Three months. I don’t believe it, and yet I know it must be true.
I wonder if Jase is looking for me. If he’s even alive. And Elliot…. Oh, Jesus. I wonder if Dornan’s found him yet.
And then, Dornan comes back, with a smile on his lips and a sparkle in his eye that makes me worry. He shuts the door behind him and places something on the table. A hand-held fucking Taser that looks like it could take a cow down. Awesome.
“I found your little boyfriend,” he says. “Elliot McRae, huh? He’s something else.”
I begin to sob brokenly. No smart-ass responses. No numb indifference. That look in his eyes tells me he’s satisfied. Did he kill Elliot?
It’s too much to comprehend.
“Why are you crying?” Dornan asks. “Tell me, or I’ll give you those drugs again.”
I don’t want the drugs. I’ve already started daydreaming about how delicious a shot of that stuff would be, how blissful, and I’m two or three doses away from being addicted to the fucking stuff.
“Just tell me,” I beg. “Did you hurt him?”
He sneers. “Not yet. I don’t need to anymore. I’ve decided on a much more fitting punishment to get back what you’ve taken from me.”
I stop sobbing and look up at him, daring to hope. “What?”
“Get up.” He eyes the Taser on the table deliberately and then glances back at me. “You don’t want to be shocked, do you Julie?”
I don’t. I stand. He didn’t hurt Elliot. Relief floods my body. He didn’t hurt Elliot yet. The yet is extremely disturbing, but I push that thought away, snapped back to the present by his demands.
“Against the wall.”
I’m empty of the will to fight. The little pills he is giving me are doing their job beautifully. They make me compliant. Somewhere in the darkest recesses of my addled mind I hear a scream, an urging to fight, but the syrupy medication that sloshes in my veins soon drowns that voice out.
It’s easier this way.
I walk slowly to the wall, turning and leaning my back against it. I stare at the floor in front of me, stained with my blood.
“Get your fucking clothes off.”
I hesitate. Not that. I raise my eyes to his and see the warning there. He reaches out and picks up the Taser, pressing the button so electricity sparks from the top of it. I jump, shrinking back against the wall.
“Hurry.”
I fumble with my shirt, pulling it over my head and letting it drop to the floor beside my feet.
“Keep going,” he says, making the Taser spark again.
Feeling my cheeks burn, I slide the sweatpants down past my bony hips and wiggle them over my knees, stepping out of them so I’m completely naked. The wall behind me is rough limestone, and I wince as the bits of uneven stone catch at the sores on my back from where the bedsprings have cut into my skin.
He stands, and places the Taser back on the small table. Approaching me, he bites his lip and grins. He stands so close to me, I feel like he’s going to suffocate me with his presence alone. I stare at his chin, level with my eyes, and wait to see what’s next.
I jump as his hands cup my breasts, almost tenderly. I grit my teeth as he slides the pad of his thumb across one of my nipples, making it spring to life. Touching me like a lover. I wish he’d just bash my head in instead.
Getting me undressed so I feel even more vulnerable? Signature Dornan move. I try not to tremble underneath his touch, but I’m terrified. Please, not that again.
He places his other hand under my chin, forcing it up so our eyes meet. The fingers playing with my left nipple move to cup my breast, and when he squeezes it hurts so much I gasp. That elicits a sneer from him, amusement dancing in his black eyes. He lets that hand trail down to my stomach. Thankfully, the bandage taped to the place where my tattoo and scars once lived stops him from dipping his fingers into the mess of missing skin, oozing blood, and possible gangrene. He brushes his knuckles down my side, stopping at my unmarred hip.
“Julie,” he says.
I don’t respond. I just hold his gaze, and in my head, think of something better, like Ferris wheels and kinder eyes.
“I finally decided what to do with you, Julie.”
I try not to react, but my body does it for me. Every bit of my exposed skin springs up into goose bumps, and I shiver in the cold.
I want to ask, what? What are you going to do to me? But I won’t. I refuse to.
He can tell, I know he can tell how desperate I am. He grins, taking both hands and holding them around my throat. Something dark flashes across his gaze and he squeezes, hard enough that I have to gasp in little sips of air.
So he’s going to kill me. I don’t drop his gaze, but I let my body relax. No point fighting it. He’ll strangle me to death, and then maybe he’ll bring me back to life if he’s in the mood. Maybe he won’t.
I don’t even fucking care anymore. I’m a zombie. A shell. A fucking notch on Dornan’s list of wins.
But you killed four of his sons. You still fought your war pretty fucking well.
That thought makes me smile, despite the fact that I can’t breathe and I’m against the wall, naked, and being strangled by the man who I once thought I’d be able to destroy.
“What the fuck are you smiling at?”
I think of Chad’s face when he realized who I was. Of Maxi, struggling violently as I rocked on his lap, a pile of poisonous powder rammed underneath his nose. Of the carnage that greeted me in the emergency room in Tijuana, when I managed to wipe out two more sons. And I can understand how Dornan feels right now. He must be so fucking pleased to get his vengeance on the girl who took his sons.
He loosens his grip on my neck. “Answer me. What the fuck are you smiling at?”
I hack up a lung, coughing as oxygen once again enters my body. The room stops spinning after a few seconds, and I lean against the wall for support.
“Tell me what you were fucking smiling at or I’ll shove that Taser up your pussy and set it to max.”
I feel my smile shrink a little. “I was thinking about how your sons looked when they realized karma had come back to punish their asses.”
“Huh.” He licks his lips, and that infuriating goddamn smile is back again. Not the reaction I expected.
“What are you smiling at?” Fuck! I can’t resist. I’ve played right into his pathetic game. Admitting that I’m dying to know what he’s planning to do.
He takes a step back, letting his gaze rake up over my naked body. And when he finally speaks, his words are so chilling, so devastating, they’re worse than anything I could have imagined.
“I’ve decided how you’re going to pay me back for taking four of my sons, baby girl. Killing you and bringing you back to life is fun, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not nearly enough payment for the things you took from me.”
He pauses, letting me digest that before he continues. He licks his lips again, like he’s about to fucking devour me, and his grin is so wide, it’s as if his face might break.
“You’re going to give me back my sons, baby girl. All of them.”
I frown, confused. “What?”
He chuckles. “I’m gonna breed you like a fucking brood mare. I’m gonna keep you down here, in this room, for as many years as it takes for you to give me four fucking sons. Until you repay what you took from me. You understand? Get comfortable, bitch. You’re going to be down here getting fucked and tortured and popping out babies until our debt is cleared. I’m going to be inside you here,” he jabs a finger into my forehead, “and here,” another jab, this time to my stomach, “and here.” I gasp as he rams the same finger up inside me without warning. “I don’t want you dead. I just want you to wish you were dead. And I want my fucking money.”
I snort. “You’re delusional. I’m almost dead, you motherfucker! Do you really think this body would even sustain a pregnancy after you’ve starved me, drugged me, poisoned me, and fucked me within an inch of my life?”
&nbs
p; Stark satisfaction dances in his eyes. “Aren’t I lucky then, that I already got inside you a long time ago?” He presses something hard and thin into my palm and steps back, giving me the space to look at what he’s handed me.
I stare down at the plastic stick, two lines intersecting in a circle. A plus sign. Positive. I laugh, but it’s an empty noise, as inside I’m filled with panic.
“Good try, Dornan. I don’t buy it for one second. This is a fake.” I continue staring at the plastic pregnancy test, turning it over in my hand, thinking how pathetic his attempt to scare me is. It’s a fake. Of course it’s a fake. You can order these off eBay for five bucks, for fuck’s sake, and scare your boyfriend—or your hostage—on April Fool’s Day.
“Have I ever lied to you, baby girl?”
I stare at the test, my heart hammering in my chest.
“I should’ve known something was up when you kept accusing me of poisoning your food.” He continues. “I didn’t poison shit. I didn’t need to. I was already poisoning you from the inside with my kid.”
I look back up at his face and my heart sinks. Because as I see the excitement and the satisfaction in his eyes, I know he’s telling me the truth.
I choke, dropping the pregnancy test at my feet and scurrying toward the bucket in the corner. I drop to my knees, barely making it before every bit of food and bile inside me comes up, hitting the sides of the bucket with a sloppy splash.
As I catch my breath, staring down into my regurgitated eggs and toast, a million thoughts run through my mind. If he’s right, it makes sense. Why I’ve been so fucking sick. The mysterious lack of a period the entire time I’ve been down here, which I’d figured was my body in shock. Everything fits together so well, I can practically hear the last puzzle piece slam home as the last of our dirty secrets is exposed to the air.
Gasping on my knees, I don’t even react when I feel a sharp prick at my arm. Warmth and numbness spreads through my limbs and I grab at the floor, trying to stop myself from crashing into the bucket of sick in front of me. Warm hands hop under my arms and pull me up, and the image of a marionette doll on strings slams into my drug-fuelled brain.
He turns me effortlessly, crushing me to his chest in a chokingly tight embrace. I feel my head loll forward and hit my chest as tears leak from my eyes.
So this is what it feels like to be broken. He broke me. He wins.
“Congratulations, mama bear.” He says, kissing salt water from my cheeks. He tucks a stray hair behind my ear and leans in close. “Looks like we’re in this for the long haul.”
“Together.”
He snickers, and the last bit of hope that dared to live inside me flickers like a candle against the wind, wavers, and finally dies.
There are things worse than death.
But there is nothing worse than sinking into death, of allowing that numb bliss to sink into heavy bones, inviting that nothingness to take the place of sadness and pain.
Only to be brought back, dragged from hell, resurrected.
There are things worse than death.
And now, I know all of them.
When I wake up, my limbs feel like they’re encased in wet concrete. The rapid-set stuff, that starts to dry the minute it’s poured, and I have to fight to move.
Things feel different. My mouth is incredibly dry, probably from the heroin, and beneath me feels soft and warm and completely foreign.
I smell those same pungent flowers again, the death lilies Dornan served to me only days ago, and the sharp scent finally rouses me from my half-sleep. I open my eyes, and the light is blinding. I cringe, closing them again, my heavy arms flung over my eyes to stop the piercing brightness from burning me.
The sunlight.
My little dungeon of horrors doesn’t have windows. Doesn’t have sunlight.
Where am I?
I force my eyes open again and wait patiently as they leak water and adjust as best they can to the foreign light source. I’ve been in that dank little pisshole for so long, I don’t even know the last time I saw the sun. However long it’s been, it feels like forever.
I sit up slowly, realizing I’m in Dornan’s room, second floor in Emilio’s Tijuana mansion. But why? How?
My stomach roils, and everything comes slamming back into me like a fucking freight train.
Aren’t I lucky then, that I already got inside you a long time ago?
No.
It can’t be real.
But it is real. He never lied to me. He didn’t have to. I’m pregnant. I can barely think the words in my head, they sound so devastating.
I already got inside you.
I clamber off the side of the bed, squinting my eyes open just enough to make my way to the bathroom, the same bathroom where I stood and detonated those bombs months ago. I haven’t eaten since the last time I threw up, and when I lean over the toilet bowl, burning yellow bile leaves my body, hitting the water in the bowl with an inelegant splash.
Jesus Christ. If I really am pregnant – and I think I must be – there’s no way a baby could possibly survive everything Dornan has done to me. The beatings, the starvation, the rape, the drugs. It’s too much for anyone to bear.
But I’m still alive, despite it all. So I don’t know. Could a baby survive this hell?
When I’m done, I tear off a piece of toilet paper and wipe my mouth, then blow my nose. All I can smell and taste is fucking vomit. I toss the toilet paper and flush the lot, then focus my attention on the toothpaste that sits on top of the vanity. Yes. I can’t bear to think about how long it’s been since I actually brushed my teeth. I think it was at Jase’s house. How disgusting.
I can’t find a toothbrush anywhere, so I squeeze a bead of the white paste onto my fingertip and rub it along my teeth and gums. I rinse my mouth, but it still doesn’t feel right, so I repeat this action several times until my tongue starts to burn with minty freshness. I get a quick glimpse of myself in the mirror that hangs above the sink. Circles as black as night underneath my bloodshot green eyes. Three months of blonde regrowth that cuts through the middle of my brown hair like a strip of lightning. Dull flesh that clings to jutting cheekbones, and that’s when I look away. I look like a fucking prisoner of war; I’m so thin. And I’m supposed to be pregnant? It can’t be real. Nothing could survive what’s happening to me right now.
I look down and notice the foreign material feeling smooth against my skin. I balk when I realize someone has changed my clothes. I was wearing an old pair of stained sweats and a baggy T-shirt when I passed out, but now I’m dressed in a black silk nightgown, trimmed with black lace, that falls to my knees. What the fuck?
The thought of Dornan dressing me like a doll is almost more disturbing than the thought that I may be pregnant.
And that’s when I see the white packages stacked up in the windowsill next to the toilet. Pregnancy tests. Five of them. Left there to taunt me.
Motherfucker.
My hand itches to reach out and grab one, to tear the packaging and pee on the stick, but I resist. I’m not playing these fucking head games with him. Maybe I’m pregnant. Maybe I’m not. But right now, I’m almost dead, and that concerns me more.
I turn the tap on again, splashing water on my face. I freeze when I hear a movement in the bedroom, and turn the water off slowly, patting my face with a towel. Still holding the towel in front of me, I inch out of the room, and when I see the broad shoulders and dark hair of a man sitting in a wicker chair in the corner of the room, I freeze. Dornan?
No.
He turns, and I gasp.
“Jason?” I whisper. He unfolds himself from the chair and quickly covers the distance between us, ending up in front of me at arms length.
He doesn’t look right. Something is way off.
“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up,” he says solemnly. My mouth drops open in shock, and I don’t even see his hand flying toward my cheek until it’s already too late.
My head snaps back, and I
stumble on my feet, going backward but managing not to fall. I back up as he advances, until the backs of my legs hit the bed.
“What are you doing?” I cry, trying to protect my face with my hands. He glances at the door, his expression unreadable, and then back at me. Something shifts in his expression, and I freeze. He holds a finger to his lips, gesturing for me to be quiet, and I can see the raw grief in his eyes as he approaches me. He points at his ear, then the closed door.
We’re being listened to. Somebody is outside that door right now. That much is apparent.
Time stands still for one long moment as he reaches his hand out, cupping my cheek. He runs his thumb along my lower lip, and as our eyes remain fixed on one another, he mouths the words I’m sorry.
I shake my head. I was the one who stormed out of his house all those months ago. I should be the one who’s saying sorry.
I love you, I mouth back. Lucky we’re not actually saying these words because the lump in my throat wouldn’t let me speak if I tried. Tears prick at my eyes and I brush them away impatiently.
He looks pained.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats silently, and as the door creaks open, he grabs my arm and throws me across the room. I land on my skinny ass with a dull thud, suddenly wishing it had more padding.
I struggle to my feet, heavy and still full of smack, when I see the reason for Jase’s sudden violence. Dornan is standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, a cruel smirk on his face as he stares me down.
I see movement in the corner of my eye and shift my attention to Jase, who is approaching me again with violence in his eyes.
“You killed my brothers, you fucking whore,” Jase yells, coming at me. I scream, scrambling to the other side of the bed as Dornan steps in front of his son.
“Hey,” he says, holding an arm out. “I’d like to do the same. But you can’t hurt her, son. She’s got something I need. Isn’t that right, baby mama?”
My heart sinks. There’s no good reason he’d stop Jase from pummeling me to death, other than the obvious - he’s protecting what’s inside me.
Three Years Page 6
