The lines creep closer to each other, pink tones encroaching on the creams, blending into each other and forming what seems to be a face. I stare at it, not recognising the new male reflection, which blurs and bounces between reality and folly.
“More,” I mutter, not understanding the reasoning for the image as I continue gazing and imprinting the face further to memory. Dark eyes, dark hair, hollowed cheekbones and jaw line. It isn’t a face I’ll forget in a hurry, nor one that resembles the current image she’s showing me anymore. It’s the fast one, his fucking features already embedded.
“He’s paying for it, Selma.” The face blurs again, dispersing to almost nothing and beginning to fade back to black again. “They’ll pay until they die.” A low growl sounds in the room, making me confused at her thoughts. “No. Wait. The others?” I want to see the other faces, the two other dogs, so I can remember what they looked like when they destroyed my life.
The colours turn again, more imagery coming as the second dog’s face takes form. He’s the runt, the snivelling little one who whines about his bruises. I snarl at it, remembering the way he pleaded for his life as I locked the cage behind him the first time round. And then the last of them shows, the lighter hair changing the features slowly to show dog three. He bleeds weekly, somehow drawing me back to him more rather than the other two. Not that I give a fuck about any of their pain. They fucking deserve it. All of them. “I’m so sorry, baby. I wasn’t here.”
The creams come again, once more merging and changing, offering a softer vision than the hardened tones of the previous face. Until the final image makes the scowl dispense from my face. She’s there, smiling at me softly with a slight curve of her lip. Her blue eyes gently blink as she shakes her head a little and hovers in my sight.
“Selma.” I pull in a long sigh and let her eyes haunt me with no fear. She’s the most welcome sight I’ve seen in some time, and I feel myself getting lost in her eyes without any other thought. “Still so beautiful.” Her dark curls bounce as she shakes her head slowly, lips parting as if she’s trying to say something. I watch them intently, waiting for a reason this is all happening, but nothing comes from them. She just hovers and blinks slowly, filling me with feelings of light again. I catch the swathes of curtains beginning to billow slightly from the corner of my eye, a deeper darkness descending at the same time. It makes me stare harder, willing her to stay close so I can forget reality and linger here with her, but her hair begins to change before I can speak. It shortens and straightens a little, lush folds coming to replace the curls. And, at the same time, everything lightens. Her skin tone pinks more, the olive tones changing to ivory. “Madeline?”
Jack
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me,” I whisper, turning myself around to see the vision more clearly. The moment I do, the image begins to dissolve again, the room losing its blackened state by the second as the sun peeks into the far corner of the ballroom.
I stride forward, for some reason needing to touch the spot she emanates from before she vanishes entirely, or perhaps sense her closer. “No, Selma. Don’t go again. I need you to...” I don’t know what I need, can’t find the words anymore in the middle of whatever this is. “I need you back,” I mumble, my hand finally reaching the spot on the window where she was.
The frosted glass almost stings my hand as I press against it, willing the slow creep of fucking sunlight away again. “Selma, please answer me.” Nothing happens again as I watch the luminous light crawl along the floor, sucking itself back to the position I stand in. Until eventually, the last dark fleck of Selma disappears from my black shoe and the sun glints off the shine of it again.
I lean my forehead on the window, still palming the glass and closing my eyes, searching for her face again, but all I can see is blurred edges and hazy reflections. Nothing is clear, nothing as clear as the last vision she’s left me with. Madeline.
“Jack?”
Mmm.
I suck in a breath and hold onto her sound hovering in my mind. At least I can still hear her. That’s enough for now. She’ll be back again soon enough. I know that now. She’s got things to tell me. That thought alone satisfies me. Just the very thought of knowing she’ll return and help proves more worthwhile than I could ever have imagined.
“Jack?”
I turn as something pokes me in the back, glaring at the sensation and barely seeing Madeline in my line of sight until the haze dissipates completely. She frowns at me then folds her arms around herself as she backs a step away.
“What is going on here?”
“What?”
“It’s all odd. The fog, the dark that’s just disappeared again. I saw it when I came into the room just now. It’s not normal. None of this is. I want answers.” I smile at her, enjoying the way her face quirks as Selma’s did. She furrows her brow and glances nervously around the room. “It started in here when I danced, which was nothing like me by the way.” I look her over, remembering that first dance and how she felt in my arms. “And I’ve just been up the stairs. There’s nothing wrong with them. Nothing there but empty rooms and locked doors on the third floor. What on earth is happening?”
“Are you you, Madeline Cavannagh?”
“What?”
“You. Do you feel like you?”
“I think you need a drink,” she replies, “Of course I’m me.”
“You sure?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’re not, are you?”
I reach for her hair, making her jump away from my hands. She glowers a little, attempting to remain in control of something neither of us are in control of.
“I think it’s best if we stop all that,” she mumbles, backing away from me.
“Why?”
“Because you... Well... And I… It’s not normal. Something’s not right here.”
“Hmm. Perhaps you’re right,” I reply, walking past her and heading for the kitchen. I need to feel her wedding band in my hand again and for some reason I’m now relaxed enough to go and retrieve it.
“Where are you going?” she calls, her heels clicking across the floor behind me and reminding me of times past. I stop, swinging myself back to her and picking her arms up into dance hold before she has a chance to avoid them.
“Are you really sure you’re you?” I say, swaying her and then forging us into a slow waltz. “I don’t think you are. I think you’re someone entirely different from who you think you are.” She frowns again, probably trying to work out what the fuck I’m talking about. I’d explain further if I knew, but I don’t yet. I only know what Selma has shown me, and Madeline Cavannagh is part of that mystery. “Do you remember the feel of me against you?”
“Hardly difficult, we’re dancing,” she replies, huffing and trying her best to keep distance between us. I pull her closer with a sharp tug, breathing in her scent and not allowing one inch of space to interrupt my musings.
“Not that, Madeline. The fucking. Do you remember the fucking? Here on the floor beneath our feet? The way you bit your lip on the first strike, making it bleed.” She rears away again, her body struggling against me to break the connection I’m forcing. “I think you need reminding who you are, Madeline,” I whisper, swinging us around the corner and lengthening my stride. “Shall I show you?” She shudders in my hands, her frame straining for release as she tenses and tries to stop her feet moving with mine. “There’s no point fighting it anymore, don’t you see? It’s all connected. Can’t you feel it? You belong here, don’t you?”
“No. I want to leave. I–”
“Do you really?” I cut in, keeping us dancing, regardless of her attempts at freedom. “I’ll protect you this time. I will.”
I just keep us twirling and gliding, tightening my hold on her and hearing my own tempo in my head. The sound of our wedding dance is so clear as we travel the floor. It rings around the room as our feet move seamlessly, commemorating the feelings I ha
ve for her and driving us closer still. If anything, those sensations grow stronger than they’ve ever been, dismissing images of brutalised bodies and blood. I feel them rising inside my heart, reminding me of love and happiness, of evening walks and babies crying in the middle of the night.
I smile as Lenon’s cries of need filter into the song, imagining his little hands reaching for me in the darkest depths of night. For once, they aren’t covered with blood, or just lying limply at his sides. They’re loud and vibrant, grabbing for me and clinging on like children do.
“You must remember, Madeline. Close your eyes and let me guide you. We’ll find it all together.” She yanks at my hands, trying to free herself from my fingers as her steps falter. I hardly feel her try, choosing to carry on and submerge myself and her into something whether she likes it or not. It’s why she’s here, so we can remould ourselves, link.
Selma’s showing me the way.
“You’re mad,” she stutters, still struggling and eventually managing to loosen her hand from mine. I grab at it again, halting my spin and winding myself behind her body so she has little chance of escape. Maybe I am. In fact, I’m becoming surer of it by the hour, but this is happening between us. Selma appeared the night before this woman arrived, telling me to go home and wait. And then Madeline arrived for me, bringing with her all the feelings I’ve been left without.
I stare at her in the mirror facing us, watching the way her mouth parts under my gaze and her exertion, and then pick up her right hand as I hold her close. She feels the same in this position as Selma did, her ass sliding itself neatly alongside my cock as I bend slightly to tuck my face into her neck. My fingers hold her hand aloft, nudging her face with my own so she keeps her eyes connected with mine in the mirror.
“What’s missing from this hand, Madeline?”
“Nothing,” she mumbles, her voice shaky as her eyes fidget about. I smirk at her, drawing my lips along her jaw and barely containing the need to unzip my pants.
“Think, Madeline. Remember.” She shakes her head, presumably confused and trying to avoid the topic. There’s little point in that now. We’re bound to each other, some part of me knowing it even if she doesn’t yet. “You know who you are. You must know. You came to me.”
“Jack, I…”
“How familiar does my name sound on your lips?”
“I don’t know you, Jack. I don’t know what this is about and I just…”
“And yet we fucked on that rug you always loved.” She gasps at that, stilling her erratic moves. “We made love, didn’t we? Tell me you didn’t feel that. Tell me you don’t feel it now.”
She shakes her head again, closing her eyes and trying to wriggle free once more.
“It’s not real. None of this is,” she whispers, sighing out as I clamp my hold more forcibly and grind into her. “I don’t know what it is, but I have to go. My house. Lewis…”
Anger flares inside instantaneously, raging its way through my insides at the mention of another man’s name. I push her to the mirror, squashing her against it, intent on driving only one name from her lips. Mine.
“You will fucking remember, Madeline,” I snarl, rubbing myself into her back and dragging my hands up her thighs. “Which version of me makes you remember: the one who’s begging to fuck your ass right now, or the one who made love to you on the floor?” She shakes, her head instantly rising to watch me again as she stills, frightened.
“No, please.”
There aren’t no’s anymore. I won’t hear them again. Not from her lips, or mine. Whatever is happening around us, is happening. I’ll force it forward if I have to. I’ll fuck her ragged, bleed her dry of indecision until all she can do is breathe my name and remember our time together. She is Selma. Somehow the two are the same person. Whether she believes it yet or not isn’t relevant. She will believe it. I’ll make her believe it.
“Tell me which one or I’ll choose for you,” I say, yanking on her jeans and groaning as my cock grinds into her leg.
“Jack, this isn’t right. It’s not real,” she replies, twisting in my hold to try to turn towards me. I growl at her and push her hand to the mirror, irritated with her weakness and lack of cooperation.
“You’ll fucking stand there and look at me until you do remember,” I snap out, lifting her other hand and placing it on top of the other.
Those are the last words of discussion I have. There are only orders now, ones she’ll know well when she remembers how to answer them. I’ll fuck the sentiment into her instead, force her to remember the first time I took her ass, then maybe force her to remember the first time she felt my belt, begging for more of it time and time again after that.
She wriggles and writhes, bucking against my hold and trying to dislodge herself. It riles me up further, enough so that I clamp onto her wrists and drag them behind her back for leverage, pushing her whole body into the mirror.
“Jack, please, I don’t want this,” she murmurs, her voice wavering with every syllable as she gasps at my strength around her wrists.
I don’t care what she wants. She doesn’t know, not like I do. She’ll only know when this is done. She’ll feel it then; she’ll feel the pain, the surrender, the aches we forge between ourselves. And then, eventually, when I’ve almost exhausted the life from her and myself, she’ll feel the thing I already know. She’ll feel us again. She’ll feel the love that no other compares to. She’ll believe it. Neither of us will need ghosts or visions of mist and darkness, and neither will question or doubt the ache inside. We’ll just know, and then no one will tear us apart again.
She whimpers as my fingers bite in harder, her legs buckling a little under the pressure I’m using on her. Good. She can go to the floor where she’s most workable. She’ll enjoy it down there, labour there beautifully. She’ll groan and mewl like she used to, beg me for help like she once did. She can have all my help to remember. I’ll keep going until she understands what her coming here means and how relevant she is.
I force my hold harder, turning her as I do so she ends on her knees at my feet.
“That’s where you stay,” I murmur, pushing her head onto the floor to make her realise this is very fucking real. Nothing is changing here. The only thing that will change is her attitude. “You don’t move unless I say. You don’t speak unless I ask.” She gasps and quivers, still fighting my hold slightly and pushing her luck as my fingers wind into her hair. “Keep fighting and see what you get.”
I hear the first sniff and push her head harder onto the wooden floor, remembering her need for the tears to come first. She always cried in the first few minutes. It causes me to close my eyes as I crouch beside her, listening for the honest sounds to finally leave her body. The heaving sobs start then, her body trembling as her chest rises and falls under my hand. I will the noise inside, letting the sound revive my honour for the woman I adore. She cries so prettily in her distress, unleashing the honesty she once kept buried from me, and setting us both free of lies as she crumbles.
“More,” I bark, gripping her hair tighter and scratching my nails into her head. It was never the first ones that mattered; it was the ones that came after them. They cleansed her enough to start the process, enough for her to begin begging for help. “All of it.” She chokes on the next set of tears as they come.
Her head heaves from the floor, and she braces her hands out, searching for air as she sobs out another round and shivers. I let her carry on, soaking in the sounds and smiling as they come thicker and faster. Selma’s coming. She’ll be here soon. I can feel her in the way this body grinds itself into my fingers, feel the tension in her neck disbanding, the anger finally giving in to my power over the situation. “You done with your whining yet?”
She shakes her head, her body convulsing on the next snivel that consumes her throat. I lick my lips, readying myself for action as I stand and let go of her hair. She’s about done. Almost there, just as she always was. Time will mend this rift—time right her
e where it all began. It was dark that time, pitch black, the middle of the night and the dead of winter.
I sneer at the reflected image of myself as I unbutton my shirt slowly, garnering the loathing needed for this next adventure and knowing the room will darken of its own accord. I don’t need Selma’s help for that, or her guidance. Not anymore. Ghosts aren’t the thing this body beneath me should be scared of. Her reality is the thing she should concern herself with for the time being. Her reality that is about to change.
Chapter 12
Madeline
I don’t know what’s happening to me. I can’t breathe through these tears as they come from the depths of me. It’s like I’m ripping out years of them. Like they were just sitting beneath the surface, bubbling away and waiting for a reason to finally come out.
Coiling my legs into myself, I just let the sensation have its way with me as I shiver here on the floor. I’m too afraid to open my eyes for fear of more hallucinations, but so desperately in need of looking at him again I don’t know what to do. None of it makes any sense to me. It would take nothing for me to get up and leave. I could even have chosen to walk away when I came back to the ballroom in search of him, but I didn’t. He looked so sad as he leant against the window, nearly crying out at something, and now he’s making me feel that way, too. So sad. So very miserable and alone.
My legs tuck in tighter, inducing some kind of foetal position to consume me as the tears keep falling from my eyes. I can’t even say why they’re coming; they just are. There are no visions in my head as I wind my arms tighter around my waist, no sounds of Lewis’s voice scaring me either. There are only two things inside my head: darkness and him.
“Finished?” he says, his tone angry and snappy as the word echoes around the vast room.
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