But I hear five words sling out of my mouth like reckless bullets: “I saw you. With her.”
“X.” This is growled. Snarled.
“That girl. She was upset. She was angry with you. I saw you fuck her, right there in the limo. The door open, for all the world to see. I saw. And I—I know you saw me. You looked right at me, and you—you fucking smiled.” Why on earth do I sound so angry, so jealous, so crazed?
“Goddammit, X.”
“I know I mean nothing to you, Caleb, but must you flaunt it in my face?” I am reckless. This is insanity.
The door slams closed. BANG! “You need to think very carefully about your next words, X.” This is spoken in a voice that resembles the edge of a scalpel.
My chin, on its own, lifts. Dares rebelliously upward. “So do you.”
Three lunging steps, a brief sensation of weightlessness, and then I’m pinned against the wall as if I weigh nothing, hard hips crushing mine to the wall, a hand on my throat, cutting off my oxygen in a way that somehow does not hurt.
“Let’s get one thing straight. You belong to me. Not the other way around. Do not presume to speak to me as if I owe you shit for explanations regarding anything I do or with whom I do it.”
I blink. See stars. Darkness encroaches my vision.
“Do you understand me, X?” This is whispered so low as to be nearly inaudible.
I dip my chin ever so slightly, lift it. I am released. I drop to the floor, gasping, oxygen rushing into my brain in a sweet, cool flood.
I barely notice as my favorite window is darkened, the frame filled. Shoulders hunched, head hanging. “Fuck. X, I’m sorry. I overreacted.” Pivot, a glance at me. “Are you okay?”
I am sprawled, very unladylike, against the wall, knees indecently apart, dress hem hiked up around my thighs. I gasp. Merely breathe. I do not answer. I do not have the strength.
Or the courage. That has been choked out of me.
I very intensely dislike being strangled, I am discovering.
Soft footfalls, huge, hard, heavy body crouching beside me. A hand extended to touch. Hesitant, gentle.
I flinch away.
The hand withdraws. “Fuck. FUCK!” The last word is shouted, sudden and frightening.
I jerk away, unable to bridle my instinctively fearful reaction.
“I’m sorry, X.” The hand, on my shoulder.
I go very, very still. Tense. Frozen. Eyes shut, jaw clenched, fingers fisted on my thighs. I do not even breathe until the hand and its accompanying presence is withdrawn. And even then, I take a slow, careful breath. Watch out of the corner of my eye. Harsh, angry steps. The door, jerked open. Slammed closed with such violent force that the door splinters and the frame cracks.
I hear the elevator door, and then silence.
I sit where I am for I don’t know how long. Eventually I hear the elevator again, male voices.
Len.
“Ma’am?” Beside me. Lifting me to my feet. “Come on. I got a guy that’s gonna fix your door for you. Why don’t you go lay down, huh? You want some tea or something?”
I shake my head, wrench free of Len’s grip, as gently solicitous and careful as it is. “Nothing.” I whisper it, my voice hoarse. “Thank you.”
I move into my bedroom, lie down on my bed, still wearing my dress. Len tints my window black, turns on my noise machine.
“You shouldn’t make him angry, ma’am. It’s not smart. You got a tiger by the tail, you best not rile him. Know what I’m saying?”
“Classic apologetics for domestic abuse, Len.” My voice is raspy again. I don’t think I’ll have bruises, though.
“I’m not apologizing, just saying.”
“Apologetics is—you know what, never mind. Thank you, Len. That will be all.”
“Okay, then.” A pause. “I’ll be by tomorrow, with the designer.”
“Designer?”
“The outfit, for that rich bastard kid’s event.”
“Jonathan, you mean.”
“Yeah, whatever. They’re all the fucking same.”
I don’t answer. I feel my eyes grow heavy. Ignore the turmoil in my heart, in my head, ignore the burn in my throat and the sting in my eyes.
I hear the noise of my front door being replaced, and then silence.
I sleep.
• • •
Darkness. It is thick and raw and ravenous. A rumbling beast, with gnashing teeth. Red eyes, luminous orbs.
I stumble through the hungry blackness on bare feet. Stub my toe, feel a new stab of pain pierce the all-over agony as a toenail is ripped away.
Another beast, with glowing white eyes. Loud, roaring.
Howls, wailing, rising and ululating and deafening, all around me. So many monsters, iron-fleshed and fast, smashing heedless through the blackness, bright eyes and glowing red tails.
Stumble, my path in the darkness lit by lightning, my bones shaken by thunder, my trail erased by a deluge of cold rain. I am not weeping or screaming, because I hurt too badly to do so, because to weep requires breath, and I have no oxygen, no breath, lungs scorched from the hungry flames.
Flames.
They are somewhere behind me, still flickering and smelling of roasted flesh.
The beasts circle around me, roaring, flashing their too-bright eyes, claws reaching, trailing bandages and needles.
Squares, endless squares above me. Squares pierced with a million, million dots. One hundred and ten thousand four hundred and twenty-four dots, black holes spiked into the white squares.
Voices, buzzing around me like echoes from a thousand years ago.
Words. Sounds that should be comprehensible, but aren’t. Words, words, words, that mean nothing. Nothing.
Loss.
Agony.
Grief.
Agony.
A face, over and over and over.
Dreams of flames.
Dreams of darkness.
Darkness.
No more darkness. Keep the darkness at bay! There are beasts in the blackness. They want my blood, desire my flesh.
I cannot breathe.
I am drowning in an ocean of darkness, and I cannot breathe.
“Breathe, X.” A command.
I breathe, drag in a long painful breath.
“Breathe.”
I breathe.
Hands caress my face; a body cradles mine. I find comfort even as dimly remembered fear pulses through me. “Caleb.”
“Just keep breathing, X. You’re okay. You were dreaming.”
God, the dreams. They ravage me, pillage my soul.
Awareness returns with a jolt like lightning striking a tree. “Let me go.” I crawl away. “Don’t touch me.”
“X—”
I scramble off the bed, hit the floor in a pile of limbs, huddle in the darkness against the window. A shadow rises in the darkness, male shoulders, that face, angular and beautiful, angelic in its perfection, even in shadowed profile. My door is open, letting in a sliver of slight, a lance of brightness spearing the darkness, setting a too-handsome profile into relief.
“I’m sorry. You know that’s not easy for me to say, to you or anyone else. I don’t ever apologize. Not for anything, no matter what. But I’m apologizing to you, X. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, and I’m sorry.” Beside me, crouched, pale arms bare, wearing nothing but boxer-briefs.
“I know.” It’s all the forgiveness I can muster.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
A finger, touching my chin, lifting my face so I’m gazing up into shadowed perfection. “Look at me, X.”
“I am.” Those eyes, so dark, so unknowable, so piercing, they are open and sorrowful and worried.
“Don’t be afraid of me.”
“I’m not.” Oh, I am a skilled liar, when I must be.
Lifted, I am cradled against a hard warm bare chest. I can hear heartbeats, slow and steady. Hands, running up and down my arms, smooth my hair away. I am still in my dress. I don’t know what time it is.
My heart crashes in my chest.
“Sara.”