Chapter 69 The Enemy Within!

Chapter 69 The Enemy Within!
Saintilia’s POV

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, trying to erase the moments before. To return to a version of myself that had not been touched by this new horror. But the memory was seared into my flesh. I could still feel the ghost of his gentle touch on my face, the soft murmur of his voice saying, "You look very pretty."

That was the poison.

It wasn't the violence I was used to; the predictable, drunken assault I could endure by disconnecting. I had learned to leave my body during those moments, to float somewhere he could not reach. But this was different. This was a calculated, insidious tenderness designed to dismantle my defenses piece by piece. He hadn't just broken my body; he had tried to rewrite the story of it, to trick my own physiology into a response that felt like consent.

‘No. It was not consent. It will never be consent.’

But the distinction felt thin now, fragile. My body had responded. And somewhere, in the darkest corner of my mind, a voice whispered that perhaps I was not the person I believed myself to be.

I lay still, my breathing shallow, waiting for the moment when I could escape into the privacy of my own thoughts. There, I would have to rebuild the walls he had somehow breached.

As usual, nothing was said. I slipped from the bed. My movements were mechanical, deliberate, silent. I needed distance, between the bed where the violation had occurred and wherever I could find a moment's sanctuary.

I made my way outside to the small bathing room. The night air was cool against my skin, a sharp contrast to the heat I was trying to escape. Inside, the basin was filled with water from earlier that day, still and quiet in the darkness. I poured the cool water over my body, again and again, scrubbing with my hands until my skin was raw.

I was not trying to wash away the act. I knew that no amount of water could cleanse what he had done. I was trying to remove the sensation, the ghost of his touch that still traced my jaw, the echo of warmth that had spread through my limbs without my consent, the tremor that had built in my core and crashed over me like a wave I had not invited. I wanted to tear the feeling from my flesh, to reach inside and rip out every nerve that had fired without my permission.

But the water only ran over me, indifferent and cold. It could not cleanse what I needed it to cleanse. The sensation lived deeper than skin, in places no water could reach. And when I finally returned to the house, I was still shivering with the memory of my own body's treachery, branded into me like a scar I could not see.

‘Why?’

Was it because of Tina? Had her presence stirred something in him, Was this his twisted way of punishing me because he thought I saw Jacob. A punishment that involved not just pain but a confusing, shattering, pleasure that left me more broken than any blow could have?

The thought crept in like poison seeping through cracks. Was it possible that in his own broken, monstrous way, he was developing something that resembled feelings for me? The thought was so repulsive it made my stomach turn, made me want to puke. To be desired by Emilio, not just as a vessel for his urges but as something he might covet, might treasure, meant a new kind of prison. One with walls made of horrifying intimacy. One from which I might never escape.

‘Please, let it be punishment. Let it be cruelty. Anything but feelings.’

I could feel a phantom tingling in my limbs, the lingering echoes of the climax I had so desperately tried to hide. My body had a memory now, a treacherous secret it kept from my mind. It knew a pathway to pleasure that was paved with my own humiliation, a road I had never asked to walk. The sensations had been recorded somewhere deep in my muscles, my nerves, my flesh. And I hated that recording with every fiber of my being.

I felt a profound sense of alienation from myself, as if I were now two separate people living in the same skin: the mind that hated and endured, that had built walls and fortresses and practiced the virtue of silence; and the body that had betrayed me, that had responded to his touch as though it belonged to him, as though I belonged to him.

‘Which one am I? The one who fights, or the one who breaks?’

My resolve, which had always been my shield, now felt like cracked porcelain vase, still holding its shape; but fragile, vulnerable to the slightest pressure. I had survived by being cold, by being unfeeling, by retreating into that fortified room within myself where he could not reach. But he had just proven that I wasn't made of stone.

I was flesh and blood that could be manipulated, coaxed into feeling things against its will. Blood could be heated and rushed to places I didn't want it to go. The certainty of my hatred felt muddied now, diluted with this new, confusing emotion that I couldn't name and didn't want to examine.

‘He broke something in me tonight. He broke the belief that I could remain untouched inside.’

Lying there in the dark, listening to the night creatures. Sleep would not come. My mind was still wrestling, refusing to accept that it had been breached. Then I made a new, silent vow. It wasn't just about enduring anymore. It wasn't just about surviving each day, each night, each violation. It was about reclaiming control. About taking back what he had tried to steal.

My body had betrayed me once. I would not let it happen again. Something in me rose from somewhere deeper, a place where my true self still clung to existence.

I’ve decided to build a new fortress higher and stronger than before; not just around my mind, but around my flesh itself. I would learn to build my walls even thicker and become so skilled at absence that nothing he did could reach me.

‘I will not feel. I will not respond. I will not give him that power.’

Because I now knew the enemy was not Emilio alone, but also my own flesh that needed to be silenced, buried, denied with every breath I took. My body was now my biggest enemy; one that needed to be confronted with everything I had to keep my mind from destruction.

I stared into the darkness as my mind already began the slow work of reconstruction. The walls would be higher. The distance would be greater. And somewhere, in the deepest part of myself, I held onto the promise I had made to Jonas, to Celia, to the girl I had been before all this.

‘I will escape. I will survive. And I will never let him see me.’

The night stretched long and humid but sleep never came.

Cintinue..........