Page 73 of Firethorne
Perhaps it was both of us.
Performing a weird, strange dance to torture ourselves. As if I needed any more excuses to bring more pain into my life.
Holy fuck, I was so confused. My mind was a twisted mess, like barbed wire was wound tightly around my brain, making every thought painful but there was no let up. The piercing, pounding pain only intensified the more I tried to fight it.
I took a few more mouthfuls, ignoring the screeching voices in my mind, and I heard Damien huff and mutter, “Fuck it,” as he put his chopsticks down and reached forward to pull the box closer to him. “I’ve waited all day to bring this to you. I wanted to see your face when you saw what it was. I’ll be damned if I let your appetite of a pigeon ruin that.”
He wanted to see my face when I opened it.
There it was again.
He was pulling me right back in, and just like always, I was letting him.
He ripped the tape off the lid then pushed it towards me to open the box. I was too intrigued to argue further, so I leaned forward in my seat and opened it.
And inside was a laptop.
“Don’t get too excited. You can’t access the internet, so you won’t be able to email anyone. But you can use it to type.” I stared in wonder at the laptop as he spoke. “I thought you might be able to make a start on that book you said you’d always wanted to write, seeing as you have so much free time here. Or not. Whatever. I know your head is scrambled. Perhaps it’s not the right time to do something like that. I don’t know.” Heshrugged it off, going back to eating his noodles like nothing had happened. “It was just a thought.”
“It was the best thought,” I replied truthfully, because it was. I hated being locked up in here, but he’d just given me something else that could help. Something other than the books. Something to give me an outlet for my pent-up emotions.
I continued staring at the laptop in a daze, feeling my fingers itch, wanting to open it and start writing something, anything. It didn’t matter what it was. This was a way I could express myself. A therapy of sorts.
How did this man, who presented himself as the devil when I first met him, continually surprise me with his thoughtfulness and kindness?
The push and pull between us really was a mindfuck.
“What are you gonna write about?” he asked, his voice anchoring my swimming thoughts and pulling me back to the here and now. “Are you gonna write about me?”
I opened the laptop and watched the screen glow to life, an empty Word document already open and ready to whisk me away to another world.
“My professor always told me to write what I know,” I said, my fingers ghosting over the keyboard as I gathered my thoughts. “But I always thought that was ridiculous. If we only ever write what we know, we miss out on visiting worlds we can only ever dream of. Magical worlds. Fantasies to escape to. I won’t write what I know, I’ll write what I love, what excites me.”
“That sounds like the perfect plan,” he replied, watching me intently. “I can’t wait to read it.”
“What makes you think I’ll let you read it?” I shot back, and he smiled.
“Because I know one day, you’ll be a published author. And I’ll go into any bookshop to buy your book.”
“And what if I decide not to publish? To keep my thoughts and ideas just for me?”
“Then I’ll imagine what you wrote. And I’ll know, without even reading it, that it’s a masterpiece.”
“Really?” I narrowed my eyes in suspicion.
“Really,” he replied sincerely. “Because it came from your mind. And no one else I’ve ever met thinks or expresses themselves the way you do, Maya. You’re one of a kind.”
I didn’t respond.
What could I say to that?
The devil had pulled me under once again, and I didn’t even want to come up for air. I was becoming more than happy to drown in his praise.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Maya
Damien left soon after, and I sat for hours writing ideas, scenarios, thoughts, and dreams, anything that came into my mind. It didn’t have to make sense, but to me, it felt like a purge. It was freeing. But as the night drew in and darkness loomed from the windows outside, I put the laptop to one side and picked up my book, ready to read a few chapters and give my fingers a rest from tapping on the keyboard.
