Page 49 of A Light in the Darkness
“So, I began my game, stringing you along until I could have you. It was so easy to pretend that I was a secret benefactor, someone who would help you find Wes for just the right price. I didn’t need your money—I just needed you to wait to come to me until I was ready for you. And I’m ready for you, now.”
As he turns back to me, the light from the upstairs flashes on something silver in his hand, and I stand, ignoring the heavy metal that pulls at my neck as I go. I don’t move away from him. I run straight at his chest, hoping to barrel into him and catch him off guard.
My feet are lifted off the ground, instead, as I reach the end of the chain, and next thing I know, I’m being hoisted into the air on some kind of pulley, the metal tightening against the top of my throat and making me gasp for air, panic flooding in the space where oxygen belongs.
The clicking noise comes to a stop just a second before I do, the whole world jerking as the chain drops me back down a half inch and I scrabble for purchase. My toes don’t reach the ground, and when he comes around in front of me, his head is level with mystomach. “You were such a pretty shade of red when he choked you, but I always favored purple.”
His grip on my thigh turns bruising, but it’s a small pain compared to the panic flooding me as the pressure on my throat increases. I feel the heat of the blood rushing to my head, and while I try to kick, he only squeezes my leg tighter, pinning me in place.
The silver thing he’d been holding comes into focus, and I recognize the scissors just as he places them at the edge of my shirt, shredding it up the middle. “Such pretty skin. It will be beautiful, covered in my marks… red that fades to blue and purple. I will make art out of you, send it to galleries around the world so that everyone can enjoy your collapse. And when I’ve broken you so much that you’re no longer fun to play with, I’ll leave your body in pieces on Boudreaux’s doorstep and watch him try to put you back together like a puzzle.”
It's not the mention of my death that scares me, but the fact that he makes it sound like he’s going to take his time getting there.
When my shirt falls to the floor, leaving me in the green lace bra, he appraises me, his sharp eyes assessing every scar, every freckle. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but he does a circle around me in an attempt to find it, and then stops before me again.
The hand skates over my ass and grips the waistband of my shorts, slowing me down as I continue to kick out at him despite the fact that I feel heavy, my movements becoming sluggish, less intentional. The air that’s still in my lungs burns as it is slowly depleted.
“You…” My tongue is getting heavy, too, but I’m fighting to stay awake, to stay aware. The pressure on my neck almost makes me feel as though my head will snap off at any given moment, like the dolls some of the kids used to pop the heads off of. I don’t know if this man purchased me for the long haul or if he would really go to all this trouble just to kill me, but I think if I fall asleep, it will be forever.
So, I have to keep myself talking, awake even though it would be easier to surrender to the darkness that made me. “Could be… my father?”
“Any one of about thirty men could be your father.” He laughs and yanks my shorts down my legs without ceremony, dragging them over my knees and down past my feet, which have stopped scrabbling for solid ground. It’s like swimming against a tide trying to keep moving, when all of my limbs are growing heavier.
“Probably more. She was a bit of a whore, from what I was told. But it’s possible. Just call me daddy anyway, hmm?”
He turns out my pockets, laughing when he finds the phone I used to text him. He holds it up, letting the light from above glance over it. “Smart of you, using this. I couldn’t hack you on this one… and the security cameras set up in your apartment? Closed circuit, not accessible from remote locations. That’s smart, too. Unfortunately for you, you weren’t smart enough to stay away from me. You came here so willingly I almost think youwantedthis…”
His hand on me makes me cringe, but I don’t move as his thumb rubs idly over the skin along my inner thigh, gentle after gripping me like he was trying to snap my bone—too close to a place he shouldn’t be. “Maybe you’re a secret pain slut, just like mommy? Do you think so? If I dipped my fingers into that little cunt right now, would you be dripping wet for me?”
“Fuck… you.”
“Oh,” he chuckles, “You will. But you have to be patient, too, okay? We can do it together. It’s why I’m not going to strip you yet… because I don’t think I could control myself once I get you all out in the open. I have somewhere to be, and I don’t want to rush our first time together, but I’ll come back for you, okay, baby?”
His breath hovers against my flesh a moment, and then he smells me… grabbing my waist and pulling me into him so that he can bury his face between my thighs and inhale deeply. I don’t think the noise he makes is intentional, and neither are the ones comingfrom me… ragged gasps slowing down as my body begins to shut down. I feel his lips on the inside of my leg, so close to the edge of my lace underwear, but my eyes are heavy, refusing to stay open as he nuzzles his face between my legs.
I’m distantly aware of the kiss he presses there, a humiliation I can’t even contend with because of how quickly I’m fading. If I hang to death in this basement, I don’t doubt that when he gets back, he’ll follow through with fucking my corpse all the same.
Each time my eyes flutter closed, an electrical shock from somewhere inside my brain demands I open them again, so I do. I do it three times, and then on the fourth, the shock doesn’t come from inside of me this time.
It comes as I land in a heap on the floor, the pressure loosening from around my neck as the blood rushes back to my extremities. His back is already toward me as he retreats up the stairs, chuckling to himself.
Chapter thirty
Remy
I knew I should have put a tracker in her. The thought crossed my mind when she lay in my bed after Wes sold her to some sadistic fuck, and I told myself I was crazy. I reminded myself that I don’t treat people like cattle, like property, but that was before I realized she fucking owned my soul. I didn’t even realize it after everything we did together, after watching her rip my fucking heart out and get on that plane, after suffering through these months without her.
But I realize it now. Because if she dies, I’ll die with her. If she dies…
“Stop fidgeting.” Wes snaps, slamming the laptop shut. “You’re fucking driving me crazy here.”
I stop to stare at him, delirious with the dread in my chest, my stomach, my lungs… it’s like turpentine, filling me more and more with every second that passes, taking away my ability to breathe, to think.
“If I’m bothering you, I could have Simon depressurize the cabin long enough to let you off. How good a swimmer are you? If you survive the fall from forty thousand feet, would you be able to tread water ‘til someone happens upon you?”
Wes only laughs, unbothered with the threat. “You wouldn’t risk all of us just to punish me. You’re not the bad guy, Remy, so stop pretending you are. You’re shit at it.”
“You’re shit at playing the good guy, so why don’t we both stick to what we know?”
