Twisted - Esme Devlin Page 0,42

you the answer. You’d be raped or eaten or sold before sundown on your first day of freedom. That is the answer to every single question you will ever have for me. The —”

“Stop!” My fists slam into his chest, and he takes a step back. I don’t stop, though. That felt far too good to stop. I do it again. “Stop.”

He has stopped his raving now, but I can’t help myself. I can’t stop myself. It’s like I’ve been chained up my whole life and now I’m finally free.

I push him away from me, lashing out and punching down with balled fists. “Stop.”

Stop, stop, stop.

That’s all I want now.

For him to stop.

I can deal with his games.

His tricks.

I can even deal with him winning—for really I didn’t have a chance to begin with, and he told me as much. But what I can’t deal with is him trying to take away my hope.

Once he takes my hope, he has everything.

Baron laughs as I continue my assault on him. I’m not even hurting him. Nothing I do can hurt him. But I don’t care, it makes me feel better.

I hit him until my arms are heavy and my lungs are burning with need. I’m panting, trying to see him through the tears that are welling in my eyes.

My fists turn even weaker. He’s not even fighting back, just standing there and taking everything I’m giving him. Eventually, I feel empty. I feel like there is nothing left inside me to give.

It’s at that moment that Baron takes a step toward me, pulling me close and locking me into his chest. “Oh, my sweet girl. Stop this now.”

15

Sapphire

He picks me up as if I weigh nothing at all, and that is exactly how I feel.

Drained and weightless.

I don’t even fight him when he wraps my legs around his waist.

Instead, I cling to him and tuck my head in the space between his shoulder and the edge of his mask. He smells even more like him here, and strangely there is something comforting about it.

Above everything else, there is a need inside me to be comforted, and even though he is the cause of everything, he is also the only person I have.

So I breathe him in, and I let him comfort me.

I remain quiet as he walks the long path back upstairs. I’m still naked, but that doesn’t bother me. I know now he won’t let anyone see me. He has proved that to be true with his actions. The man in the room paid the price for that lesson.

And I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about that.

Should I be filled with grief? A man is dead, and it was down to my actions. But apparently he wasn’t a man who deserved to live, so does that make it okay?

When the world goes to shit, who gets to decide what laws should be defended? Who chooses that rape and murder are fine, but only if you don’t eat your victims?

Baron, apparently.

It occurs to me that we are living under the rule of a man who twists right from wrong so easily that the two cease to exist. The law of a man with a shattered mind. The law of the devil himself.

And since he doesn’t explain the rules, there are only his whims.

I wonder how anyone survives him. But I also wonder how anyone survives outside of him, too.

I guess when the world goes to hell, the only thing left to do is worship the devil. The problem is, I have no idea how to do that. I don’t know what he wants, and the thought of finding out terrifies me.

We enter the room, and he doesn’t bother with lighting the candles. Instead, he walks straight to the bed and sits down on the edge of it. I take my cue to crawl away, but his arms grip tighter around me.

“Don’t fight me,” he whispers. “Have I not shown you now that I will never hurt you?”

I stay silent for a long minute.

My mind is reliving the events of the night, replaying them over and over again. It is hard to believe the man who sits cradling me, whispering in my ear while his fingers trace circles on my spine is the same man who is capable of all that.

“What did you do to those children? He was about to tell me before Andrei stopped him.”

Baron makes a sound that could be a sigh or a laugh and slides