Page 24 of A Dance With Devils
“Beautiful,” I murmur.
Regardless of my rationality, I do get lost in both the vision and the sounds for a moment. Spellbinding. It’s drawing my feet towards him, making them walk without permission, as if I want to sit next to him there. And it’s saddening somehow. Like it's filling me with sorrowful memories of a life I’ve never lived. Abstract memories burn into me, as I watch on. Sun on my legs. Fields of corn and my hands running through the tall length of them. Two young boys running behind me, both of them laughing at everything and nothing. False, but beautiful.
The music stops abruptly, and my legs stop moving just as fast. I’m halted – stilled, brought back to the here and now rather than an obscure past I was in for no reason.
“I thought you’d be harder than this,” he mutters. Harder? I sway, lightheaded under the pressure of visions. “You should be running, not fawning over me.”
Fawning? I’m not fawning. I’m thinking. But the fact that he’s said it makes me back up a few steps. And then I just stop, both annoyed and irritated with the visions he just brought to life and then dismissed.
“Why should I run? This is ridiculous. What happens if you catch me? It’s not like it can be that bad. Whit sent me with you.”
He gradually spins on the stool, his elbows leaning back on the keys to send slow, discordant notes ringing out. “Pain happens when I catch you. And fucking. Preferably while you argue about the virtues of morality and attempt to make me feel a conscience.”
Shock wracks me, my mouth opening to remind him that Whit said I’d be safe here.
“Or maybe I’ll watch as someone else fucks you. Have a little party in your cunt.” His gaze drops down the dress I’m wearing, then grazes my legs. “I never liked that dress on her, let alone on you. I’ll enjoy ripping it off.”
My mouth opens to argue again, to tell him to go shove his thoughts off these castle walls, but the look of him makes me catch my tongue. No smile anymore. No conversational expression that tells me this is a discussion or something to be debated.
He chuckles and keeps staring, blatantly licking his lips. “Poor little Alice. All alone without her bodyguards or coolers. How does it feel?”
I back away, watching carefully to make sure he stays exactly where he is. This is the man I saw glimpses of back at my house. He’s harsher in his scrutiny, like he was in the seconds that he caught hold of my neck before the plane. Or in the moments when the lights flicked around my kitchen from the helicopter landing in the wasteland opposite. I can feel the pinch of those fingers even now, regardless of there still being a room’s length between us. Hard features. Angry and forbidding. Mysterious – like he’s lost in his own game and master of it.
My feet step back again, heels faltering on the uneven floor as the reality of this situation begins to bed in with full effect. I’m the game now. A player to catch if he can, a fuck to consume.
“All the doors are open. Run, little Alice,” he murmurs, turning back around to begin playing again. “Run.”
Chapter 10
Malachi
Ican’t hear any running. The thought makes me frown and look out into the sun, part waiting for it to descend fully so the games can begin. It won’t in a hurry. It’ll linger there and distract me, reminding me of this more affable side of myself. The music won’t, though. I’ll keep playing with this rather than with her for a while. It feeds me, brings with it my waltz and my thoughts and my memories. Fucking wedding days. I’ve never been a part of something less legitimate in my life.
The notes run dissonant because of my irritation, fingers mishandling the keys.
“Malachi?” she says, a quiver in her tone.
Talking. No. No talking now. Not anymore. There’s no need for it other than the sporadic words that will come when I’ve found myself again. I’m lost in this first hour being here. Almost at odds with myself for reasons unknown. Intriguing still why that happens.
“Why? Why pain?” she asks.
That deserves an answer.
“Because pain reminds us of life. It lessens the monotony. And I don’t feel like dying for the time being.”
The notes come sharper, as my eyes close, more sounds coming as if to remind me of who I should be. I don’t know who I am. Never have. But at least here I’m someone I almost recognise under the guise of escape. Pain and salvation. A place to express both sides of yourself, find balance in life again before returning to thoughts of death.
My hands lift from the keys and wait a moment, giving her one last chance to run, and then snap the fallboard down. Little Alice isn’t running, and that might be more annoying than the constant thought of my wife interrupting my flow. Maybe a little beating is necessary so I can ease myself into the night and show her what’s coming if she doesn’t get those feet moving. A slap - that fragile neck in my grip again so I can haul her around some more and process the feel of her.
Swinging around slowly to start that method, I find nothing in my view but a pair of heels discarded. My lips quirk, as I stare at the doorway she must have run through. Good girl. Quiet and intelligent enough to have known I meant it when I told her to run. I stand and make my way across the room, picking up the heels as I go. She’s nowhere to be seen, as I start stalking the corridors. No sound. No visions of my little thing with her tattoos hiding behind clothes that do not suit her in the slightest. She’ll be best naked, stripped bare.
Creaks and groans come with the wind that rattles through the walls, all of them helping me remember instincts I forget when I’m not here. I stop at the entrance to the dining room and chuckle, as images of women spread wide circulate my thoughts. Not tonight. Tonight isn’t for me and my new Alice. Tonight is for her to find her way, to begin understanding what this place is. All the doors are unlocked, the elevator free and clear to use if she can find it. With any luck, she’ll head down as the music builds later on, be pulled there by the revelry of others in their hedonism.
For now, she can run and hide.
And I should shower and change.
At the very least I should be clean for the games I’m intending to play.
