Fear Us

by B. B. Reid

The impatient look he shot me made me sit back like a coward. “Spare the melodramatic bullshit. It’s a little late to care now, don’t you think?”

  “Why wouldn’t I care? It’s wrong.”

  “You didn’t think it was wrong when we were together. I know you remember all those nights I’d climb up the stairs and fuck daddy’s little princess’s pussy senseless while he slept down the hall dreaming of empires to crush.”

  “That was a different time.”

  “You’re right, it was.” He said nothing else as he moved for the shower. I’d been so engrossed in the past that I hadn’t noticed the hex key he carried in his hand.

  “What are you doing with that?”

  He ignored me and fiddled with the shower handle while I watched in confusion. Is the shower broken? If so, why was he so set on me taking a shower?

  The shower handle eventually slid off when he tugged on it revealing a small stem. He slowly turned the stem counterclockwise, each turn making a clicking sound.

  When he was done turning it, he slid the handle back on and tightened the screw using the hex key once more.

  Pocketing the tool, he turned to face me with a blank expression. “Undress.”

  This time I slowly obeyed. His gaze never wavered as my clothes slid from my body. Surprisingly, he didn’t look at my body but kept his eyes trained with mine. I didn’t know whether to be thankful or feel inadequate.

  When the last item was shed, he took my hand and led me into the shower. I half expected him to undress and join me, but he simply turned the handle towards the sign that read hot.

  “Aren’t you going to close the door?”

  “You have eight minutes.”

  “Do you really think timing me and standing guard is necessary? I think I can handle personal hygiene on my own… By the way, this water is kind of hot. Is the water heater broken?”

  “Who is he?”

  My head was under the spray, but because of the increasing temperature of the water, I ducked my head from under the water just in time to hear him.

  “I told you there is no one.” I absently reached to turn down the temperature of the water, but his hand on my wrist stopped me. “Let go. The water is too hot.”

  “You now have about four minutes to tell me the truth. Who is he?”

  If I wasn’t so distracted by the water, I might have answered, but it seemed as if someone had just thrown a pot of boiling water on me.

  “I need to get out.” I backed away from the spray, feeling my skin prickle. The water now felt as if it were boiling. Steam rose and covered every inch of the shower until I could hardly see him. Suddenly, his hand appeared through the steam, oblivious to the hot temperature, and he pulled me back under the spray.

  “Keenan! It’s too hot.”

  “That’s because in two minutes the water will reach a scalding temperature causing first-degree burns to cover your skin. In four, you will suffer second-degree burns. Tell me who he is.” He spoke with a flat tone. So unfeeling and cold. His expression was completely impassive as he watched me suffer under the spray of the water.

  I sunk down to the floor of the shower. My body jerked uncontrollably as instinct kicked in, begging for self-preservation. “Please let me out,” I choked out. “I can’t breathe. It hurts so badly.”

  “Thirty seconds.”

  He continued to appear unaffected, and it was then I finally realized that he would destroy me if I let him.

  “Keenan…” I found the strength to lift my head one last time and peered into eyes devoid of a soul, mercy, or love. “Go to hell.”

  The water had reached an unbearable temperature, and I could no longer stop the scream that ripped from my throat.

  * * * * *

  SEVEN YEARS AGO

  “Hey, beautiful.”

  I looked around in confusion until my eyes landed on an extremely hot guy leaning against the lockers. His dark hair was spiked, and the lopsided grin he wore spelled trouble by invitation. I recognized him as one the popular kids. The girls were always talking about him and his kissing skills… among other things.

  “Are you talking to me?” He appeared to be waiting for someone, but it couldn’t possibly have been me. Boys didn’t talk to me. It was a rule set forth by my twin brother, who was older by a few minutes.

  “I don’t see anyone else who could possibly make me fall in love at first sight, do you?” Despite knowing it was a line, I found myself shaking my head slowly. “Come here.”

  “Oh, I, um… have to get to class.”

  He rolled his eyes as if annoyed. “Are you a nerd?”

  “No way,” I answered quickly and a little too defensively.

  “So come to me… now,” he ordered. The rough tone of his voice belied the easygoing smile on his face. I felt my feet move me closer to him even though my brain screamed to run the other way.

  “Good girl.”

  “Uh, hi,” I said needlessly when my mind drew a blank. I didn’t know how to talk to boys because my dad and brother didn’t allow me to date.

  “You’re Dash’s sister, right?”

  “Yes. We’re twins,” I offered lamely.

  “I don’t see how. Dash is ugly as hell.”

  I burst out laughing and felt the tension leave my shoulders and my nervousness ease.

  “You have a beautiful laugh, Shelly.”

  “My name is not Shelly.” I pouted in disappointment. Maybe he thought I was someone else despite knowing my brother.

  “It’s Sheldon, right?”

  “Yeah,” I piped up when he confirmed he did know my name,

  “Well, I want to call you Shelly for short.”

  “Why?”

  “Because no one else does.” He leaned in close and whispered in my ear. “I’m going to be your first and your only everything.”

  “What makes you so sure?” I was surprised at my saucy tone but hid it well. I wasn’t one who flirted, but I found with him it came naturally.

  “Because I planned it that way.” Before I could ask him to explain, he kissed my cheek and smoothly said, “I’ll see you around, Shelly baby.”

  * * * * *

  I didn’t know how long it would take for the burning sensation to fade, but when I woke some time later, I felt as if my skin were being pricked by thousands of tiny needles. I cried silently into the pillow, willing the pain away. The soft covers beneath me rubbed against my chafing skin. I didn’t want to open my eyes because I knew what waited for me—it would mean this was real instead of a nightmare.

  I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was here.

  When I finally opened my eyes, my gaze first landed on an old poster of Megan Fox posing in a superwoman costume. I remember the day we hung it up after fighting over who would get to keep her. He assumed at first that she was an inspiration for how I wanted to look. I revealed that I had an even bigger crush on her that I couldn’t and wouldn’t explain. It was also the first time he told me that he loved me.

  At first, I laughed it off until I witnessed what had to be the first sincere moment we shared in the brief months we dated.

  It just so happened shortly after the bliss of falling in love was followed by two years of heartbreak because of his cheating.

  Before that summer day in his bedroom, he had been someone I could trust, but something shattered that. It wasn’t until it was too late when I realized we had been doomed from the start.

  “I thought about tearing it down.”

  Keenan’s deep voice pulled me from the past. It was a constant battle not to live in the past, but it was an all-out war not to be afraid of the present.

  “So why haven’t you?” The raspy sound of my voice was a testament to the pain I had endured however long since I’d been passed out. I could still hear my screams from when the nearly scalding water poured onto my skin.

  “Because there is no such thing as destroying a memory. It’s impossible.”

  “It’s not impossible. I managed
to forget about you all these years.”

  “And yet here I am… Besides, we both know that’s a lie.” The bite in his tone was barely audible, but the resentment was there.

  “What can I say? You’re easily forgotten… or haven’t you learned that from your parents?”

  I was sure I had done it and that maybe he would kill me.

  “How do you feel?”

  Like I just took a round trip to hell and back. “Why do you care? So you can hurt me more?”

  “Perhaps, but it isn’t a reason not to answer the question. If I want to hurt you, Shelly, I will. Haven’t I proven that?”

  I sat up then, and my gaze instantly fell on Keenan sitting against the dresser with his knees drawn up and his arms resting against them. I wondered how he could tell I had woken up from his position. Even now, he watched me. His gaze never wavered.

  I took a deep breath and matched his stare. Even if I felt none of the bravado I displayed, I had to make him believe it. “The only thing you proved is that you are unstable.”

  “I learned a lot about myself while I was away. I can promise you my mind is functioning better than ever.”

  “So, is that what you ran away to do? To find yourself?”

  “No.” He rose to his feet and left the room with silent steps. Despite my disgust, I couldn’t help but admire him. Everything about him was different now. He moved and talked in the manner of a predator. It was as if he were hunting for something.

  It was as if he wanted a victim.

  I used the opportunity to check over my sore body that was covered in red patches. None of the injuries appeared too serious. The only scars I would carry were too far beneath the surface.

  “Are you ignoring me?” My head snapped up and towards the bedroom door where Keenan stood watching me.

  “What?”

  He moved from the door to stand at the foot of the bed. When he leaned down to plant his hands on either side of my legs, I fought the urge to back away. “I’ve been calling your name.”

  “I obviously didn’t hear you.”

  “Would you like more of before?” His expression hadn’t changed, but his eyes were nearly black with ire.

  “Please don’t.”

  He said nothing as he stood upright and held out his hand. I stared down at his hand dumbfounded. “I can take you or I can make you,” he said softly when I hesitated a little too long.

  My hand slid slowly into his, and I could have sworn he rubbed my knuckles with this thumb before he pulled me to my feet.

  “Slowly,” I pleaded. My body was sore and my movements stiff.

  He didn’t reply, but his steps were slow as he led me from the room. When we entered the bathroom shortly after, I lost all the breath in my body and control over my limbs.

  I fell to the floor, but his hand kept a tight grip on mine. “Keenan, no.”

  The entire time I pleaded, my eyes remained locked on the tub full of water. Sinister thoughts ran rampant in my mind. I didn’t realize I was crawling backward until my back hit the wall.

  “What are you doing?” His tone lacked patience as he took heavy steps toward me.

  “Please don’t make me go back in there. The water is too hot.”

  “It’s not hot anymore. I changed it back.”

  “Changed?” Confusion replaced panic as I stared at him through the dim light of the hallway. What did he mean by changing it back? As soon as the question formed in my mind, the answer followed.

  Not only had Keenan sought to punish me, but he had purposely made the water boiling hot to hurt me in yet another way that would cause irreparable damage. It must have been what he’d done when he messed with the handle.

  “Yes, Shelly. I did it. Now come.”

  “No.” I anchored myself against the wall as if it would really save me from him. Keenan was stronger and in control. How could I compete against that?

  “The water isn’t hot.”

  “Why should I trust you? What you did was sick.” With a careless shrug, he forced me up from the floor.

  “It was necessary.”

  “You have no right to be jealous of someone who doesn’t exist,” I snapped and prayed that he didn’t hear the lie in my voice.

  “Jealous? I’m merely taking back what’s mine. How can I be jealous of that?”

  He pushed me a little harder than necessary inside the bathroom. My attention was so fixated on the tub that I didn’t notice his silence behind me until his next words made my blood turn cold.

  “You had my name removed,” he growled.

  I whirled around to face him. Not only did the hatred in his voice make my spine feel as if it retreated to my body, but he was also blocking the exit.

  The fire dancing within his dark irises should have made me back down, but Keenan would know the moment I did and then he would pounce.

  The smile that graced my face couldn’t be stopped even if I wanted. Never mind the fact that I stood before an angry Keenan in my birthday suit. No, it wasn’t enough. I had to bait him. “Yeah. So?”

  “Why?”

  “I may be stuck in this hell hole with you, but that doesn’t mean I answer to you anymore.”

  “Wrong, Shelly. You never stopped answering to me. That’s why you could never seal the deal with your golden boy, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” He spoke as if he knew about Eric, but I knew there could be no way unless Lake told him, and I made her promise not to ever tell.

  “Oh, I know plenty. I know when you’re hot and ready to fuck and, baby, you were always ready to fuck. But when you look at him, I bet there was no passion and there was no lust. I bet he has never even tasted your pretty little pussy, has he?” His hand slid up my leg slowly and softly. So softly that had I not been so in tune with his touch even four years later, I might not have noticed. “I remember how much you liked that.”

  “I don’t want you to touch me.”

  “Then why are your thighs quaking?”

  I tried to still the trembling of my legs and fight the memory of how he would wrap them around his neck and spending what felt like hours tasting me… but all that was tarnished by the reminder of the cruel, sadistic person he had become.

  “If you beg me, I’ll do it for you, right here and now. But if you don’t…”

  He stopped speaking to lead me to the tub with a tight grip on my wrist.

  “If I don’t?” I hated that my voice sounded breathless and my body responded to the pure unadulterated promise of sex. Knowing he wouldn’t go easy on me didn’t make me want him less. Knowing what he could and would do made me want him more.

  “I’ll do it anyway. At least, if you beg, you will feel like you have a choice.”

  Because I was left without a choice, I lifted and lowered my foot into the water, which was shockingly cool and served as a balm to my skin. I was more grateful that the water would hide my true reaction to his promise.

  “You can do what you want to me, but I won’t be begging.”

  He lowered to his knee until he was eye level with me. The heat in his dark eyes was unmistakable. “Beg now or beg later, but you will beg.” Without warning, he stole my lips but not to kiss. He clamped down on my upper lip until I cried out. When he retreated, I lifted a tentative hand to my lip just before I tasted a drop of blood.

  “I think I like the taste of your blood just as much as your pussy,” he chuckled before rising to his feet to tower over me.

  At the same time, I shuddered with revulsion, my tongue unconsciously flicked over my lips, curious of the taste. When I recognized the familiar copper tang of blood, I glared up at him.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Right now, I just want you to bathe and then I want you to sleep.”

  “I can sleep at home.”

  “Why? What’s waiting for you there but an empty apartment?”

  “It’s not empty.” The temperature in the room seemed t
o drop a hundred degrees when he froze from picking up my clothes. “My daughter is everywhere in that apartment,” I clarified. “It’s where she took her first steps and learned to talk. Every smell and surface belonged to her. We have so many memories there, and I just want to be there with her.”

  I was begging, and I didn’t even care. For her, I’d beg. For her, I’d give up anything. But it wasn’t the Keenan who came back to me that I was pleading to—I pleaded to the Keenan who was still running away. I knew he could hear me. The evidence was in the emotion hidden behind the anger. It was right there in his eyes for the world to see. You just had to know what to look for.

  His gaze was locked with mine for the longest time, and for a minute, I thought I’d gotten through. He made a quick turn on his heel and tossed over his shoulder, “You have ten minutes to be done.”

  * * * * *

  Keenan had taken off but not before cuffing my hands together and locking me in his bedroom, only saying that he would be back before retreating. It was more of a warning than the reassurance it should have been.

  I wondered when he’d changed the locks on the door because he had never been able to lock the door with a key in the past.

  He planned this.

  I drifted off to sleep before I could figure out why he would go to the trouble of keeping me against my will.

  I awoke sometime later to the feeling of his long fingers circling my wrist. He unlocked one cuff and then the other before silently turning away. I ignored the dull ache in my wrists as I sat up and fought away the remains of sleep.

  “Anything?”

  His face remained impassive as he spoke. “We went back to the house in Camden, but there was no one there. I don’t think anyone has lived there for years.”

  “How did you get in?” Instead of answering, he sent me a look that said I needed to use my head.

  “You broke in.”

  “Yes.”

  I silently sat back and tried not to let the slump in my shoulders be visible. Our leads were dropping like dead flies, and each day, it seemed less possible that I would ever see Kennedy’s face again or hear her voice.

  “Are you ready to tell me who you’ve been seeing?”