Chapter 19 Chapter 19
Audrey
Pain, white hot and over whelming surged through my body, my back arched and my legs kicked out but it was no good.
I couldn’t get away from it. It was all consuming. Spirally up and up from my mound to the very tips of my hair.
Screaming didn’t help, thrashing didn’t help. Nothing helped because I was dying, that was the only possible explanation.
The maniac they called Gabriel King was killing me.
Choking I spluttered, my mouth and nose full of the smell of burning. It swirled around me, choking me.
Something was burning and I was dying and the entire time Gabriel stood there. His blue eyes soft behind his mask, his lips whispering things I couldn’t hear over the sound of my screams.
Blackness ate up my vision and I let it.
Oblivion was better than this, because I was dying, dying, dying and somewhere in my home something was burning.
“It’s ok, Audrey.” Gabriel’s voice broke through my personal pain filled darkness. “It’s over, it’s done.” His hand came down and smoothed my hair from my tear stained face in an almost gentle gesture.
The bed dipped as he sat beside me, murmuring sweet soothing nothings as he stroked my hair.
What was he saying, I couldn’t understand a word of it.
Sobbing I rolled onto my side, curling my knees into my chest as I tried to make myself as small as possible but all that did was make the crippling pain worse.
It hit me then. The burning smell. It wasn’t coming from the house. Nothing was on fire.
The bitter smell was my skin burning.
My skin.
Another sob ripped its way out of my lips. “What did you do?” I lifted my tear filled eyes to the masked face above mine. “What did you do to me Gabriel?”
The hand smoothing back my hair paused as he stared down at me. With that stupid love filled soft look in his eyes.
How could he look at me like that after what he had just done.
“You’re mine Audrey. Now you and everyone else will know it. But you need to lay still now, on your back so I can clean you up.”
I gritted my teeth. Was he crazy? Was I crazy for asking that when I already knew he was. Who in their right mind would lay back and let him touch her after what he had just done.
Leaning over me, he pushed on my shoulders. Gently pressing me into the mattress.
“I need to clean and dress the burn now, Audrey. Otherwise you will get an infection. You need to trust me to look after you.”
I stared at him unblinking. How could he ask me to trust him after what he had just done.
After everything he had done.
“How can I ever-“ my voice shook. “Why did you burn me?”
Confusion clouded his eyes for a second. Almost like I had asked an impossible question. Cocking his head to the side he rubbed his thumb across my lips.
“I have to leave.”
Well that was good news. If he had to leave then it was the best news I’d heard since I had got here and I needed some good news. Something to keep my mind off the screeching pain below my stomach.
“The brand-“
Vomit rushed up my throat. “You branded me?” My voice shook, half from shock and pain and half because I was swallowing puke down so quickly that it felt like I was choking.
“Ssshh, sssh,”
I heaved again, rolling to my side. I emptied my stomach on the end of the bed. And the entire time he stroked my hair back.
“It’s ok Audrey, it’s all going to be fine. You’re mine now. You will see and in time you will look at yourself and love my brand on your pussy. Now let me look after you. After all, it's all I’ve ever wanted to do since the moment I saw you.”
I don’t know when I crawled under the covers or even when they were changed. Some time after he had washed the stinging wound with warm soap and water and put some kind of cover over it.
The darkness felt safe. Not safe from him because I knew that nothing would ever keep me safe from him. I realised that now.
He was my own personal shadow. Every time I thought I could escape he came back stronger than ever.
It was like he was part of me, the shadowy side. The darkness.
So I would take shelter in the darkness, because maybe if I embraced it then he would lose interest.
Maybe, but probably not.
“Are you sleeping?” His voice came from outside my blanket cocoon and for a second I thought about ignoring him.
Ignoring that particular monster hadn’t gone well for me in the past.
“No.” I sighed.
“Are you in pain?”
“Yes.” In the darkness I rolled my eyes. What a stupid ass question.
His sigh was loud.
Part of me wanted to peek out of the blankets and see what he was doing but I already knew the answer to that. He would be standing there in the darkness.
Just watching me with those oh so blue eyes.
“You’re mad at me?”
Damn him, he had just branded me. He didn’t get to ask that question in that heartbroken voice.
“I want to stay with you tonight.”
Cold air flowed across my skin and I curled into myself more. I didn’t want him anywhere near me. I didn’t , I didn’t.
Gabriel pulled me against his warm naked body, his thick corded arms wrapping around me.
“I won’t hurt you Audrey. I just want to hold you. Like this. With nothing between us.” His lips brushed my shoulder.
My eyebrows shot up. Nothing between us? Did that mean his face was as naked as the body I could feel pressed against me.
Had he taken his mask off?
“Stay exactly where you are Audrey. Don’t turn around. I am not going to hurt you.” His lips moved across my skin and I couldn’t help it. I shivered.
“You have hurt me Gabriel.”
“I know.” His sigh was sad. “I know I’ve hurt you and I will never forgive myself for that but you're mine now. Now and forever. You are mine.”
“Why me?” The words ripped their way out of my mouth before I could stop them.
I didn’t want to have a deep conversation with the maniac that was stalking me.
But I needed to know.
“Why me Gabriel? Out of all the women in the world why me? What did I do-“
The muscles arm around my stomach pulled me back until there wasn’t a millimetre between our bodies.
“You smiled at me.”
“That night under the apple tree? Is that why you keep sending me apple related things? You can’t be this obsessed with me just because teenage me smiled at you over a decade ago.”
The lips on my shoulder curved into a grin against my skin. “It wasn’t just a smile Audrey. You gave me life. I was dead before that and with that smile you brought me back to life.”
“You aren’t dead,”
“Oh but I was. I died screaming. A boy who thought he was a man. I died under his knife and under his acids, Gabriel king died but you smiled at me and I was alive again.
“What?” I swallowed hard. “Someone did that to you?”
Frowning I thought back to that night. The way the air had been lit up with the storm, how the lightning had illuminated the world for just long enough to see him.
The boy, next to the older man. The way the man had his arm around his shoulders as they stood staring at the ground.
Michael.
Michael had been the man standing next to him. That’s why he seemed familiar. Michael had been here that night as well.
“I’ll die without you Audrey, it’s only you that keeps my heart beating.” Gabriel’s fingers sprayed across my stomach. “Only you, now sleep. I’ll be gone before you wake up in the morning and I don’t know how long I’ll be but you will be safe. I promise you, you will be safe.”
“Safe from whom Gabriel? From the man who hurt you?” My voice shook.
“No my love, not from him but from people like him. I will never let anyone hurt you like they hurt me. Like they are still hurting others.”
Was that what all of this was about? “Gabriel tell me what they did to you.”
“I can’t. I can’t tell you because I haven’t been that boy since the night you smiled at me. But if you are brave enough then there’s a book in my home.”
“A book?”
“A diary. If you are brave enough to open the pages and read the nightmares. If you are brave enough to know me completely.”
Was I brave enough to do that? To peel back the mask by reading his inner most thoughts? I wasn’t even brave enough to turn and see his face for the first time.
I wanted to but I couldn’t bring myself to do.
Why?
Because there was no going back from that. Just like there was no going back if I went over there and found his diary.
I didn’t know anything about Gabriel King. The man, but maybe if I read that book I could get to know Gabriel King the boy.
And then maybe, hopefully I would start to understand.