. My whole body is trembling, adrenaline pumping through my veins as I look at Erik.
So far, he hasn’t noticed me.
But Ivan and Anton have. Their reaction is the same.
Don’t fucking move, they tell me with their eyes.
I turn to look at Erik who’s panting now, his eyes wild. Sweat drips down his forehead, sticking his hair against his head. The veins in his neck bulge from his skin.
He’s lost.
Wherever the hell he is, it isn’t a good place and here I am trapped in the memory with him. I can almost feel the power of it seeping from his skin and sucking me into its hold. I’m on the periphery, orbiting his pain, but at some point soon I know I’m going to be sucked into the black hole of its destruction if I don’t do something.
Out of the corner of my eye, Anton moves along the glass wall whilst Ivan distracts Erik as much as he can. I’m not even sure his shouting and fist bumping is penetrating the memory Erik’s lost in, but he continues, hoping it’s enough to keep Erik’s attention elsewhere.
Anton crouches down, flattening his hand against the glass. His eyes are filled with fear and regret.
“The door won’t open,” he mouths.
“It’s okay,” I silently say back.
“You’re in danger and I can’t get to you.”
The pain that fills his eyes is too much to take, so I look away.
Erik has stopped screaming, but his rage is still just as powerful. He’s strung tight, as tight as the strings on his violin that lies discarded in the corner of the room.
I need to reach him.
I need to snap him out of this.
Looking down at my wrist still tied to the bed, I make a decision.
Dancing has snapped him out of his episodes before, I believe it will do so again. Tugging at the rope with shaking fingers I begin to unravel the knot. Fortunately for me, Erik is no longer holding onto the other end. I know this is a bigger risk than I’ve taken before. Inside this room I don’t have the protection of Ivan or Anton, I don’t have a wall of glass between Erik and me.
I’m stuck in the cage with a monster with no means of escape and no one to step in should things go wrong. This could be the biggest mistake of my life, but something tells me that sitting here waiting for Erik to see me as the woman who tortured him before will be so much worse.
Easing my hand free from the loosened rope, I ignore the shouts from Ivan and Anton and slip my shoes and socks from my feet. Dancing in trainers isn’t easy, and most definitely contributed to me twisting my knee, so removing my shoes is a necessity. Second to my Pointes, I’ve always danced better with bare feet anyway.
Not taking my eyes off Erik, I breathe deeply, drawing oxygen and strength into my lungs. Like Erik, I’m shaking but I dig deep, clinging onto my demon for dear life.
I stand, and she spreads her wings.
I lift onto the balls of my feet, placing my arms in fifth position, ignoring the agony in my knee, ignoring Anton and Ivan’s frantic kicks against the glass, and leap forward into the path of a monster.
For a fraction of a second, we stare into each other’s eyes. I see the monster capable of absolute destruction in his.
Then he lunges for me.
I spin away, whirling out of his hold and pirouette to the other side of the room.
He twists on his feet, snorting the air through his nose. His eyes narrow, his shoulders hunch. Behind him, Ivan and Anton fall apart.
As Erik pants with vicious energy and blind rage, I push up onto my tiptoes and dance.
It’s harder to move gracefully in a confined space with a swollen knee, but I do my best. I move, not thinking about how Erik could end my life any moment now. I don’t think about the fact that there are two men breaking apart on the other side of the glass wall.
I just dance, moving and weaving around Erik, who for now is following my every move with his eyes. He turns on his feet in the middle of the room as I move around him. I know he’s waiting for the right moment to pounce.
With every step the pain in my knee worsens and I know I’m doing irreversible damage, but I keep going. If this was any other time, I would’ve stopped, given in to the pain, given up.
But I can’t afford to do that.
So, I dance until the pain overtakes me. I dance until sweat slides over my skin and heat fills my belly. I dance until Ivan and Anton’s fear subsides, until the monster before me returns to the man I know will break me if I let him.
I keep dancing even when I know Erik is back. I keep dancing; moving, twirling around the room. I dance with an energy I’ve never experienced before. It’s so powerful, so forceful that beyond the glass wall Anton and Ivan are on their knees.
But not Erik, not him.
He stands tall, strong, like an oak tree unafraid of the storm.
I dance away the pain, the fear, the absolute terror that I’m finally going to crack open my heart to these men. I dance because my demon won’t let me stop, because she’s afraid that when I do, everything will change.
I dance until I can’t anymore.
With one last painful pirouette, my knee finally gives way and the floor comes at me in slow motion. I stiffen, waiting for the impact to break me further.
But I don’t fall.
I land in his arms.
Erik scoops me up, lifting me off my feet in one swift movement then carries me over to the armchair and collapses onto the seat with me curled in his lap.
“Fuck, Rose, how is this even possible?” he grinds out, then buries his face in my tangled hair, breathing in deeply. He’s shaking violently, so much so that my own teeth are chattering from the force of it.
“You can let me go, if it’s easier…” I say softly.
“No!” he groans, wrapping his arms around me tighter, his fingers digging in. “No,” he repeats after another long minute of silence.
Erik hangs on tightly, he doesn’t try to speak again after that. He doesn’t try to look at me, he simply holds on as though letting go will break the spell between us and send him reeling back into his nightmares. And in return, I don’t try to touch Erik. Instead, I fold my hands in my lap, forcing myself to calm down and look at the two men beyond the glass cage that have somehow changed my life forever.
Anton looks pained as though I’ve taken a knife to his stomach and gutted him. He leans his forehead against the glass, lifting the palm of his hand against it.
“Look at you,” he says, awe, respect and a deep affection in his gaze. I swallow hard.
Next to him, Ivan is crying openly, his face awash with tears. I’ve never seen such pain, such relief, before. Despite myself, my chest sque
ezes. He catches my gaze and wipes the back of his hand across his face, swiping away the tears even though more fall.
“Rose,” he bites out, unable to articulate his feelings in the moment.
But I understand him well enough. His love for me leaks from him, the salty tears falling from his eyes wash over me in a wave. But this time it’s different, I don’t drown in them. This time I manage to stay afloat. Clasped in Erik’s arms, I find my buoy, and he finds his.
Chapter 22
Erik holds onto me for dear life.
His ragged breaths and thumping heart become a musical masterpiece beating in time to my own rhythm. A part of me wants to escape his hold, is afraid, not that he will hurt me physically, although of course he could, but that he will somehow seep beneath my skin and travel straight to my heart, destroying what’s left of it.
Inside my demon is restless, pacing. She wants to fight.
But I refuse to acknowledge her knowing that another, bigger part of me, something that is growing hour by hour in the presence of this man, doesn’t want to leave his arms. I’m pulled in two impossible directions, not able to concede to either and only remaining here because he refuses to let me go. Erik’s arms are wrapped tight around me as he shudders beneath me, murmuring words I can’t quite understand. I can hear his teeth chattering. I feel the dampness of his skin through my t-shirt.
It’s as though he’s purging his monster through every single pore.
Breathing in heavily, I look beyond the glass wall and back to Ivan and Anton. Both are shell shocked, stunned that once again I’ve managed to snap Erik out of his rage.
The thing is, I know that next time I won’t be able to. The damage to my knee is beyond the point of no return. It’s been heading this way for some time now. I’ll never dance again, not with my knee in this state. The pain is intense but welcomed because it gives me something to concentrate on other than Erik and the way he holds me close.
I don’t know what to do next, all I know is that Erik must make the first move and I have to be patient until that time comes. I can give him that, at least.
Time passes, my stomach growls in hunger. I need to pee, but I remain steadfast and wait. We all do, Ivan and Anton too.