Page 171 of Perfect
He grips my throat so hard that I can barely breathe, fisting my hair with his other hand and pushing in as far as he can, holding me there so long that I start gagging too hard. He pulls me off him and I lean forward to vomit, blood and saliva and bile pooling on the floor beneath me.
When I’m done, he keeps going.
Danny’s always been an absolute bastard when he makes me do this, and it’s always been a punishment, but this time is different. He’s not using it to get off at all. He’sonlyusing it to punish me, and he’s making a point to hurt me. I breathe and focus on how much I hate him, and when he finally comes, all I can think about is how fucking stupid he sounds and how disgusting his cum tastes.
Danny yanks hard on my hair and starts criticizing me for not doing a good enough job, but I don’t look at him and I bite my tongue to not snap back.
If Theo wants to kill Danny, I’m not going to stop him.
Fuck it, maybe I’ll kill him myself. He has to sleep sometime.
Danny’s still yelling at me, working himself up and telling me what a piece of shit I am in every possible way he can think of. I try hard to ignore what he’s saying, but he knows me well enough that he’s starting to hit on some of my insecurities. When my constant stream of apologies starts feeling less like lies, I get furious.
I like myself now, and I refuse to let him manipulate me like this. I deserve so much fucking better than that. He’s the terrible fucking person here, not me, and I’m not listening to a word coming out of his mouth anymore. He keeps yelling and berating me, but I stop responding.
Fuckhim.
“...isn’t that right,Bunny?” I wasn’t listening to what he was saying, so I don’t know the correct answer. I default to what I usually do and just nod, but that’s the wrong choice.
He grabs me by the throat and throws me onto the floor, and I scream as I feel my shoulder pull out of the socket and the handcuffs cut into my wrists. Everything seems too sharply in focus from all the pain, and I can’t pull away from my body, no matter how hard I try. He kicks me in the stomach hard enoughto knock the wind out of me, and I struggle to take a breath, curling into a ball.
“Stupid fucking worthlesscunt.” I’m gasping, trying to breathe, and I hear a small metallic sound before he shoves me on my back. I look up and see his face is red with anger, his blue eyes are cold and flat, and he’s got his pocketknife in his hands. I scream, and he backhands me hard enough that my vision swims.
“Shut the fuck up.” He takes the knife and starts slicing off my jacket and dress, cutting me with the knife as he goes. I try not to scream or cry, clenching my sore jaw as hard as I can to let out as little sound as possible, but I can’t help whimpering in pain.
Danny keeps dragging the knife over my skin, nicking me and slicing into me as he cuts my clothes off. Once he’s got my clothes cut to pieces and pulled off me, he tears the necklace off and rips the earrings out of my ears, calling me a whore as he does.
He’s too angry right now, and I need to calm him down.
“Pumpkin, listen to me, okay?” My voice is shaky and weak, but I start talking quickly. “I’msosorry. Iloveyou so much, and I never should have run away. I’m so stupid, and I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I was wrong to cheat on you andI’m sorry. You don’t need to do any of this, okay? We can go back home, and everything can go back to normal, and I’ll do my best to make it up to you. Let’s just go home, okay? We can go to the airport right now. I want to go home and make it up to you. I’ll do whatever you want.Please.”
Danny looks down at me, his face disgusted, and I panic because I can tell he’s not buying a fucking thing I’m saying. I’ve never seen him this angry in my life, not even when he pointed that gun at me.
“You’re goddamn right you’re never running away from me again. I’m going to put you in your fucking place.” I eye the knife in Danny’s hand with terror and start to push away from him, my feet scrabbling on the floor, but he pins me down by the throat. “I don’t want to do this, Alice, but you’ve given me no choice.”
“Danny,no,” I choke out. “Please don’t do this, Danny, I won’t leave, I sw-”I get cut off by my own scream as he plunges the knife deep into my outer thigh, dragging it down a little. He pulls it out and stabs me again and again, and the edges of my vision start to go black as fire radiates from my thigh. The pain is so bad that I can’t even cry, I can only scream. Danny yanks the knife out and walks away, and the shock finally numbs me a little bit, so I struggle to breathe through the pain and nausea as I force myself to look down at my thigh.
There’s so much blood.
Danny comes back in with a first aid kit, and I watch him press a large gauze pad to my thigh and loosely bandage it. By the time he’s done, the wrap is already turning red.
I think that’s too much blood.
“Danny, I need to go to the hospital,” I beg, and I look up at him. His eyes are narrowed at me, and his cruel, satisfied expression sends a chill down my spine.
“You’re not going anywhere, Alice.”
“Please,” I choke out, crying harder. “Let me go. Don’t do this. I won’t say anything.”
“You’re goddamn right you won’t.” Danny grabs a rag from his back pocket and jams it into my mouth, and I scream as he pulls some tape from the coffee table and winds it around my head. I’m still crying, and breathing is harder with the blood clogging up my nose, and I feel like I’m starting to suffocate. I turn my head to the side and try hard to stop sobbing and slow my breathing.
“I’m tired of hearing you cry like a fucking baby,” Danny spits before kicking me in the side. Something snaps, and then I’m screaming through the gag and crying and trying not to vomit or pass out from the pain. He stands up and pulls his belt off, and I flinch as he doubles it up in his hand.
“I tried to be good to you and take care of you, but you fucking ruined that. This is what you fucking deserve.” He grips the belt tight in his hand and brings it down across the side of my head, and I scream. He pulls his arm back and brings the belt down hard across the stab wound on my thigh, and I go limp as my vision goes black for a minute. He pushes me onto my back with his foot and brings the belt down over my chest, and everything is so overwhelming and painful that I start to feel dizzy.
I forgot how much the belt hurts, and Danny keeps reminding me. I start to lose feeling as the shock sets in, leaving me clearheaded enough to realize I’m not making it back to Boston.
I can’t believe loving Theo is what’s going to get me killed. I think I could have survived if I’d lied. They’re just words, and I should have been able to say them, but I couldn’t fucking do it. The one time in my life I trulyneededto lie, and I couldn’t.
