Page 24 of The Last Feast
My apathy has been cured only where this woman is concerned. Just like the paint flaking from her face, the more of her that’s revealed, the deeper I’m enamored by her.
“I don’t need permission.” I take another step. “Because you claimed me as your own. Does your hand ask if it can touch your body?”
She slowly shakes her head as she continues retreating without tearing her eyes off me.
“Exactly. I’m yours, and if you tie me up…” I say slowly before abruptly snatching her neck. “Then I can’t do this.” I slam my lips over hers as I wind my arm around her hips. She tastes like freedom. I’ve spent so long drowning while fearing someone will hear me; now that she has, it’s freeing.
She moans into my mouth as she flattens her chest against mine. Her fingers slowly trail up my body to my shoulders, and as soon as she digs her nails in, I pull her up. Hana wraps her legs around my waist, and I cup the back of her head as I slowly push my tongue into her mouth, exploring every part of this woman I want to be mine.
She pushes her head forward, meeting me in need. And I smile.I smile.
Pulling back enough to look at her breathless and weak, I ask, “Do you still like me better tied up?”
She looks down at the floor then back up at me. “You’re really tall.”
“I’ll carry you, baby. Arms around my neck.” I kiss her cheek as I hold her ass on my forearm and look for whatever she might need. “Where are we going?”
Her smile stretches from ear to ear as she lightly says, “To kill your little girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” I should probably argue about the issue of killing someone, but there’s no tomorrow. There are no consequences or anxiety to creep up on me.
Hana unwraps her legs from my waist and drops down to her feet. I grab her hand before she can run off into the shadows, but she keeps walking, dragging me with her. There’s still one anxiety left—her leaving. If she isn’t with me, I go back to being Auguste. Timid, well-mannered, silent Auguste, who cares more about what everyone is thinking of me than myself.
With Hana, I’m Jamie. Still fucked up, but I don’t care. I accept those fucked up parts of myself. They don’t consume me.
The glare from the spotlight reflecting off the metal panels provides a dim glow so we can see where we’re going. She doesn’t slow down, though; she just storms through the maze like she created it then walks between the trees to reach the metal siding, where a ladder is fixed in place.
I don’t want her to fall, so I pull her back and place one foot on the bottom rung.
But she yanks my arm, stopping me from touching the ladder. “You’ll leave fingerprints.”
“So will you.”
Removing the knife she tucked into my jeans, she shakes her head. “I don’t exist. The orphanage doesn’t keep records of people abandoned there.”
There’s no time for me to tell her she exists to me or ask more about her childhood, because she begins climbing the ladder. My heart is in my throat as I watch her climb, how she gets smallerand smaller then balances at the very top with her knees on the metal poles.
If she falls, it’s over.
The muffled screaming gets louder, distracting her as she tries to cut through the wires. I don’t care about fingerprints or DNA, not if she’s going to get hurt. My steps clang, echoing around the space as I race up to her.
When I reach the top, she’s already cut through the wires around Odette’s ankles. She crawls along the pole to cut through the others around her waist, chest, and arms. “I told you not to touch anything.”
“You were going to fall,” I argue back as she cuts through the wires securing the gag in Odette’s mouth.
As soon as it’s removed, she weakly screams, “Help!” but gravity pulls her down before Hana can cut through the remaining wires. She slips through them, falling through the air to land with dull thud. The labored groans are low, but I don’t give a thought to the obvious evidence of Odette’s internal bleeding as Hana tries to hide how she assesses me. I’m attuned to her now, so it’s no use. I suppose that’s what happens when someone violently returns parts of oneself back to them.
Holding the ladder with one hand, I pat my back. “Climb on, baby. I don’t want you to fall.”
When she wraps her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist, I know she’s mine. If she wasn’t, she’d argue. She’d complain like she did before.
And when her soft lips brush my nape, I know I’m hers.
There’s something awe-inspiring about someone strong in their own right allowing themselves to soften and be helped. There’s no misguided conviction about her needing me, but she allows me to feel like she does as I carry her down the ladder.
I hold her thighs on the way to where Odette fell. We both watch the crumpled shadow as she wheezes, an inky puddleforming beneath her. Auguste would question why she needs to die. Jamie accepts it needs to happen because it’s what Hana wants, so I set my woman on her feet and then change the angle of the spotlight.
Hana fills with excitement as she skips towards Odette. Her shadow looms over her, the mirrors creating new ones in different directions as she cocks her leg back then kicks Odette in the head, rendering her unconscious. Then, she repositions her within the maze, directly in front of the mirrors. It’s not the same way she tied me up; rather, she lays Odette flat on her back then wraps new electrical wires around her wrists and ankles before tying them to the structural supports hidden between the fake tress until Odette’s limp body is lifted a few inches above the ground.
