Page 6 of Uprising

He sweeps my hair back and kisses me again.

I can feel my lips curling up into a smile. I can feel my heart twisting with emotions that I up until now feel like I’ve not felt enough. Not allowed myself to enjoy enough.

His hand moves to cup my waist, I shift enough that my legs are either side of him, that if he wants he can take me.

And then I blink, opening my eyes, wanting to stare into his as he does it.

Only his face isn’t his face.

His skin isn’t his skin.

It’s rotten, hanging off his skull and his eyes... he doesn’t have any eyes left. They’ve completely decomposed already.

I shake my head, my heart stopping in my chest.

“What’s wrong?” He asks.

I don’t know how to reply. How to answer that. He isn’t him anymore.

He’s dead.

I try to get off but my movements are only resulting in crumbling his body to dust.

Roman is dead.

He’s not even recognisable as a person.

He’s not even any sort of remains you can mourn over either.

I’m covered in bits of him.

Covered in what’s left and I can’t get it off.

I can’t get free.

* * *

I wake screaming.Darius tries to shut me up at first, tries to silence my cries, before he realises that I’m too hysterical, too panicked, to simply stop.

And then he’s pulling me into his chest, burying my face into that awful smell of him.

“Ssssh.” He murmurs. “It’s just a nightmare.”

I don’t reply. What can I say to that when every waking minute with him is a living nightmare?

He cups my cheek, pulls my head so that I’m forced to look up at him.

And slowly, he wipes the tears that’s he’s ultimately responsible for.

There’s a look you could mistake for love in his eyes. One he always seems to get when he’s more gentle. Though those moments are so rare and far between.

Sometimes I wonder if he wants to acknowledge to himself what this is. Sometimes I wonder if he’s telling himself that I’m not his captive, that I chose him freely. That every second spent with him is something I enjoy, that I relish.

He leans in claiming my lips and it’s such an odd response in this moment that I don’t even push him off. I just lie limp in his arms.

He pushes his tongue into my mouth, I grimace pulling back but his hands wrap around my head forcing me to take it, forcing me to accept his kiss.

When he finally breaks off I slide out of the bed, ignoring the groan he makes at the revelation of my naked body, and then I walk into the ensuite. I can’t lock the door, he’s removed every lock on this floor, and he’s made it clear all the ones on the lower level are out of bounds to me.

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