He will let me go...
Why does that conjure panic potent enough to paralyze me?
Why does that thought make my hands shake, my heart race, and my stomach twist into knots?
I should jump for joy. This is a way out of the contract — a reprieve from this burden and yet I am not relieved. I am plagued with shame and anger all fueled by the notion of his abandonment.
He's going to leave me.
He must be confused by my sadness and reluctance. He tilts his head and I find that I can no longer remain in his lap. I can't even look him in the eye. This feels too much like a loss.
But how can you lose something you never truly had?
I climb off him and he lets me. I slide into the passenger seat, his semen running down my thighs, my heart newly injured by this sullen reality.
He's right though. He cannot keep me anymore.
"You're mad, but I don't understand why," he says as he begins driving once again. I remain silent because every time I open my mouth to speak, there's a lump in my throat that makes me cough.
“It doesn’t matter,” I manage to reply before peering out of the window again. My voice is flat because what is done is done. There’s nothing I can do now. No way to wheel myself out of the chaotic trail that Levi conjures just from his presence. I’m lost in his world.
He tightens his grip on the steering wheel and let’s me sulk for the remainder of the car ride. Our conversation about my sister resides stubbornly in my head where it’s replayed and picked apart by me until I feel her loss again as if it just happened a few minutes ago.
With shaky breaths, I try to compose myself as I press my temple against the cool glass of the window.
I don’t want to cry.
I don’t want to come undone in here because if I let loose I know it’ll be unending. I know I will crumple, I will fall apart in ways I won’t be able to fix and I can’t afford to do that right now.
I’m stiff by the time we arrive to a home immersed in trees. Fear spreads within me like wild fire until my heart is racing and I’m overwhelmed with the urge to flee.
Restlessly, I begin to shake as Levi parks the car but I note that he doesn’t turn it off or pull the keys from the ignition. He leaves it running. Running like my heart which is now beating quick enough to explode within my chest, and free itself from the painful mistake I’ve made of falling for this poisonous man.
“This is it,” he replies. His voice is as flat as mine was earlier. I don’t make eye contact with him. I keep my eyes trained on the deep gray house which looms before me, my fate contained within the walls unbeknownst to me.
“Where are we?” I question, voice quivering not only from the strain upon my vocal chords but from the apprehension that greets the rest of my erratic emotions.
“Come,” he says gesturing with a head nod for me to follow, before he exits the car. I close my eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath as the image of my sister flashes behind my eyes and it’s as if she’s in the car with me for a moment, encouraging me to be stronger than I feel.
You can do this... you’re a survivor.
That’s what she’d always say to me, and until this moment I’ve never felt like those words were true. She was always the outspoken one. The one to demand justice and stick up for herself while I remained quiet and compliant to spare the feelings of others.
I was more afraid of the world than she was, so sure I was incapable of taking on all the obstacles life was waiting to devour me with but in the end it devoured her and left me to clean up what her existence was reduced to, ash.
A knock on the window gathers my attention from the depths of painful nostalgia. I blink and I’m thrown back into the passenger seat of Levi’s car. He stands patiently beside the car door waiting for me to emerge and accept this consequence.
If only it were that easy.
I swallow the saliva beginning to pool in my mouth as nausea grasps my stomach threateningly. I taste bile in my throat as I reach for the handle and finally push the door open. When I step out of the car, a breeze greets me and frosts my soul even more than before.
I pull Levi’s jacket tighter around me, hoping it’ll keep me warm, safe even, but it’s an ordinary jacket, not something from some book that lends you a shield from the inevitable.
He arches a brow, waiting for me to begin walking up the path toward the front door but I hesitate for a moment.
“Sasha,” he warns.
“This is it,” I respond, finally taking the time to meet that gaze I know is dying to scrutinize my expression and pick apart all the ways in which my emotions make me weak and pathetic. Just as I was the day he purchased me.
“Yes. It is,” he concludes truthfully. I inhale a deep breath, peering up at - what can only be classified as a mansion - before I begin to walk.
I don’t look behind me. Behind me is the past. That’s where Levi lies right now. Whether he’s walking after me or not, I know it’s where he’ll return.
The door is a thick oak and I just know what lurks behind it is another monster.
Trading one for the other. Let’s hope this one leaves something left of me when they’re done.
I lift my hand and knock. It’s pulled open an agonizing minute later and I’m greeted by a familiar man. I frown, trying to pinpoint exactly where I’ve seen him from but Levi’s voice behind me helps me remember.
“Silas,” Levi greets the man, stepping beside me in order to shake his hand. Silas’s mouth spreads slowly into a grin before he accepts Levi’s offered hand.
“So fucking formal,” Silas jokes. Levi’s jaw clenches and he firms his lips into a straight line for a moment.
“Well I figured you’d be pissed for the position I’m putting you in,” Levi admits before taking his hand back and letting his arm fall down at his side. Silas snickers amusedly before his eyes move to me and they run down the length of me, hunger flashing in his gaze.
“I figured she was probably bored of you,” Silas teases before he side steps. “Come in.”
He’s different from Levi. Intense but not in the same way. His playfulness can almost be confused as genuine and innocent but there’s an underlying edge that makes me shiver within his presence.
Where Levi is blatantly cold and intimidating, Silas is an illusion of warmth and sarcasm that is inviting. The kind of predator that entices you until you’re boundlessly submissive to them, even when they begin to eat away who you are.
He’s really going to leave me here.
“Welcome, Sasha,” Silas says and I nod, eyes roaming the house peculiarly. It isn’t sleek and modern like I had expected. Old original decor and structure remain in the home. He’s encased the lives of those who’ve lived here before him and preserved them so they’ll stay trapped within the walls.
He doesn’t strike me as a man who gives up his possessions and I'm about to become one. I remain silent even as Silas’s cool, probing gaze lingers on me.
Levi clears his throat and I flinch when I feel his hand resting on my back. Not that I’m afraid of him. I just don’t want to feel what soon will be absent from my life.
I want to have let him go the moment I stepped out of that car.
He removes his hand not commenting about my sudden recoil from him.
“You’ll be staying with Silas. You’re safe here. When the time is right, he will secure the correct plans for you to begin your life.” Every word feels like a knife in my side.
I don’t want to start a life that doesn’t include him.
How pathetically toxic.
I want to scream those words at him. I want to pound my fists against his chest and berate him for making me fall in love, for bringing me to my knees, but I can’t.
The words jumble in my throat until I choke on them and it hurts to breathe let alone scream. I’m panting, desperate to express something but nothing comes out. Silas excuses himself for us to have this moment to ourselves.
Levi runs a hand down his face, concern flashing in his eyes before he continues speaking.
“I didn’t want it to be like this,” he admits. “I feel the same way I did when that fire was set.”
Like he’s losing her all over again.
Was this ever really about me?
“I’m sorry, Sasha.”
Those two words tear me apart inside. They fucking obliterate the walls I’ve built but he doesn’t stick around to watch them fall. He spins around with his hands clenched at his sides, shielding his face from me, before he heads to the door.
He doesn’t look back.