I’m disoriented as I awaken; groggy with a heaviness that’s settled upon my whole body, making it hard to pry open my eyes to confirm the nightmares I’ve had are true and I’m in the clutches of a man with serious problems…. A man who by all intents and purposes will be my demise.
I finally manage to pull my eyes open, peering around the room quickly, before I arch my stiff neck upward to eye the bandages around my wrists. I was unsuccessful. I don’t know how to feel about that now that the melancholy has left me and in its place is a numbness so profound, I feel like I’m floating out of my body.
His control knows no bounds.
I can’t even kill myself without his say so; can’t even end my suffering until he’s deemed it so, or until the chaos raging inside of him has claimed us both.
I am his prisoner.
Mind. Body. Soul.
Speaking of the devil.
He appears within the doorframe - a raging storm in his eyes that makes me begin to shiver.
“You’re awake,” He comments, his eyes flick to my wrists, narrowing ever so slightly, before they slowly, and painfully move back up to my face.
“Yes,” I reply, and my voice is weaker and more raspy than anticipated. I frown, and his brow arches curiously.
“Something wrong?” He questions through a clenched jaw, before he begins gritting his teeth as I moisten my lips with my tongue. Like he wants to punish me as if I have no right to moisten my lips without his say so.
I tread lightly.
“How long have I been asleep?”
He sighs deeply, the sound the only other thing in the room apart from my breathing - but nothing drowns out his fury. It’s louder than anything and unwilling to be ignored.
“Two days,” He states matter-of-factly, scrutinizing the look of shock on my face as I shift uncomfortably atop the bed.
“Two days?” I repeat, because it hardly feels like it. Two days? It feels like I’ve been asleep for a few hours after being hit by a truck.
He steps into the room, his chiseled body looming above me.
“If you’re wondering why you feel so poorly, you lost a lot of blood….” He trails off, as he tightens his fingers into fists, knuckles cracking and popping. The sound is morbid, a morbid foreshadowing of the punishment I’ll be served by those hands.
“Oh,” I reply, softly. Afraid if I say the wrong thing I’ll piss him off, and this freakishly, dangerous, calm exterior he’s portraying will shed away. “That’s too bad.”
He snickers, distaste in the way I see the muscles in his jaw tighten before he shakes his head.
“No need to put on an act for me, Sasha. I know you’re disappointed,” He snarls, before he stops at the end of the bed. “I know I’ve ruined your plan to take your own fucking life.”
I’m confused by his anger.
For someone who cares so little about me, there shouldn’t be such…. Vehemence in his voice.
“Why are you so angry?” I question, whispering as shame and guilt fill me. I know he deserves no such feelings from me, but I can’t help them as they arise.
“Why am I angry? Why the fuck are you suprised that I am?” He snidely remarks, before he drags an agitated hand through his hair. That’s when I notice the bags around his eyes, the exhaustion on his face, as if he hasn’t slept a wink these past two days.
“Well, honestly? You made it pretty clear my value to you. I’m worthless. You have more than enough money to blow 500,000 dollars. I figured I was a funny little project for a while…. One you’d grow sick of after a few days. You confirmed that many times for me.”
He scoffs, but he can’t hide the concern I see flash within his eyes.
“Don’t fucking assume shit about me, Sasha. The only time you’re allowed to come to the fucking conclusion that I’m sick of you is when those words leave my damn lips!” He shouts, his body shuddering as anger rolls through him.
“I didn’t know I’d have to have you leashed at my side,” He hisses.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize, because at this moment, I don’t know what to say. I felt how I felt. I can’t go back and change it. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
“You’re sorry?”
He moves around the bed until he’s at my side, and I can’t escape his closeness, or the way the heat from his body seeps deep into my skin, igniting the flame of my arousal - arousal I have been trying to hard too fight off - because with it, I feel my emotions running wild.
I want to cling to the numbness I feel, but when he’s near me, my body has a mind of its own - it’s driven by feral need, an innate desire - in which possesses me like a dangerous entity.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
Where do I begin? I was thinking I had nothing, no real purpose, no life. Everything I’ve loved is gone. I’m shaking when I go to answer him, my breaths becoming strained as anguish rolls deep in my gut, churning around until I’m nauseas and I almost vomit the words.
“I was thinking it sure would be nice to have a break from the pain….” I begin, trailing off for a moment, when the words get stuck in my throat. “The clawing, suffocating pain; the loneliness, all of it.”
He wraps an arm around his chest and cups his chin with a contemplative expression.
“You asked me a few nights ago if I dream about you,” I mention, and this clearly piques his interest. His brows raise slightly, eyes widening a fraction, softening the narrowed, pissed off look he’s been sporting.
“I was lying…. Because, I’ve only really ever dreamed of one thing this entire past year; my sister, lying innocently asleep in bed, before flames engulf her room, and her flesh melts off her skin, and she’s screaming until her mouth is just a melted hole - strangled, inhuman like noises pouring from out of it. And I’m reaching out to her, begging her to stay with me. Knowing she belongs in this world more than I do, but I can’t reach her. Every fucking night. I’m too late.”
I know he’s broken through that wall I’ve put up, because tears are hot in my eyes, stinging relentlessly until I let them freely roll down my cheeks.
“Sasha,” he addresses, and the way he says my name, has me staring questioningly into his eyes. There’s remorse in them. Specks of it. It looks foreign on a man like him. On a monster who I believed only could fuck and destroy.
“That pain you feel inside - there’s a way to control it. You don’t need to fucking kill yourself to, because I am going to control it.”
He runs a hand down his face, before he glances at his watch.
“How?” I ask, because I wonder if it’s in the same way he controls his own. The thought of being whipped as hard, and relentless as he was absolutely scares the piss out of me.
“Pain,” He says simply, as he grabs a hold of the bed frame, and lowers his head until he’s hovering a centimeter above my lips. His eyes flicker to my mouth and back up to my eyes, before I watch him take a deep breath and let it out tantalizingly, slowly. “Pleasure,” He wages, before I feel the brush of his lips against mine.
“But believe me, you will love every fucking bit of it. Until you’re as broken as me.”
As broken as him?
Tortured and vicious until he’s almost unrecognizable as a man and more as a beast?
I gasp, and swallow the lump in my throat.
“Why? Why must I be broken like you?”
“Because - I will be deserving of you.”
He says that as if he doesn’t truly believe he is deserving of me now. To say I don’t understand is an understatement. Why would Levi need to deserve me? His pathetic toy?
“Was 500,000 dollars undeserving?”
He shrugs, and straightens his posture so he’s standing again.
“Money is nothing, Sasha. Money doesn’t make someone worthy of something. Would you agree? What about the man responsible for the fire that devoured your sister?” He inquires. He has a weird way of describing that, and I never said it was arson. Although, it’s not like there are many options to a fire. Arson or accidental origin, so I don’t address it.
“Do you think if he had enough money, he’d be worthy of forgiveness? Of peace?”
The answer that enters my mind is instantaneous. I’ve mulled over this for the past year. Thought about what I would do when I found the arsonist. Thought about how I’d try to tear him apart the same way he did my sister.
“No. That coward deserves absolutely nothing.”
His eyes close for a moment, as he lets out a puff of air, and his expression falls as my words settle upon him.
“Exactly.”
He swallows, and stiffens. I almost get the impression that him purchasing me wasn’t just about using me, and more about saving him. But I fear it might be too late.
“Rest up,” He orders, and I’m disappointed to see him move slowly towards the door.
“You’re leaving?” I ask, already knowing the answer, disappointment laced in my words. He stops near the door, his back still turned to me, as he reaches out and grips the doorway tightly, his fingers are turning purple.
“I should,” he replies.
“Why?”
I feel like that’s all I’ve said all night - Why? Why? Fucking why?
“Do you want me to stay?”
I nibble on my bottom lip, afraid to admit that his presence has soothed me. Him. It’s such a strange feeling, it feels wrong.
Still, I can’t ignore it, even as I’m reaching out for him.
“Yes, I’d like that,” I admit, and his shoulders tense as if I’ve offended him.
“Don’t.”
I’m caught off guard. I assumed he’d want to stay. It’s probably one of the kindest exchanges we’ve ever had.
“Don’t take comfort in my presence. Not now,” He admonishes with a growl.
“I don’t understand -”
“Sasha….” He says my name with a warning tone, and I shake my head.
“Levi, you’re being ridiculous.”
He whips around so fast, it makes my head spin. His expression is of someone who is being tormented.
“Am I? I think you’re being foolish.”
“Foolish because I want you to stay with me?” I shake my head again, batting my eyelashes slowly, as my eyes widen. “Please,” I add. Although I don’t want to beg, I don’t want him to leave all the more.
Not when I feel this crappy.
Not when he’s all I have.
Those words make a sour taste form on my tongue.
Because no matter how much I want to deny it. It’s the truth. He’s all I have. For now. Until I don’t even have him anymore. Until he’s gone like everything else in my life, so I plead with him.
“Please, Levi. Just this once?”
I know he’ll leave me. He isn’t obligated to complete any wish I may ask of him. He runs this house, and he doesn’t want to stay, that’s clear. I sigh, about to resign from my begging, when he surprises me and stalks towards the chair that’s by the window.
He lowers himself into it, and I can't hide the smile on my lips.
Happiness is a dangerous thing.
So I will myself not to become accustomed to it, but for now, I let this little moment of comfort stay so I can cling to it. Because it may be the only piece I receive for the rest of my life.