Twisted - Esme Devlin Page 0,92
in how far he was willing to go. How do you make a person go farther than they ever deemed possible?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him.
“Oh, come now, silly girl. You know this because I’ve been doing it to you since the day we met.”
“I don’t know,” I repeat. “Push them to their limits?”
“You remove their limits entirely. Break them down and build them back up the way you want them.”
“Who was the little boy?” I ask him, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear him say it.
“The little girl’s mother hated the wicked man,” he continues, ignoring my question. “So much so, that she made great plans of her own to escape. She would take her daughter and her grandson and go someplace the wicked man couldn’t reach them. If there is such a thing in this world as a great woman, then I’d like to think she’d be it. The mother took the wicked man’s son, but the little girl refused to go with them. She chose the wicked man over everything else.”
“Why?”
“Because, sweet girl, fear always wins.”
“And that is why you told me you never wanted my love. The little girl loved her son, but it was fear that kept her with the wicked man.”
“Correct,” he says. “I do believe you are getting smarter.”
“I’m not as scared of you as you would like to believe,” I tell him. “You’re like a spider. The moment I see you, the moment you move, the moment I realize I don’t know what you’re going to do next—I fear you, I admit that. But just like that spider, rational thought eventually catches up and as long as I remind myself that the fear is just instinctual, I’m okay. The spider can’t do anything. You are slightly different in that you can do everything, but what is the worst you can do? Kill me? I don’t really have anything left to live for.”
“Precisely,” he says. “I hadn’t realized that when I took you. There is a difference between you and that little girl. The little girl had someone else to live for.”
“You.”
“Indeed,” he tells me, finally admitting it. “I told you my little fairy tale because I want you to understand my reasoning when I visit you each night and put my son inside you. The world will always see what they want to see, and the world will see a psychopathic sadist who enjoys keeping you locked away and torturing you. You were included in that world, before. I let you see what you wanted to see. But now I’ve given you the knowledge with which to see clearly. You don’t have to fear me, but you can if you want to. You can love me or hate me, fight me or submit at my feet. It matters little. You will never betray me, and you will never leave me, not when there is a part of me growing inside you. Not when there is a part of both of us walking around in the world.”
I shake my head, but it doesn’t matter. He can’t see it. “You say it matters little, but I believe that is a lie. You want me to love you and fear you. You want me to fight before I submit. I thought you were better than lies.”
He chuckles. “I said it matters little. I didn’t say it matters little to me. You just thought I did.”
I let out a laugh because it’s the only thing I have left that’s mine. “Very well.”
“Until tonight,” he says, getting up from the chair.
He steps over me like I’m something insignificant, and I hear the slight scrape of metal when he picks up his mask.
Without another word, he walks out of the door.
I remember when I didn’t know how long I’d been down here.
That was a kindness.
Now it would be easy to count the nights. I could count the nights with his visits and count the mornings with the small metal bucket for washing that’s never quite warm enough, and the evenings with the dinner brought to me by a stranger who keeps his eyes rooted on the ground.
But I have little interest in keeping track of time anymore.
I have little interest in anything that isn’t sleeping.
There is only exhaustion. Moving is exhausting. Being awake is exhausting. Thinking is exhausting. Baron is exhausting.
But the most exhausting thing is waiting for him to come back.
And I do wait for him.
I remember when he said I was a sapling who