Page 67 of Beg Me Angel

Chapter Nineteen

Vera

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Silver lining. . .

My fingers shook as I held his letter in my hands while my heart hammered inside my chest, crashing around like a caged bird trying to break free. Crinkling the top of the paper, I rested it gently on the counter, placing it down beside a stack of missing person fliers with my face prominently displayed in the center.

Tears balanced on the edge of my lids as I lightly touched the ink that stained the crisp white paper. Three creases forced the edges to hang suspended in the air as the center rested flat on the counter, holding it open, tempting my eyes to read it again and again.

The words were jumping off and smacking me in the face, smearing everything I thought I knew, everything I had tried to understand.

The detective had me questioning myself, he had me thinking that I had been housed by the same hands that bruised and maimed my body.

I saw the video after several demanding rants to the detective. And as much as I wanted to see it, it was hard to rationalize.

Pax had gone into town, he had stopped in a store, I couldn't deny that it was him. It was the same face I had spent nights eating dinner with, the same hands that I had let touch me with an open invitation.

But the time stamp, that was what crushed me. It was three days after he found me, a single day before I woke up.

My flier was taped to the counter, directly next to the register. And as he paid for his things, he stared down at my face, he saw me right there in front of him. . .

And he did nothing.

He didn't flinch, he didn't ask the cashier about the photo, he didn't say a damn word about having me.

But I was with him, I had already been with him for days.

The video sent shivers down my spine. To see him not react to my face, to watch him not care that people were looking for me. . .

It hurt, it cut me deep. I felt like I had been punched in the gut as the wind was thrown from my lungs and my eyes stung with the tears I didn't have left to shed.

He knew who I was even before I told him my name. He knew and acted like he didn't.

I thought he had told me he was going to help me, but that video made me rethink his words and promises.

Then this letter showed up, taped to my door with the single word 'Angel' written boldly across the center. Now, now I didn't know what the hell to think.

I was torn between hate and lust, anger and sadness, and this devious form of desire that wanted to work its way into my muscles.

Even through the words on the paper, I could feel him and his pain. It had bled into the ink, turning the harsh black into crimson.

Deep down, I didn't want to believe that it was possible, that he had been the one to harm me so badly. But those few seconds on the film, that mere blip on the screen, it made me question everything I thought I knew.

I'm not ready for this.

What the hell do I believe?

Should I believe his written confession of guilt and selfishness or should I believe the undeniable image of him on the video and the detective's call to charge him with the crime?

Dad, I need you now more than ever.

What the hell do I do?

I wanted to hate him for not telling me the truth, I wanted to scream at him for keeping me in his home when he knew my family was looking for me.

But I couldn't force that kind of hate when my heart beat for him, when my muscles tingled at the thought of his hands and shivers scaled my spine when I remembered they way he looked at me.

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