Page 13 of Ruin

I move closer, wind flapping my open shirt, blood sticking and pulling as the material drags over the fresh wound. I step into him, not touching, dip my mouth to his ear, face turned in towards him.

“I’m waiting, Charl, what the fuck did you come here for?”

His breath is heavy on my neck, cool and sweet, and I try to ignore it, the way it lights a furnace beneath my skin. I feel his bicep brush my chest, the cording of his muscles as he flexes his fists. The tip of my nose brushes the edge of his jaw and he doesn’t move, we are both so familiar with one another’s bodies it’s a wonder how we ever managed to tear ourselves apart from each other. His head turns in towards me, his nose brushing the lobe of my ear. I’m holding my breath, waiting.

Hoping.

“I’m going to carve you into pieces, Ivanov.”

And with that, he smacks into my bleeding shoulder, knocking me into the metal railing at his back and storms back through the open doors of the penthouse.

The room is dark and empty when I eventually head back inside and I order Dima to bring the brunette back.

Chapter8

Charlie

Seven days.

One-hundred and sixty-eight hours.

Ten-thousand, eighty minutes.

Six-hundred, four-thousand and eight-hundred seconds.

Counting, my comfort. I calculate it all inside my head. The beats of her heart per minute. Her pulse. Breaths. The irregularity of it all. I feel caught off guard.

Why aren’t you dead?

My mind whirs as she stares at me. The big, round, blue-brown eyes, sapphires ringed with glistening dark honey. Only one is visible, unblinking, pupil blown in the darkness, only a singular red bulb gifting the cavernous space any light. She is backlit by it, the bulb in the rear of the basement. Her face in shadows, but I can see the unusual colour of her iris so vividly, I can’t look away.

She doesn’t blink, this wide doe eye just stares at me like she can’t be sure if I am really here or not. I suppose she may wonder if I am, in fact, a statue. For I am unmoving, leaning against my workbench, Dillon happily on his wheels at my feet. We had just finished our little walk when her eye opened. It hasn’t closed since. I want her to look away. I want her to keep staring.

At me.

I am fascinated by her.

A breathing bag of bones. Grey, lifeless corpse with eyes that aren’t overly unpleasant to look at. It doesn’t bore into me, doesn’t make my skin itch with the feeling of being stared at. That’s all anyone ever does, stare at me. It’s why I blend into my surroundings so often, people never look for me, they just stare uncontrollably if they happen to catch a glance of me. So I avoid it all by blending in. Something that is hard to do with features as stark as mine, the pale skin, black tattoos, white hair and green eyes. All of it is a little unusual I suppose, or perhaps that isn’t why they stare at me at all. Perhaps it’s not my looks at all that draws people’s eyeballs in my direction.

I blink, staring at the girl. Her dark brown hair is matted, the ends of it scraggly, but there’s so much of it, I wonder what she’d look like fully exposed. Perhaps I’ll shave it off. I’m sure it’s beyond fixing. Especially for hands like mine. I can’t imagine trying to pick a fine tooth comb through that bird’s nest. I am unsure why I should want to. Because I do.Want to.

I straighten my cocked head, her eye finally,finallyblinking.Rolling up to the top of her socket to watch my movements.

She tracks me then.

Across the space. As I approach, she doesn’t move, her hand still needled with the cannula, bag of saline hooked up high, fuelling her with hydration. I stop a few feet from her, cant my head, stare down where she stares up and it feels like a challenge, like something forbidden, a line, somewhere, we shouldn’t cross.

I don’t see it though. I cross the invisible barrier, smoothly drop into a crouch before her, curl my fingers around the cold iron bars of her cage and look down at her. That strangely coloured eye is more blue than brown up this close, her iris so large it’s cut off by her top lid. I want to stick my arm through the bar, pull it upward.Let me see.

She growls at me as my hand slides down the bar, fingers squeaking gently, condensation beneath my palm lining the metal. Fuck it’s cold down here, I hardly notice changes in temperature, but I bet her skin is ice. I feel my lips kick, one corner lifting into a half smirk as I see the pricked flesh along her exposed skin. The rumble in her throat grows bolder, but she doesn’t move, she doesn’t blink, her chest is rising and falling in the same quick motion it has for the past week. Other than the noise locked away inside of her closed mouth, she doesn’t react to me at all.

Until I shove my hand through the bars. Violently yank on the chain attached to her neck shackle. I can see it now, thick, wide steel, something so familiar to me, I can feel it on my own throat as I swallow, Adam’s apple bobbing. A breath hisses out between my teeth, a sharp one sucking back in through my nostrils. And I grip the chain tighter in my fist, the length taut.

She fights me then, cannula tearing out of her hand as her temple smacks into the bars. My fingers coiling the thick chain around my knuckles, I yank on it savagely, her icy breath rushes out of her nostrils, raising the hair on my arms as it washes over my skin. I hold her against the bars by her chain, both of her hands are clawing over my arm, my fingers, knuckles, inner elbow, her blood flowing from the back of her hand. The sting lights a fire in my belly, a flare of heat hitting me in my groin.

So much red.

I’ve never felt this way over another woman before.

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