by Esme Devlin
No.
Fuck this.
Fuck him.
I take him by surprise and manage to break free of his grip by twisting around and ducking.
His hand slips from my shoulder easily and I’m already running for the door.
This one doesn’t lock — it was open when I used it the other day.
My hand grips on to the cold metal knob and I twist and pull at the same time, a flicker of light creeping in from the hall as the thing inches open.
But he has me by the hair now.
I’m yanked back and my scalp burns. My hands fly to it, trying to stop him.
He pushes me down on the floor and steps over me.
I thrash and kick but his legs anchor mine and his hands grip quickly around my wrists.
Then he settles down on my chest and all I can do is try to suck air into my lungs.
Just breathe.
Breathe.
“Well, I wanted a walk down memory lane and that’s exactly what you’ve given me.”
I buck my hips up, trying to throw his weight off me but it’s like being trapped under a bus.
I can’t use my hands. My legs.
But I have teeth.
My head turns and I clamp my jaw down hard as fuck on his forearm.
When he doesn’t release my arm instantly, I keep going.
Harder.
Even harder, until I think my teeth might fall out from the pressure,
He laughs.
He fucking laughs?
I taste something sharp and metallic slide over my tongue and pull away.
“Do it again,” he urges me.
I shake my head. “Fuck you.”
He leans down until his head is next to mine. His smell is overpowering.
It used to remind me of Christmas and now it reminds me of fucking fear.
His breath is slow and controlled when he opens his mouth right beside my ear. “Kiss, fuck or torture?”
“I’m not playing your game.”
He gets up and pulls me with him, and for a short second I almost feel relieved.
“Not yet, maybe. But you will.”
The front door swings open, dragging the air from the cold house outside into the even colder night. He shoves me down the couple of steps and I stumble slightly when my feet hit gravel.
The wind is back, the forest in front of me thrashing in the gusts.
I need to get away.
My car keys are in my pocket.
My car is right there.
I turn around to see where he is, but he’s already taking the steps towards me.
Eying the car, I barely even breathe as I try to work out what the fuck I should do. Do I run now? Would he catch me? Do I run when we get closer? What if he has a hold of me again?
“This way,” he says, barging passed me.
I feel my keys through the pocket of my jeans. Then I follow him.
He passes by my car.
This is my chance.
My hand slides into my pocket as I make for the door. I see him in the corner of my eye spinning around, but I don’t look back.
I only look at the car.
Pushing the button to unlock it, my fingers are under the handle when he catches me.
He grabs me around the stomach, pulling me back and I take the door with us.
When he lifts me up, my fingers — damp with sweat — slip from the door easily.
“No you fucking don’t, princess.” I’m a foot off the ground and he mouths the words directly into my ear, ensuring they can be heard over the trees.
The trees.
That’s where he’s taking me.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask him, my voice breaking at the end. “You’re trying to recreate that day? You’re fucking sick.” I kick my heel back, right in his shin, and he lets my body slide down against his hard one.
“If I’m sick, then I want to make you sick too. Move.”
He doesn’t make the same mistake twice. The car keys are ripped out of my hand before I’ve even noticed he’s doing it. He launches them across the courtyard and they land on the gravel, meters away from my car.
Then he grabs a hold of my wrist and starts dragging me towards the edge of the forest.
I dig my heels in.
I’m not going in there.
“I can’t do this,” I insist, shaking my head.
I really fucking cannot do this. I couldn’t even do it in the day time. But now? When it’s dark? With him?
I’ll pass out.
“Please,” I grind out.
Every time I stick my heels into the gravel, a single yank from him sends me stumbling forward.
He doesn’t even look back.
“Please, I’ll do what you want. Just don’t make me go in there.”
He turns around to face me, his hand still gripped firmly around my wrist.
“Whatever I want?” He flicks his eyebrow at me and I watch him.
I pity him. I don’t know what the fuck he wants from me, but in this moment, I pity him.
What the fuck happened to him? How can anyone be this fucked up?
But the image from my nightmares flashes through my head and Jamie’s words ring in my ears. Maybe nothing happened to him. Maybe he was always fucked up.
I swallow, because I don’t even know what I’m agreeing to.
I just don’t want to go in there. My brain is screaming that I wouldn’t survive it.
“Whatever you want,” I tell him.
He closes the distance between us and tilts my head up to look at him. I look behind him. I can’t meet his eye anymore. I’m too fucking ashamed of myself and my own fear.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says. I flinch at the words. He doesn’t want… that? Surely? He doesn’t even like me. “It’s a shame that everything had to happen the way it did. In another life, I could have loved you. Maybe you would have loved me too.”
I swallow again while his hands caress my neck. There’s a lump in my throat the size of a marble and it won’t fucking shift.
“What are you talking about?” I figure if I keep him standing here, talking, then we’re not in those woods.
We’re not doing whatever the fuck it is he wants to do.
Could I talk him down from what he wants to do?
“You still don’t know?”
“Tell me,” I say, my tone more defiant. My eyes flick over to meet his. Keep him talking. “Explain it to me.”
“You made a monster that day, little princess. You created a monster, and you didn’t even know you’d done it.” He chuckles in a way that makes me feel like a stupid little girl. “You skipped off into the sunset with Prince Charming and left me in the shadows. And now I’m taking you back there with me.”
“You think I skipped off? I had nightmares for years,” I argue.
“What, while you slept? Try being awake.”
“Malachy, I—”
“Shhhhhhh.” He cuts me off, pressing a finger over my lips. I shut up. I watch his eyes as he focuses on them intently, tracing a rough finger around them. “I’m going to break you tonight.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. I stand there, frozen to the spot while his eyes drift down, my chin, my neck, my breasts.
“Don’t do this,” I tell him, my voice coming out as a whisper. “You do this and you are that monster. You don’t have to be.”
As if my words have broken the trance he was in, his gaze flicks back up to meet mine. “Let’s face it, I was never going to be the prince in this story, was I?”
I’m trying to think of a reply, any reply that would talk him down from this edge he is on, but nothing comes out. I don’t get the chance, he’s already pulling me away.
I walk to the edge of the woods with him, my mind racing, trying to form a plan.
Any plan.
I can’t run. That’s exactly what he wants.
He wants to recreate that day because
he thinks it will break me. What did he say? He wants to take me to the shadows with him.
I’ve been there.
He thinks I skipped off into the sunset? I didn’t.
I was just as much in those shadows as he was.
I need to make him understand that.
We’re at the edge of the woods and inside there is only blackness. I glance from Malachy’s face into the abyss and back again. The trees practically fucking roar in the wind and he is so fucking still in comparison.
Both of them terrify me, for the same reason. But as much as looking terrifies me, it’s like I can’t keep my eyes away from them.
It happens with spiders too, although now I’m only just realizing it. It’s on the wall in the house and you’re fucking petrified but you have to keep your eyes on it, to make sure it’s not going to do anything.
That’s how the woods feel. That’s how Malachy feels.
And I don’t know which one to look at.
He drops my wrist but quickly catches my hand and squeezes. The skin is rough, calloused — probably from whatever he does for a living — and warm. He pulls me in to his side and whispers in my ear, “Now you can run.”
Chapter 12
Malachy
When she doesn’t move straight away, I give her a nudge forward.
She clings onto my hand like it’s the only thing stopping her from falling over the edge of a cliff.
“What do we do with monsters, princess?”
I look down at her and watch her shift uncomfortably. She watches the dark forest in front of us. “You’re supposed to run from them.”
“Wrong answer,” I tell her. “You face them. Now run.”
She looks at me for a minute and then looks back at the forest. I can see it, clear as day written across her face. Is he the monster? Or is it the woods?
“Run away now ,or I’ll make the choice for you. I’ll give you all three choices, all at the same time, right here on this gravel.”
Her eyes widen in shock and she drops my hand like it just burned her. She shakes her head, backing away from me. “I can’t do it.”
I take her by the shoulders and back her over the edge. Her head pivots from side to side, frantically trying to see what’s behind her. She’ll see fuck-all.
In there, only your ears work.
“You need to.”
“No,” she snaps. “No.”
I can almost hear her heartbeat. She’s trembling under my grip and it’s not from the cold.
She’s fucking terrified.
But still I walk her back.
With no motion in the courtyard, the lights on the outside of the house go off and if we spun around, we wouldn’t know which way was out.
She wouldn’t know which way is out.
I know these woods like the back of my hand.
She must realize the light is gone because her hand reaches up and grabs her shoulder tight, right where my hand is.
“Malachy, please.”
“Shhhh.”
I don’t want her to beg. I want her to sob her little fucking heart out.
But she doesn’t.
Seconds drag into minutes and she doesn’t beg again.
It’s pitch black all around us. I like the blackness, I feel at home here.
“How you doing, princess?”
She misses a few beats before she replies. “I’m fine.”
I chuckle at her.
“You ready to play now?”
She doesn’t answer, so I answer for her. I drop her shoulders and the second I do, I take a step back and to the side.
“Don’t you fucking leave me in here,” she shouts, her voice breaking.
I stay silent.
“Malachy!”
“You’ll learn to like it better in the darkness,” I tell her.
I hear her feet spinning around in the dirt and she takes a few steps in the direction of my voice, her little hand reaching out and pulling on my t-shirt.
“You caught me. Well done. Now what do you say?”
She sniffs. “What?”
“Say the words,” I tell her.
She pauses for ages while I run my fingers through her hair, but finally she decides to speak. “Kiss, slap, or torture?”
I laugh at her. “We’re not kids anymore, darlin. Say the right words.”
“Kiss-fuck-or-torture.” She spits them out all in one big long word and I bend down and whisper in her ear.
“Torture,” I say, taking a step back.
She follows and reaches a hand out and grabs on to my wrist.
She doesn’t want to get lost again.
So the forest is the bigger monster than I am.
Interesting.
“I do this, and it’s over?”
“Not quite. I still need to catch you.”
“Then what, I get to go home?”
I laugh at her. “Too much talking and not enough action darlin. Do it.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Anything you fucking want to.”
Chapter 13
Grace
I take half a step back, my left hand still gripped around his wrist. I don’t really care what he does to me — I just don’t want to be alone here.
Even if that means clinging on to him.
“Do it,” he urges me.
I take my right hand and slap him hard across the face.
Because it’s dark, I think it actually landed on his ear and jaw but he stays silent.
He closes the distance between us and grabs me by the hair, pulling my head up. “That’s cheating,” he says.
“You said anything I wanted.”
He misses a few seconds and then finally he laughs.
“True. Clever wee girl. I guess it’s my turn now?”
“Say the words I tell him.”
I already know what I’m going to say. I hate him but I want to get out of here, as fast as fucking possible.
He bends down and plants his lips on my neck, just below my ear, lingering for too long. “Kiss?” The vibrations from his low voice send a shiver running right through me.
Then his free hand slides lazily down my body and cups the space between my legs, hooking under and almost lifting me up. “Fuck?” Right into my ear.
I let out the breath I realize I’ve been holding. Why the fuck does that feel good?
But just as I’m cursing my body for betraying me, it quickly joins my team again when his fist twists in my hair and he forces me backwards.
I almost stumble, my arms shooting for my head, but he catches me, lowering me to the ground quickly. “Torture?” His weight presses down on my body and I can barely fill my lungs.
I lie there panting for a few seconds while he pins me down. “Or you can have all three — don’t say I’m not good to you.”
“Kiss,” I tell him.
I want to get out of here. I want to get away and never come back.
The ground is hard and damp beneath me, just like it was that day. There are probably slugs, snails, worms, spiders, right fucking under my body. The smell of rotting fallen leaves mixes with Malachy’s heady scent. The air is cold and wet, like it’s going to rain at any moment.
I don’t want to be here.
“Whatever you want,” he whispers, running his lips across my cheek.
I swallow hard and wait for it. It’s like standing on the edge of a high platform knowing that you’re about to get pushed off soon.
He makes his way over to my lips and when he gets there, he takes my bottom one between his teeth.
I sigh as he bites down on it.
He’s too heavy. The wait is torture.
His bite turns to a suck, and he pulls it back with him, releasing it with a pop. His hands come up to the sides of my face and he boxes me in.
I was more scared of the forest.
But now the forest has faded away to nothing and the only thing that exists is the monster in front of me.
<
br /> I can’t see him but I can picture his face.
He lowers his lips again and this time his tongue forces his way into my mouth.
It’s not cold. Or awkward. His kiss is warm and gentle. Caressing me. Forcing me to relax into him. And it’s not long until I do.
I don’t know if it’s because I want it, or if it’s because I want it to be over. But either way my mouth opens for him and lets him in.
He strokes my hair gently for a while but then I become aware of his hands getting rougher. Firmer.
They drift down to my neck and the pressure tightens.
His knees shift my legs apart and he settles himself in the space between them.
When his tongue turns harsh, he starts rocking there.
I lie still. It feels good and my body is begging me to move, but I don’t want him to see that as an invitation to go further.
But he is impossible to resist. Even though I hate him.
Even though this is wrong and fucked up.
I can’t help myself.
Chapter 14
Malachy
Her lips are soft. Her breath is warm. She’s frightened, but she’s brave, and it’s the sexiest fucking mix I ever tasted.
She’s lying there, still as a plank of wood but slowly I feel her legs grip tighter around me. Her hand comes up and rests on my shoulder.
Her fingers are featherlight, like she’s scared her touch will cause a reaction she wouldn’t be able to deal with.
She’d be right.
There’s fuck all light in my soul but there’s still a fraction of gray there, and that’s telling me she’s not ready.
I could fuck her right here, grind her little body into the dirt with the insects and listen to her screams get carried away in the wind. The thought of it has my cock throbbing and my heart racing double speed to get enough blood to it.
But doing that would for sure scare her away forever.
Would taking what I want while she screamed no at me break her? Probably. For a year, a few years. Maybe it would affect her for the rest of her life.
That’s not enough for me, though. I don’t want to do it once. I want to do it again, and again. Every single fucking day.