Chapter 18 Sneaking Out
Aiyana's P.O.V
I didn’t sleep, I couldn't.
Not even a moment.
Every time I closed my eyes, I felt his mouth on mine again. The heat, the hunger, the way my body answered him faster than my mind could scream danger.
I kept touching my lips like they didn’t feel like mine anymore, like he’d claimed them somehow.
My chest was tight. My pulse too loud. My thoughts messy and wild like tangled wire.
I kissed Jerome Black.
Worse actually,
I let him kiss me, and I kissed him back like I wanted it as much as he did.
Stupid. Delusional. Dangerous.
“You're so dumb and weak Aiyana.” I groaned into my hands as the scene replayed continuosly like a broken record.
Jerome Black killed people without blinking.
Jerome Black was feared by the entire country.
Jerome Black chained me to a bed when he first brought me here, and I repaid all that history by melting against him like he was safety and not destruction in a suit.
I pressed both palms to my face and breathed shakily into them.
What was wrong with me?
My body still remembered him, every inch of closeness, every breath shared and I could not even confidently say that I would refuse should he try again.
I had felt wanted.
Desired.
Seen.
Like I mattered.
Like I wasn’t invisible or disposable the way I had been my whole life.
That was the problem.
I had never been wanted before, and he wanted me like I was oxygen.
But reality was cold, intrusive, cruel:
He was dangerous.
I was trapped, and everything inside me was changing in ways I couldn’t stop.
The sun rose before the storm in my head settled.
I stayed in my room, curled up near the window like distance could erase what happened, what I let happen.
I wanted to hate myself for it, but I couldn’t.
I wanted to regret it, but I didn’t.
I regretted only one thing, and it was that I wanted more.
The room was deadly quiet all morning, till I heard footsteps later that morning. Slow, controlled, familiar.
Jerome.
His knock was gentle, too gentle almost hesitant.
“Aiyana.”
Just my name.
My heart stuttered.
I didn’t answer, I couldn’t. If he walked in, if he looked at me with those eyes that stripped me down to something honest and raw, I would break.
I would kiss him again. I knew it and I feared it.
But I also wanted it.
He didn’t enter. Didn’t force the door.
Just stood there, silence between us like a held breath.
“If you regret last night” he said quietly, voice deeper than usual, “I don’t.”
My lungs stopped working.
“I meant every second of it.” He said again after some seconds and poof, he was gone after that with footsteps fading down the hallway like a promise he wasn’t ready to push and I wasn’t ready to face. I leaned my head against the door, breathing shallowly, shaking with too many feelings to hold.
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I whispered brokenly into the wood:
“I don’t regret it either.”
But the door swallowed the truth whole.
~=•=~
Hours later, a soft whistle broke the silence of my room.
Gerald leaned against my window like he had been waiting for the world to make a good joke, and found one right here.
He raised an eyebrow at my state. Hair messy, eyes red, body wrapped around a pillow like a life raft.
“Wow!” He exhaled. “Someone looks like they just made out with a nuclear bomb.”
“Gerald, please…” I groaned as embarrassment flooded me at the thought that I looked a mess and he was seeing me in such a state.
“So it was a kiss.” He grinned. “Knew it. Jerome is walking around like the world finally handed him a reason to breathe, and you look like you’re waiting for the earth to swallow you whole.”
I flinched at how accurately he read me.
Gerald stepped inside fully, closing the window behind him with a dramatic sigh.
“Look, Gorgeous.” He said gently, voice losing its teasing edge.
“Aiyana.” I corrected with a roll of my eyes as I had done the same thing several times but he just doesn't listen.
“Whateve. You’ve been locked in this building for weeks. Different site, same cage. No friends. No world. Just him, and that can mess with your head.” He says and it felt like he saw through me.
I may be attracted to Jerome but I was suffocating nit having an escape from him for even a second.
He came to me when he wanted to. There was no avoiding him unless he let me
Tears pricked uninvited, as the feeling humiliation enveloped me.
“I don’t want to depend on him.” I whispered.
“I don’t want to want him.”
Gerald’s expression softened unexpectedly, a strange mix of pity and understanding.
“But you do.” He said, knowing exactly what it was.
I nodded helplessly and as much as I knew he was carefree, there was something in his expression that had the flesh between my forehead squeezing in curiosity but I didn't dwell on it as he was back to normal in a second.
He crouched down beside the bed like we were sharing a secret no one should overhear.
“You need air, Aiyana. Space. Freedom to breathe without Jerome’s shadow sitting on your chest.”
My throat tightened.
“Let me take you out for a while.” He offered quietly. “Somewhere inside the estate, still safe, but away from him. Away from the eyes and the walls and the weight of what you feel.”
Fear and temptation clashed violently inside me.
“Jerome will kill us if he finds out.” unreasoned against the excitement that brewed up in me at the thought of that little freedom.
Gerald grinned his wild, reckless, and familiar grin that had a way of making danger feel less sharp.
“He’s tried. Failed. We’re still friends.” He stated with a shrug.
Despite myself, I laughed, a small broken sound but real.
Gerald stood, reached out a hand.
“Come on. Let’s sneak you out before you forget how to exist without him.”
My body hesitated, mind screaming danger, but inside, something was suffocating, desperate for a door, a road, a choice.
I placed my hand in his, and he smiled like he’d won a game.
Quiet as shadows, we moved, Gerald leading, me following, through corridors I never walked,
He was really sneaking me out.
Not to escape permanently.
Just to breathe.
We reached a terrace overlooking the far side of the compound, and I immediately was hit with the fresh breeze. Open air, fresh wind, trees swaying like freedom itself.
No guards, and no walls pressing in.
For the first time in forever, I felt freedom.
The bubble of happiness in my chest was one that I couldn't explain because hoe does one explain that it is a privilege to run on grass.
I walked slowly to the railing, fingers brushing the cool metal, wind on my face like a memory of life before all this.