by Vi Carter
He doesn’t move but remains stoic in front of me. My heart gallops in my chest; the wait is often worse than the action.
My head snaps up. I stare at his back as he walks away from me, exits the box, and closes the door. He never looks back, even as he climbs the steps and returns to his life while I rot in this place.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CLAIRE
This time when tears come, I let them fall fast and hard. My stomach twists painfully. Richard said he would kill Leonard, and I didn’t beg him not to. I am as big of a monster as they are. This place is making me lose my mind. I’m off the bed; I’ve never wanted to hurt someone, but I want to hurt Richard.
I’m pacing again, and the glass walls that rise too high are closing in on me until I stop walking. I’m back to staring down at the image of Richard on my floor. Even when he’s not here, he’s all I see.
I take quick steps to the sink and stuff a large towel in the basin. As I turn on the taps, I don’t care about all the excess water that pours over the towel and out onto my dress.
I don’t try to stop the onslaught of water.
Without turning off the taps, I drag the towel out. It’s heavy with water as I hold it over the image of him. His dark gaze is warning me not to remove his face from the floor. I slap the towel down on the image and fall to my knees. The drawing slowly disappears under the towel that turns from white to gray very quickly. Once the image is removed, I sit up. The bottom of my dress is soaked, turning the fabric translucent. The taps still run, and the noise of rushing water is better than the silence. I continue my path of destruction, attacking the picture of the table and chairs I had drawn. I don’t want to share these parts of myself.
Time continues to slip away as I turn everything upside down and inside out. Maybe I’m finally having that breakdown that I feel I should have had when my parents died. When Leonard purposely set that fire, only he knew he wouldn’t let me burn. I would live with the knowledge that he burnt the house down and saved me because that’s the kind of power he had. Another reminder of how little control I truly have over my own life.
“You have made a right mess.” Richard’s voice should startle me, but it doesn’t.
I continue my destruction as I pull all the dresses out of the wardrobe. I ignore him as I throw the clothes into the tub and turn on both taps.
“What are you doing?” His voice carries over the rushing water, and I give him a quick look before walking back to my bed and dragging the quilts off it. Everything goes into the tub, and I get a feeling like I’m drunk and the world is dissolving around me as I build my own. This world is filled with water. All the towels join everything else in the tub.
“You want to tell me why you are destroying your room?” He’s right behind me, and I pause in my path of destruction.
I think of my answer as my heart pounds in my stomach. I can feel my heartbeat in my teeth; the flicker should be a warning, but I am drowning, and I don’t think I want to breathe.
“No.” I bark and move to the table and chairs. I don’t break them but knock them over. Richard stays standing in the middle of my destruction, and he doesn’t stop me. He looks amused, and that really sets me off.
The puzzle boxes are stacked at the back of the room, and I gather them before walking up to Richard. I open up the first one and let the puzzle pieces rain down over him. Elation at doing it has the blood burning in my veins. My temperature soars as I open the next one, ready to do the same thing.
Richard’s hands reach out quickly, and he drags me fast and hard against his chest. His touch is a splash of cold water on my face. I’m waking up from my meltdown, and I dare tilt my head back and look into his angry eyes. I swallow as fear grips my throat. His hands on my wrists are tight, but I don’t chance to move a muscle. I’m already wondering what I was thinking, throwing the puzzle at him.
The water still rushes in the background, and along with it, I hear the racing of my frantic heart. I’m waiting for the blow, but it doesn’t come.
He releases me and takes a step back. The space isn’t enough. He’s towering over me, and all I feel is wet and frazzled.
Richard walks past me, and I don’t move as the sound of running water stops. I glance over my shoulder as he turns away from the basin.
“You’ve ruined all your clothes.”
His words drag my attention to my dress, which is soaked. The white material is clinging to my skin.
I swallow as he steps towards me, his gaze drinking me in, making me feel like I don’t have a scrap of fabric covering my flesh. He stops only inches away from me.
“I want to know what Leonard did to you?” It’s a question, a demand, a death sentence for Leonard.
“No.” I jut out my chin and hold my head high.
I think I see a smile in his eyes, but if I did, it’s gone before I can conjure a second thought. I’m turning towards the door that never closed when Richard entered. I hadn’t noticed the door open before. How had I not noticed? I take a step towards freedom.
Richard moves past me to the door. I’m waiting for him to leave, close the door, and disappear up the stairs.
“I have food prepared for us.” He looks at me over his shoulder. “You will have to change first.”
I don’t state the obvious that all my clothes are soaked in the tub.
“Come upstairs.” He steps out through the door.
It’s a trick. Then stay here, Claire.
My mind taunts me.
I wrap my arms around my waist and follow Richard out of the box. His gaze snaps to my bare feet, and his jaw tightens.
He returns to the box and picks up my red sneakers off the floor where I had thrown them. He holds them carefully between his fingers as he climbs the stairs. I’m stalling again, wondering what really awaits me upstairs. But I’ve been up there twice, and each time no harm came to me. My feet are silent as I climb the steps.
We emerge into the hallway, and Richard places my shoes on a chair across from us. I don’t expect the contact and jump as he wraps his fingers around my bandaged wrist. He guides me through the hall. Two men I’ve never seen before don’t even blink as we pass them in a larger hallway; it’s grander than the last. The heavy chandelier above our heads is lit, with a million lights that reflect and dance off the dark wooden flooring beneath my bare feet.
My heart plummets into my stomach as an open staircase appears before us, and the steps soon disappear under my feet as I climb numbly.
Some of the worst thoughts race through my mind as we reach a landing. I would admire all the marble flooring and high arched door frames, but all I feel is sick as he opens a set of double doors that lead into a bedroom. He releases my wrist once he steps in, and I’m at the foot of a huge bed. The gray sheets and cream covering give the room an almost pleasant feel. That is, except for Richard, who walks toward a door positioned to the left of the bed and disappears into it.
A torture room? Maybe he has more women in there. That thought has something tightening my chest and not because some poor soul is trapped. It’s the idea of him kissing another woman.
The thought lodges itself painfully in my throat, and I want to cough, but I swallow the dryness as Richard reappears, holding a blue t-shirt in one hand and gray sweat pants in another. He’s not looking at me; he’s staring at the clothes in his hand. “These will have to do for now.” He looks up at me, and I fear he can see the thoughts written on my face, that for one second, I was jealous that I wasn’t his only captive.
I let the cough out to distract myself.
He reaches me, and I curl my fingers around the garments. “Thank you.” I’m flustered, and when he doesn’t release the clothes, I look up at him.
“You are welcome, Claire.” His words are spoken clearly and hold a small amount of humor.
He finally releases the clothes and points to a door that sits to the right of the bed. “The bathroom is in there. You can change.”
I mov
e faster than is necessary, but I need to get away from him. I need to get away from my thoughts. Closing the bathroom door gives me little solace. My gaze zones in on the electric toothbrush that sits alone on a glass shelf below a round mirror. I walk over to a cabinet that sits under the sink and open the doors. Aftershave, toothpaste, all bottles of hair care products fill the space. It’s his room—his bathroom. I take a peek at the enormous shower. I stare at it for too long when a rap at the door has me dropping his clothes.
“Everything okay?” His words are spoken at the door.
“Yes,” I say.
He knocks again. “Claire?”
I clear my throat and speak louder. “Yes, I’m nearly done.”
“Okay.”
I wait a beat. His footsteps move away from the door, and I pull the wet dress over my head before dragging on the fresh clothes. The t-shirt falls to my knees, and all I smell is him. The jogging pants are huge, and I’d need to use both hands to hold them up. I remove them. I don’t want to go out in just a t-shirt, no matter how long it is.
“The pants are too big.”
His footsteps are back at the door. “That’s all I have. You’ll have to make do since you destroyed your clothes.”
I’m ready to tell him I’m not coming out in a t-shirt.
“Open the door.” His command is low, and something stirs in my stomach.
“No.” I don’t expect him to hear me, but he does.
“You want me to break down the door?”
I don’t doubt he will. I unlock the door, holding the jogging pants in a death grip as Richard slowly takes me in. He starts from my bare feet, and it feels like an eternity before he reaches my eyes. I swallow from the look of hunger in his eyes. Hunger I can’t ever imagine someone like me could satisfy.
It’s a click of a finger, and the look is gone. “You will be fine as you are.”
I’m ready to protest, but he flashes me a warning. I hand over the sweatpants and follow him out of the room in just a t-shirt. The material grazes my knees, but I still feel naked as we go downstairs. Once Richard is in the hallway, he pauses, waiting for me. I can’t see his eyes. The cold wooden flooring under my feet does nothing to extract the heat that burns through my flesh.
I don't look at the security men stationed in every room of the house that we pass. But I’m aware of them. Now I’m staring at Richards’s wide back, wondering exactly who he is. Someone extremely wealthy, judging by the grand rooms we move through until we end up in a dining room with a table long enough to seat over twenty people. I count the chairs all the way down to the end, where it has been set for the two of us.
Twenty-two seats, I count. I wonder why he needs so many. How many people live here? And why all the security? Too many questions swirl in my mind, but none make an appearance as Richard pulls out a high-back chair for me to sit down.
I do, and as he pushes the chair in, I keep my hands in my lap. Richard takes his seat at the head of the table with me to his right.
It’s beyond awkward. I’m too close. The table is too big. The room is too silent. It’s too wrong.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CLAIRE
The food that I place in my mouth is tasteless. My heart is refusing to slow down, and this is a new kind of torture: Sitting here with him while he watches me like I’m the most interesting thing he’s seen in a long time. He hasn’t touched his own plate.
“Stop,” I whisper, glancing down at my lap.
“Stop what?” Richards’s voice holds a pinch of humor.
I look up at him and my stomach twists.
“Tell me what Leonard did to you.” The question flows like an average question, but I hear the depth of what he’s asking.
Did it really matter? I place my knife and fork on the plate. My appetite never showed up anyway, so I could stop the pretense of enjoying the meal. “He burnt my parents alive while I listened to their screams.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. No emotion is attached to the words; right now, I just can’t allow myself to feel that depth of pain.
“I remember as a child he loved hurting animals, and soon it turned to people.” I glance back up at Richard. “Soon, his love for inflicting pain turned to me.”
I stumble over the next sentence. I hadn’t even told Rose, my therapist, any of this. The words always lodged themselves in my throat with fear, fear that Leonard would find out I told someone and make my life worse. I think it’s safe to say that my life has hit rock bottom. There is nothing more anyone can take from me.
“Two weeks before my parents died, there was this stupid cat stuck up in our old tree house that Dad had built for us.” I place my hands in my lap and squeeze them tightly together like they might hold me together. My hands grow damp with the memory. Somehow I find the strength to continue. “Leonard loved hurting small creatures, and I knew when he told me the cat was up there, he was giving me time to save it, or he’d kill it. He liked playing games. I went up, and of course, there was no cat.” My gut twists painfully. I reach across the table and pick up a glass of water. I don’t drink the liquid. I’m not sure whether my throat is capable of any more functions beyond letting my story pour from me. I want to ask Richard to allow me to stop. That I don’t want to talk about this, but I have no control as the words continue to flow. “He was there in the hut, grinning at me the moment I opened the trap door. I had no time to react. He kicked me in the face, and I was falling. I couldn’t move, not even as he joined me on the ground, not even as he broke my leg. The fall had broken the other.”
I look at Richard again. His face is impassive. He’s stoic. The look on his face should be enough to make me stop, but there is no stopping the pain or my words. “I was bedridden. I never told my parents what he did to me.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone?” Richards’s words are low, too low.
I should take my words back. “He said he’d hurt our mom.” I blink, and tears fall. I wipe them away quickly. I don’t want to feel right now. “They were screaming, and I couldn’t save them. He made sure I couldn’t.” I’m up from the table, their screams propelling my steps. It’s too much. I should have saved them. I should have dragged my body out of bed. I should have told them the first time I found a jar of wingless butterflies in his room. I should have told them when I found the countless dead cats or dogs hidden at the end of our garden. He always said he wouldn’t do it again, or his reason changed as we got older, that he would hurt our mom and it would be my fault. I exhale a shaky breath as my mind leaves the pain, and I take in the surrounding space. I have no idea where I’m going, but I’m moving past doors— an endless stream of doors. A security man steps out towards me, but something has him stepping back.
I glance over my shoulder, knowing there would only be one person who would have that power. Richard is walking behind me, his eyes pinned on me. Knowing he’s behind me doesn’t slow me down. Nothing does. I have no idea where I’m going. Ahead I see a set of double frosted glass doors that I push open. The air changes as I enter a pool room. The water reflects off the wall tiles, giving the room an illusion as if it’s all water. I stop running and move closer to the edge of the pool. My body shimmers with the water, and I’m staring at myself, standing alone, in his t-shirt, that is, until he appears behind me towering over me. When his hands touch my shoulders, I close my eyes at the contact, but his touch doesn’t make me cower. It extracts more of my confession from my lips.
“I did nothing,” I say. His fingers tighten on my upper arms, he still hasn’t spoken, and that has me opening my eyes. I try to turn in his arms, but his hold is firm and keeps me in place. I’m drawn to the image of us that distorts in the water.
A kiss is pressed to the top of my head, and this time when I try to turn, he allows the movement by dropping his hands. He doesn’t move away from me, making me crane my neck back to look up at him.
“I didn’t know.” His words confuse me.
“How would you?” I ask.
>
His jaw clenches. “I know now.”
The tightness of his jaw has me wanting to reach up and touch his face. So I do. The muscle in his jaw twitches under my touch. “I used to pray for him to die,” I admit, not looking Richard directly in the eyes. Richard is a dangerous man who does dangerous things. Maybe he will understand my dark thoughts. “After the fire….” I let my hand slip from Richard’s face. He catches my un-bandaged wrist and turns it palm up. Shock races through me as he presses a kiss to the inside of my wrist. “…I stopped praying.” I finish my sentence.
Our eyes lock, and something I see has me touching his face again. He’s looking at me with understanding, and I’m wondering once again what made him into the man he is today. What made him so cruel one moment but so gentle the next?
Richard bends his head, and I do nothing to stop the kiss; instead, I fall into him. I open my mouth and let his tongue gain entry. His large hands grip my sides and squeeze. It’s a reminder of his sheer size, and I break the kiss. A shiver assaults me as our gazes clash. His hunger turns his eyes almost black, and I know I’m not getting away from him. He drags me back and claims my mouth. My hands automatically wrap around his neck, and he uses the moment to grab my thighs and lift me up off the ground. The moment my feet leave the ground, I wrap them around his waist. He moves us to the wall. The cool tiles push against my back as his large erection presses into my stomach.
His lips slip from mine, and he presses one kiss after another along my jaw. I cling to him as each kiss chips some of the hardened pain away from me, revealing the rawness underneath. How long has it been since I shared more than a kiss with a man? I never allowed myself to go too far. I never wanted to feel.