by Logan Fox
His hand is around my throat. He pushes me back into the wall and stands there for a moment as if he’s going to say something.
But he doesn’t.
He squeezes my throat once, hard, and then releases me. I collapse to the floor, shaking, a confused sob dragging its way up my throat as he walks out of my apartment.
I should have woken up by now. Which means I’m not dreaming. Fyre was here. He broke into my home and—
I cut off the thought and instead lie in a puddle of piss and let myself drift away.
Chapter Eight
Charlotte
I stare down into my cup of coffee with disgust. It’s not the coffee’s fault—it’s the best cup I can produce in my apartment. It’s me I’m disgusted with. It’s been a week since Fyre visited me with blood on his hands. A week that I’ve spent alternating between hating him and hating myself. What I haven’t done is go to the police.
Because for some fucked up reason, even when I think I hate him…I love him.
I thought I was getting better. I thought I was improving.
I wasn’t.
I’m just as fucked up as the day I flagged down that couple’s car in the woods.
Maybe even more.
At least, before, I could convince myself that my strange urges, my almost obsessive interest in sex and fucking was just a phase I was going through. I only mentioned it once in passing to my therapist, and then pretended she’d misheard me when her eyes widened. As it was, they had me under psychiatric evaluation at the hospital when I tried to slit my wrists with a scalpel I dug out of a hazardous waste bin in the ER. I wasn’t going to give them any reason to keep me there indefinitely.
I’m not a psycho.
I’m damaged.
There’s a difference.
A hard ache contracts deep in my belly. I squeeze my eyes closed, grimacing as I try to breathe through the pain. It woke me today, this pain. It’s been coming steadily every few minutes. It’s what I imagine contractions would be like.
Not that I’ll be able to have children. Peter took many things from me…my womb was one of them.
I try a sip of coffee, but it coats my tongue like rancid oil. This is my fault. I let my new, horrifying urges take control. Instead of fighting off my attacker, I let him use me, let him bring me that brief, sickening pleasure, and then walk away scot-free.
When I woke up the next day I was still lying on the floor, the smell of urine and blood thick in the air. I barely made it to the bathroom in time to puke, and that’s when I saw the smudges of blood on my face, the finger marks on my throat. After that, I could no longer convince myself it had been a dream.
My knife is gone. It makes me wonder if Fyre kept it as a memento, or so that I have less chance of defending myself the next time he visits me.
God…how many times has he actually visited me?
How many times has he been standing at the foot of my bed when I wake up groggy from the drugs, my primal instinct to survive desperate to push me out of my lethargy, but failing. How often have I woken up with crusty underwear and the vague memory of coming in my sleep?
It was him, wasn’t it? He’d visit me in the middle of the night when I was too drugged up to fight him, and he’d touch me in my sleep.
I reach for my coffee again, determined to wash away the bitter taste of bile that remains. Despite the toothpaste, despite the fucking mouth wash. The cup pauses halfway to my mouth. Eyes glued to the cup, I watch in fascination as the surface of the liquid trembles like there’s an earthquake on the way. I tighten my grip, but it doesn’t help.
I can’t live like this anymore. This isn’t normal. It isn’t right.
I don’t know who’s more fucked up—the man abusing me in the night, or the woman who lets him. Because I knew deep down in my heart that I wasn’t dreaming. I might not have known who was in my room, who was touching me, but I knew it wasn’t right.
I’ll never be normal again, will I?
I slowly stand. There’s sudden pressure in my head—impending tears, a migraine on the way, who knows—but it’s distant. I clomp to my bathroom, my feet so heavy I can barely lift them.
Thump.
Thump.
The closer I get to my nightstand, the heavier my body becomes. It’s resisting me, fighting for survival.
Like I did in Peter’s little box.
I fought.
I fought until I couldn’t anymore, and then I fought some more. But it didn’t matter. He was stronger. He was faster. I didn’t stand a chance.
I’ll never be able to protect myself. I’ll always be trying to escape.
I rip open my drawer. An orange bottle of prescription pills rolls around inside, moving so much easier now that my knife is gone. I pick it up, the drugs inside rattling as my hand shakes.
You can do this, Charlotte. Be brave. It’s the only way. You want this to stop, don’t you?
I’m in a new box. This one’s invisible, but it’s even smaller than Peter’s little cavity under the basement of his lake house in Waspwood Forest. This box is so small I barely fit in.
And it’s getting smaller. Closing in. Walls collapsing, trapping me.
If I don’t break out, it’ll smother me.
Pills rattle.
When I sleep, I’m not in the box anymore. And all I have are those lewd dreams.
It’s a win-win.
Chapter Nine
Fyre
Charlotte hasn’t been in class this whole week. It’s taking all my willpower not to go to her apartment and knock on her door.
She doesn’t want to see me. I crossed the line, and now she knows it too.
I don’t deserve to see her again. I know this. I’ve come to terms with it. But now I’m so worried about her, I’m trying to justify breaking my own rules just to make sure she’s safe.
I shift on the driver’s seat, rub my fingers over my mouth. It’s the middle of the day—despite my tinted windows, I shouldn’t be here. Someone could spot me through the windshield, recognize me, report me. But I’m past the point of logic right now. Nothing matters but Charlotte.
I’ve been wracking my brain figuring out how to fix this. I can’t go back in time and undo what I did, but is there a way to stop myself from getting into my car every day, every night, and driving out here, and sitting in my fucking car?
Watching her.
Protecting her.
My steering wheel creaks as I tighten my hands on the leather. Who the fuck am I kidding? The only person she needs protecting against is me.
I know what my visit could have done to her, mentally. Especially someone who’s been through her ordeal. But I did it anyway, because that’s how fucked I am. That’s how obsessed I am.
She will go to the police. They’ll revoke my license. I’ll lose my job.
And I don’t give a fuck.
I still want her.
More.
Every inch.
I laugh, the sound echoing manically in the confines of my cab. Sometimes my profession is more a curse than a blessing. Curiosity got me here in the first place. I couldn’t understand how a man could take the life of two people in such a violent, horrific manner and still function in society. No red flags.
Red Friday.
Those letters burn like fire across my mind, and I curl my fingers against my palms, my nails biting half-moons into my flesh in an effort to eviscerate that sudden treacherous memory.
Curiosity became a passion. It fascinated me how the human mind was so adept at concealing its own rotten depravity.
Somewhere behind me, a car alarm goes off. My eyes instantly move to Charlotte’s window.
I can’t take this. I have to know if she’s okay. If that triggers the end of my career, of my freedom, I’m okay with that.
Chapter Ten
Fyre
“Charlotte!”
Blood sings in my ears. It drowns out all the sounds around me—my frantic panting, the shuffle of my
suddenly heavy feet on the floorboards.
She tried to make it to the bathroom, but it was too far. She’s laying on her back, a streak of vomit down the side of her face, more in her hair. My hands are shaking so hard I’m scared I’ll hurt her as I shove her onto her side, dragging her leg up so she’s in a recovery position.
I press fingers to her neck.
Breath only enters my lungs again when I feel that faint, almost indistinguishable thrum of a pulse under my fingertips, then relief washes through me in a prickle of hot and cold. I sink back on my heels and wipe my hair out of my face as I stare down at her.
In a flash, my eyes dart up to her bedroom door.
Those fucking pills.
I saw them the first night I broke into her apartment. I’m thorough. They disturbed me back then, and now I know why.
Too strong.
Too tempting.
They give her peace, but she sleeps like the fucking dead when she’s taken them. Dangerous. She never even knew I came to visit her. Even when her eyes flickered open and she saw me standing by her bed, there was no recognition in her eyes.
Even when I slid my hands under the covers, she didn’t—couldn’t—resist. I didn’t dare penetrate her back then—but she’d moan when I touched her tits and when I stroked her pussy through her underwear. Those sounds were the only thing that kept me going. They helped me endure the torture of seeing her in my class and not being able to touch her. Not being allowed to kiss her.
But it all became too much. When she crossed that line and kissed me the other day, the dam broke. There was no stopping the tsunami of my passion for her.
Love.
For the first time in my life, I understood.
Even now, staring down at her comatose body, her pale, puke-streaked face…I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.
“I love you, Charlotte,” I murmur, wiping a strand of hair from her face. “I love you more than you’ll ever know. And I need you in my life. Now, forever.” A fond smile curls up the corners of my mouth. “You don’t have to be scared anymore. I’ll take care of you.”
Now.
Forever.
Chapter Eleven
Charlotte
Professor Fyre looks so handsome today. He’s wearing a tan blazer that brings out his olive skin and dark hair, and every time he smiles, he flashes his perfect teeth at me.
Okay, not just at me.
A pang of jealousy hits me at the thought I’m sharing Fyre’s adoration with Fredericka or Graham.
But I’m a big girl.
I can handle it.
There’s a lot of shit I can handle these days. Maybe my suicide attempt reset my brain or something.
That phantom pain is gone, the one where my womb used to be. That more than anything convinces me that I had a life-changing moment.
My mouth shifts to the side as Fyre beams at Fredericka’s project. He crouches beside her chair just like he did with me a few weeks ago, nodding enthusiastically as she explains the deep meaning in her play-dough creation.
The dreams have stopped.
I’m wondering if they were caused by those pills I took every night. I’d lost the bottle sometime between downing half its contents and waking up freshly scrubbed in my bed a day later, but one morning they turned up on the kitchen counter.
I think I have a guardian angel.
What else could explain how clean my apartment was when I woke up from my Zoloft-induced coma? I remember getting sick multiple times—on my bed, on the floor—as I crawled toward the bathroom.
I thought it was over, then. I was in agony. Miserable. It had to be the end.
But it wasn’t.
I lost consciousness and woke up to a new world. I thought it might have been Mrs. Crawford from next door. That she might have snapped out of her feline obsession long enough to notice I wasn’t doing well. Maybe she was the one who found me, who cleaned me up, who tidied my house.
But that doesn’t explain the fresh peonies I wake up to every morning. Someone leaves them in a vase on the kitchen table right next to a takeaway coffee and a fresh pastry. My fridge was cleaned out. Healthy ready-made meals fill the small freezer. Fresh fruit and vegetables on the shelves.
I was groggy and totally out of it that first day, and the next, and the next. But now it’s like a switch has been turned on. Color suffuses what used to be a drab, gray world. And my house constantly smells like peonies.
Something bugs me, though.
My pills.
It’s weird. The bottle’s the same, but the pills look different. And although I do fall asleep like before, it’s not the same. I wake up refreshed, and I have energy like nothing before.
Fyre straightens and glances around the class as if he’s trying to spot whose project he hasn’t looked at yet.
Me! Look at me!
As if he hears my desperate plea, Professor Fyre turns and looks right at me.
An arrow pierces my heart. My unrequited love for Fyre has grown so much in the last couple of weeks. I want to burst into flames every time I see him. Implode. Explode. I don’t know which, but it’s glorious and violent, and I can barely contain myself when he looks at me.
I squirm in my seat as he moves near, his easy smile growing an extra inch as he comes up to me.
“What do you have for me, Charlotte?”
Everything. My heart, my soul—
I clear my throat and slowly turn around the piece of paper on my desk. I expect Fyre’s eyes to go to it immediately—he must be curious, right?—but instead he just keeps staring at me.
My insides pool.
How is it possible for a single look like that to make my panties wet?
“Absolute perfection,” he murmurs, still with his eyes on me.
Shock turns my skin pale and cold. “Wh-what?”
Finally, ruefully, his eyes slide away from my face and settle on the paper in front of me. He stands there for the longest time, his mere presence igniting a million different nerve points through my body.
“Is it okay?” I ask, glancing between him and my drawing with mounting panic.
I should have used color. I should have tried to paint something. It’s horrible. He hates it. Why did I—?
“A gift,” he says.
It’s insane, but at that moment, I’m convinced he’s talking about the peonies that fill my home with their sweet fragrance every morning.
“You have a gift, Charlotte.”
“Really?” My heart is about to explode out of my chest with pride. “It’s that good?”
His hand slides onto my shoulder. I jolt at the touch, but then I lean into it, barely restraining myself from resting my head against his arm. “You certainly have talent. Come see me after class. I want to discuss something with you.”
My heart climbs up my throat and lodges itself there. I’m aware I’m staring at Fyre’s back as he makes his way to the front of the class, but I can’t help myself.
I look down at my drawing.
It’s a still life. A single peony positioned just-so on my bedroom pillow. One petal came loose and lays beside the flower. I left it there because it looked…right.
The last ten minutes of class flows by like a glacier. I’m coming out of my skin by the time the bell rings and Fyre moves to stand by the door as he greets every one of his students.
It’s the last time he’ll be seeing us, after all.
I take my time packing up and leave the picture for last. Lifting it, I hold it carefully and step out from behind my desk.
Across the classroom, Fyre greets the last student, steps outside into the hall, checks left and right, and then steps back inside.
My stomach flutters and then drops to my feet when he pulls the classroom door closed and locks it.
Chapter Twelve
Charlotte
Fyre stalks over to me with a grim expression on his face.
Oh my God. He’s angry with me. But why? What did I do? How did
I fuck this up?
The hand holding my drawing begins to tremble.
“Sir?” My voice is weak, quivering.
He doesn’t answer me.
I start backing up, my legs bumping against easels and workbenches as I retreat from his looming shape.
Panic has me in its teeth, shaking me like a dog with a rat.
A second before I hit the back wall of the class, Fyre catches up to me. He rips the drawing from my fingers and slaps it down on the desk beside us.
I open my mouth to try and apologize, to explain, but there’s no time.
Fyre grabs my hips and hoists me up. His body slams into mine, pinning me to the wall. I wore a dress today, and maybe that’s why everything happens so fast. There’s no fussing with buttons, no tugging at zips.
Professor Fyre crushes his mouth against mine hard enough to make me gasp. He rips up the hem of my dress, baring my underwear to the classroom’s cool air. With a yank that leaves fabric burn on my skin, my panties are now tangled around my upper thighs.
Strong fingers graze my pussy. Fyre groans against my mouth, breaking our kiss just long enough to murmur, “You’re already dripping for me.”
I want to say something, but I only have one second to stare up into his dark, golden-flecked eyes before he darts forward and snatches up my lips with his. He grabs my underwear and yanks, tearing the fabric down my legs.
There’s a metallic clank as he rips open his belt, the rasp of a zipper.
My legs wrap around his waist, and he takes it as an invitation.
Fyre parts my pussy with deft fingers before forcing the first inch of his cock inside me.
I moan, gripping his waist tighter, kissing him harder. My hands are around his shoulders, one hand fisted in his hair. I twist, desperate to hold on as he forces another inch of his thick cock into me.
I’m splitting open. Tearing apart. Pleasure and pain mingle into an indecipherable cocktail of sensation that rushes through me in a hot, aching wave.
