know that journal of yours… One of those little stories you wrote? Deceiver, I think you called it.”
Alarm prickles down my spine. That story got me my first ever feature, submitted to a paper on a whim. I try to turn away, but his grip tightens just enough to keep me trapped without causing more pain. “S-Stop.”
“It was really morbid shit, bunny,” he tells me, snatching a fresh paper towel to dab at my lip with. “About someone haunted by a monster. One who got inside her head and threatened to destroy her from the inside out. The only way to save herself? Deceive someone else into becoming his prey—”
“It’s just a story.”
“I doubt that,” he replies, sounding confident. “In fact, I think it’s the realest thing you’ve scribbled in that little journal of yours. The one time you admitted it to yourself—you’re afraid. Not of just him, but of the things he’s done to you. Whatever twisted shit being with him has made you do—”
“Please stop.” I squeeze my eyes shut, steeling myself for more. More anger. More vicious words. More of the truth…
He sighs. “Eat.”
I open my eyes as another spoonful of peanut butter appears beneath my nose. His version of a truce? I’m too grateful for the distraction to care. Parting my lips, I let him shovel a spoonful inside. And then another.
He watches me swallow, his expression unreadable. When I’ve eaten enough to satisfy him, he rocks back on his heels, and I grip the edge of the counter, preparing to stand.
“I should go—”
“Stay.” He grits his teeth, and I can practically see him wrestling with the decision to voice the next words to leave his mouth. “You should stay. Get some sleep.”
He makes it sound less like a suggestion and more like he’s granting a request I never asked out loud. Regardless, he’s already tugging off my sandals without waiting for an answer. He tosses them into a corner near the couch, and then palms my hips, easing me down from the counter.
“I have to work,” he says before pulling away, heading toward the door to the stairs. “In the meantime, you can come up with a good ass lie to explain your face before you go back to him.”
My face? I watch him go, then I turn on my heel and find myself creeping toward his bathroom. It’s dark enough inside it that I have to flip the light switch just to be able to make out my reflection.
But a monster stares back. Her eyes are bloodshot—one partially swollen shut. Bruises in various shades of purple discolor her skin. A gash slices beneath her cheek, dangerously close to her eye, and her neck is a patchwork of discoloration.
I can see that my mouth is open and my eyes wide, but I don’t hear anything, just my surging heartbeat. It hammers against my eardrums, deafening me to anything else.
Until the door flies open, smacking off the adjacent wall. The figure behind it looks at me, his brows knitted in concern, his chest heaving as though he ran all the way here. I can finally name that elusive emotion creeping across his features. Pity.
He steps forward without a word, impossible to outrun. I’m in his arms before I can even think to react, burning alive in his heat.
And all I can do is surrender to the inferno.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“He’s never hit you in the face before. When he abuses you.” He makes it sound normal almost. As if he’s so familiar with the ins and outs of such a dynamic. Abuse? A part of me cringes from the word, and the soft surface beneath me makes for a fitting hiding place from the reality of it all.
His bed. He’s sprawled out beside me, his fingers in my hair, his eyes on the ceiling.
“He keeps it all concentrated on your arms,” he continues. “Your legs. Back. Places that are easier to hide. Easier for you to ignore. But when it’s on your face…” He sighs, bringing his hand to his right temple. His thumb traces the length of his eyebrow, bringing attention to a tiny scar slicing through it that I never noticed until now. “That makes it real. You can’t ignore it then.”
“Like you?” I tilt my face against his chest, just enough to make eye contact. “Your father?” I ask, recalling something Mara mentioned. He went to prison, though I’m not sure why. Murder, I think.
He stiffens, and I don’t expect an answer. His fingers are