Twisted: A Dark Romance (Barrowlands Book 1)

by Esme Devlin

  “Because you’re a monster.” You’re a monster, and I can’t believe I used to think otherwise.

  “And yet, I have made you happy. I’ve been concerned over your well-being, shown you nothing but loyalty. I’ve been kind. I’ve compromised. Are those the traits of a monster?”

  “You also kill people. Like it’s nothing. Like their lives mean nothing and it’s all just a game.”

  The sound of the chair scraping against the floor is the only warning I get that he’s moved. I can’t see a thing. His hands grab me, hauling me out of my seat even while I cling to it. And then, just like the rag doll I’ve been since the day I met him, I find myself sitting on his lap.

  “That’s because it is a game, Sapphire.”

  “Killing? Torturing? Raping?”

  “You speak as though I’m the one who makes the rules.”

  “That’s because you do.”

  He lets out a sigh, almost sounding exhausted. “Quite often I think the world would be a better place if I did make the rules.”

  “All I see here is death and torture and rape, and you’re the master at the center of it all.”

  “And what do you know of any of that?” he snaps. “Death? Death is a kindness. I don’t see you moping around, mourning the loss of the chicken you ate. Why? Because a chicken is mindless? An animal? Because it doesn’t have the ability to self-reflect, to reason? Some of the men I put to death, I’d rather it was them than a poor defenseless chicken who never harmed a soul. As for your cries of torture, I only ever do what I must. Would you rather be shot cleanly in the head, or have your fingers chopped off and fed to you before being shot in the head?”

  What? Surely that is a trick question?

  “I’d rather be shot in the head.”

  “Correct. Which means the man willing to chop fingers for the sheer pleasure of it will always be the bigger threat. The man who pulls your teeth out, who finds joy in the agony of death, has far more power than the man who shies away. A man isn’t his size, or his strength, or even his intelligence. The measure of a man can be summed up in how far he is willing to go.”

  “And you take great pleasure in making sure everyone knows you’ll go all the way.”

  “I go as far as I need to,” he replies. “You accuse me of rape. I’ve never taken a woman who didn’t want to be taken. But consider this, Sapphire, and consider it well. There is more than one way to rape a person, and you know absolutely nothing of the rape that goes on up here.” He taps me on the side of my temple. “Still… all this time, and you see the world through the eyes of a child.”

  I let out a sigh. “You say that so often, but you never explain what you mean by it.”

  “The woman. She was only too happy to tell me of your… indiscretions. I offered her nothing in return. She didn’t hesitate. You seem to have worked this out, and yet, I cannot help thinking you remain concerned with what became of her.”

  “What did become of her?”

  “She will be dealt with,” he replies, casually. It’s the way that he says it—as if he’s reporting on a change in the weather—that makes the blood in my veins turn to ice. That’s what has bile rising in my stomach.

  “And you claim you’re not a monster.”

  He laughs. “Ah—no. No, I don’t believe I did claim that. I merely asked you if a monster can still demonstrate certain attributes, a question which you refuse to answer.”

  “I don’t know what’s real and what’s false with you.” That’s the only answer I have for him.

  “A sad fact of life, but that’s the way it’s always going to be.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, little Sapphire, I don’t trust you. I thought I might. One day, perhaps. But I can see now that is not the way things will be between us.”

  Something about the way he says it angers me. As if, after everything he’s done to me—to everyone—it’s my fault. “So this is it? This is the rest of my life? Locked down here with you and your games? No contact with anyone else. No friends. No life. Just you.”

  “The way you say that would amuse me if it weren’t so utterly foolish. As if there is some great alternative out there, and I’m the one keeping you from it.”

  “The woman you plan to butcher seemed to think there was an alternative.”

  “Butcher now, is it?” Baron stiffens beneath my thighs. “You are so careless with words, Sapphire, it’s frightening.”

  Before I can respond or do anything, he stands, ejecting me from his lap. I hit the cold concrete floor with a thud.

  “Still, you refuse to listen. You refuse to learn. You see the world not as it is, but as you think it should be. You judge me, and I will not be judged.”

  “Then tell me!”

  “That’s not how it works, Sapphire. You don’t cook the stew until the fire is hot, and you can’t make a fire before cutting the wood. You’re just a sapling, without even a limb or a leaf to sway in the breeze. And what’s worse is that you’re a sapling who rejects the very sun that brings you life.”

  “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

  He must have crouched down, because I can hear the breath as it comes from his lips. A moment later, I feel his hand on me. “All you had to do was fear me, my sweet girl. It wasn’t difficult. I tried my best to make it easy for you. But you couldn’t do it. I tried to teach you, too. To show you. Lessons—so many lessons. You never wanted to learn.”

  My heart thumps in my ears at his words. He’s talking like it’s over. Like this is the end. “Are you going to kill me?”

  Baron chuckles, as if my suggestion was ridiculous. It doesn’t feel ridiculous, not to me. “No. No, I’m not going to kill you. I let Andrei and Celeste believe I might, but I fear I am far, far too selfish to commit to the deed.” He stands, but I can’t even see where he’s headed. A moment later, I hear the sound of his body hitting the wooden chair. “I'm going to tell you a story.”

  I shift on the ground so that even in darkness, I’m facing him. “A true story, or a false one?”

  He makes the hmm sound I’ve come to know so well, but this one is different without the mask to obscure it. “It should be true, but then again it might be false. Such are the joys of having a broken mind, sweet girl.”

  There is something about the way he says it, as if it’s all just a big joke, that has me suspicious. And considering what he said earlier about the measure of a man being in the perception of how far he will go, I feel even more unsure about this broken mind of his. “I’m not even sure I believe your mind is broken anymore.”

  He laughs maniacally, as if to really drive home the madness. “My sweet little girl questioning the reality she sees in front of her? My, my, my. Progress. But tell me this, do you believe it’s possible to keep up such an act all the time?”

  “I believe it would be a mistake to underestimate anything about you. But I digress. Tell me your tale, and I’ll make up my own very-much-intact mind.”

  “Very well,” he says. “Once upon a time, there was a little girl who I imagine was a lot like you. A wicked man fell in love with the girl and snatched her away from everything she knew. The little girl was naive and innocent, and the man was cruel and took great pleasure in hurting her. One day, they had a son. The wicked man had great plans for this son, but great plans required a great son, and the wicked man understood that the measure of a man came not in his size or his strength, but in how far he was willing to go. How do you make a person go farther than they ever deemed possible?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell him.

  “Oh, come now, silly girl. You know this because I’ve been doing it to you since the day we met.”

  “I don’t know,” I repeat. “Push them to their limits?”

  “You remove their limits entirely. Break them down and build them back up the way you want them.”

  “Who was the little boy?” I ask him, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear him say it.

  �
�The little girl’s mother hated the wicked man,” he continues, ignoring my question. “So much so, that she made great plans of her own to escape. She would take her daughter and her grandson and go someplace the wicked man couldn’t reach them. If there is such a thing in this world as a great woman, then I’d like to think she’d be it. The mother took the wicked man’s son, but the little girl refused to go with them. She chose the wicked man over everything else.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, sweet girl, fear always wins.”

  “And that is why you told me you never wanted my love. The little girl loved her son, but it was fear that kept her with the wicked man.”

  “Correct,” he says. “I do believe you are getting smarter.”

  “I’m not as scared of you as you would like to believe,” I tell him. “You’re like a spider. The moment I see you, the moment you move, the moment I realize I don’t know what you’re going to do next—I fear you, I admit that. But just like that spider, rational thought eventually catches up and as long as I remind myself that the fear is just instinctual, I’m okay. The spider can’t do anything. You are slightly different in that you can do everything, but what is the worst you can do? Kill me? I don’t really have anything left to live for.”

  “Precisely,” he says. “I hadn’t realized that when I took you. There is a difference between you and that little girl. The little girl had someone else to live for.”

  “You.”

  “Indeed,” he tells me, finally admitting it. “I told you my little fairy tale because I want you to understand my reasoning when I visit you each night and put my son inside you. The world will always see what they want to see, and the world will see a psychopathic sadist who enjoys keeping you locked away and torturing you. You were included in that world, before. I let you see what you wanted to see. But now I’ve given you the knowledge with which to see clearly. You don’t have to fear me, but you can if you want to. You can love me or hate me, fight me or submit at my feet. It matters little. You will never betray me, and you will never leave me, not when there is a part of me growing inside you. Not when there is a part of both of us walking around in the world.”

  I shake my head, but it doesn’t matter. He can’t see it. “You say it matters little, but I believe that is a lie. You want me to love you and fear you. You want me to fight before I submit. I thought you were better than lies.”

  He chuckles. “I said it matters little. I didn’t say it matters little to me. You just thought I did.”

  I let out a laugh because it’s the only thing I have left that’s mine. “Very well.”

  “Until tonight,” he says, getting up from the chair.

  He steps over me like I’m something insignificant, and I hear the slight scrape of metal when he picks up his mask.

  Without another word, he walks out of the door.

  I remember when I didn’t know how long I’d been down here.

  That was a kindness.

  Now it would be easy to count the nights. I could count the nights with his visits and count the mornings with the small metal bucket for washing that’s never quite warm enough, and the evenings with the dinner brought to me by a stranger who keeps his eyes rooted on the ground.

  But I have little interest in keeping track of time anymore.

  I have little interest in anything that isn’t sleeping.

  There is only exhaustion. Moving is exhausting. Being awake is exhausting. Thinking is exhausting. Baron is exhausting.

  But the most exhausting thing is waiting for him to come back.

  And I do wait for him.

  I remember when he said I was a sapling who rejects the very sun that gives it life. Now I crave him like a breath underwater.

  But it wasn’t always like that.

  I used to back away at the first click of the door unlocking. Press myself against a wall and then move on light feet as soon as he extinguished the candles. When he sat down on the chair and made no move to find me in the darkness, the knots in my stomach would get so tight that I’d kick a stone just to make him do something. Anything.

  The next sound would always be metal on stone.

  The mask, then the buckle of his belt.

  “Come to me, sweet girl,” he’d say, in that playful tone of his. “We both know I can make you feel better.”

  I was always so cold before he brought me blankets and pillows and let me make a little nest in the middle of the floor. And he was always hot to the touch.

  But I didn’t give in.

  I didn’t speak.

  He hated that, I knew, but he hid it so well.

  There were no games, and I got the sense he hated that, too. He loves his games. His favorite type of foreplay.

  But we weren’t fucking for fun.

  He fucked me like a man with only one thing on his mind. One purpose. I got the sense that purpose eventually turned into something fun for him, just as the games had been. He’d whisper in my ear that he couldn’t wait until I was swollen with his baby. How he couldn’t wait to trap me mentally, just as he had trapped me physically. I’d never be anyone else's. He would be my sun, and I would be his earth, and the boy we’d have together would own all of it.

  The deeper, harder, faster he went, the more I clawed at his back, his face, his arms. The more it seemed to delight him.

  It turned him on.

  Eventually, it turned me on, too.

  Still, I didn’t speak.

  It was the only power I had over him.

  Then came the night he brought me the blankets and the pillows. “Come to me, precious girl,” he’d say, in that playful tone of his. “Just tell me something, anything, and I’ll give you everything.”

  It was tempting. I knew he could give me everything, in his own way. He’d give me everything but only if I danced to his tune, lived in his shadow, and did everything he said.

  Would that have been the worst thing?

  Still, I didn’t speak. Not even to lie and tell him I hated him.

  Baron responded by speaking for both of us.

  He’d never roll over after he’d finished. He’d never get up and walk away. He’d keep me locked there with him still inside me, long after my heart had ceased thudding against his stomach and his breath, so far above my head, had slowed.

  I’d almost fall asleep while he told me the stories he’d given me in the books with the foreign words.

  One about a white bear who told a peasant man that he would make him rich in exchange for his youngest, prettiest daughter.

  The white bear took the daughter to the most beautiful castle and visited her each night in the form of a man. But it was always in darkness.

  And the darkness meant that she could never see him. Never gaze upon his face.

  When the girl got lonely, she convinced the white bear to let her speak to her family. The white bear agreed, but only if she promised not to speak to her mother alone.

  The girl broke her promise, and the mother convinced her that the man must have been a troll, and she should take some candles to bed with her so she could see his face.

  Baron never got farther than the betrayal part of the story, and that’s the reason I never fell asleep.

  I wondered if he somehow knew I’d eventually try to see what was under the mask. I wondered if he’d somehow been waiting for it to happen.

  But I never wondered for long because the memory of my betrayal would only get him started again.

  I’d fall asleep after and wake up with a hand between my legs, and sometimes I’d moan or whimper subconsciously, but I’d never speak.

  Before long, his playful “come to me” changed to “speak to me.”

  Just speak to me, sweet girl.

  I didn’t speak, but I did come to him. I hated him, but I guess I must have loved him, too, because I felt empty when he wasn’t with me. Empty and with no direction, no purpose. I’d sit on his knee before he extinguished the candles and let him pet me and fawn
over me. It was then that I felt something hard in the pocket of his trousers.

  A lighter.

  Again, I was tempted.

  I knew there was nothing I could do with his face. It’s only a face. Would stealing a glance of his face make me feel better when he owned my body, my mind, and my soul?

  The scales would still be unbalanced.

  I wouldn’t do it.

  But I thought about it when he was pressed up against my back, one hand clamped over my breasts and the other draped lazily over my still-flat stomach. His breathing and the way he’d just fucked me revealed that he was fast asleep.

  I could smell his clothes a foot or so away from my face.

  Maybe I’d never get another chance.

  I would decide what to do with it once it was in my hands.

  Arm outstretched, fingers dancing over the hem of his jeans—trying to find the pocket—he shifted his weight on top of me so quickly it took the air out of my lungs.

  Warm and heavy breath caressed my cheeks.

  Hands clamped down on my wrists, sliding them above my head.

  He said nothing when he kicked my legs apart with his knees and slammed into me.

  The next night he brought me a book to read. “Tell me, sweet girl, has your bleeding started?”

  No.

  I hadn’t bled once since before he took me.

  But he would never know about that. Not until there was nothing I could do to hide it.

  I knew that if I simply told him, he’d probably take me away from here. Maybe I’d go back to my old room with a comfortable bed. Maybe that would be better.

  Maybe not.

  Baron was right. Giving me a child gave me something to live for. I was thinking, for perhaps only the second or third time in my sorry little existence, about what came next.

  The next night, last night, sometime after dinner—he always came after dinner—I found a stone with a sharp edge and slid it along the sole of my foot, wincing as the crimson liquid trickled down to my toes.

  I smeared it over the tops of my thighs and was already naked by the time he came to visit me.

  “I’m bleeding,” I told him, throat thick with broken glass. The first words to pass my lips in weeks.