“Did you just say Russian roulette?”
“If you know the game, it doesn’t need any introduction.” A cruel smirk lifts the corner of Jeremy’s lips as he marches to a side cupboard and retrieves a small metal suitcase.
Like the ones you see in action films.
He slides it on the table between us and opens it, pulling out a revolver.
Not a toy gun, not a prop, but a real one.
His long fingers slide around the metal with expert ease as he rolls the rotating cylinder open and dumps all the bullets on the table.
They scatter and bounce in a haunting sound that strikes straight through to my bones.
For a moment, I wish this was one of those nightmares where my subconscious has a field day with bringing all my fears and weaknesses to the surface.
I wish the scene in front of me was nothing more than a cruel joke.
But the more I blink, the realer it gets.
Jeremy actually has a gun and he said he’s going to play a game with it.
Russian roulette.
“Please tell me you’re joking,” I whisper, my heart thundering so hard in my chest, I’m surprised I don’t faint.
He doesn’t spare me a glance, continuing his task, erasing me from his immediate surroundings.
“Jeremy!” My voice quakes and chokes.
Finally, he slides his intense gaze to me, and it’s…dead.
Gone is the person who made me food and even smiled while talking earlier. A demon has taken his place and transformed him into a soulless monster, who’s hungry for flesh.
My flesh.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I try and fail to control the quivering in my voice.
“I told you. Russian roulette.” He pushes a bullet into one of the gruesome holes of the rotating cylinder and slams it shut, then rolls it with a blurry speed. “But let’s make it truth time. We’ll ask two questions each and when the other answers, he has to shoot. It might be the last thing we say, so lying is prohibited. There are five empty shots and we’ll play four rounds. You go first.”
I shake my head frantically and jump up. I’m not staying here or taking part in this madness.
His earlier threat about what he’ll do if I run away pales in comparison to actually shooting ourselves.
I’m one step away when a strong arm wraps around my wrist and I’m tugged back with a force that knocks the breath out of my lungs.
He forces me down onto something hard. His lap. To keep me in place, he wraps an arm around my middle, forbidding me from moving an inch.
A deep sense of terror grips hold of me and I push at his arm, scratching, clawing, hitting.
I pour all my energy in the struggle, but I might as well be remaining still. Not only does he not budge, but his grip has tightened until I can barely breathe.
“Are you done?” His hot breath draws shivers against the skin of my ear.
I cast a glance at him behind me, at his chiseled face and handsome features. At the beautiful creature who might as well be cut from the darkness.
“Don’t do this, please,” I say more calmly, holding on to my rationality by a thread. “I…don’t want to die.”
“Neither do I.”
“How is this different from committing suicide?”
“It’s not about dying. It’s about the truth.” He hands me the gun. “You have more chances of survival if you go first. I’ll ask the question.”
“I’ll answer any questions you have. Just not like this.”
“Why do you periodically go into a catatonic state?”
A jolt zips through me and I stare at him, dumbfounded. How does he know that when I’ve managed to hide it so well?
Even the closest people to me think I’m prone to zone out, but they wouldn’t name it as specifically as he does.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice is barely above a murmur. Low and haunted.
Jeremy snatches my hand that’s balling into a fist and splays it out on the gun. I try to resist, to fight, but I’m no match for his strength.
His larger palm engulfs mine and he forces my finger to press on the trigger. He then lifts it to my temple with chilling calm until the cold muzzle is glued to my skin.
“Don’t do this.” My words tremble in sync with my insides. “I don’t want to die.”
When he speaks, it’s as if a demon has possessed him. His voice is monotone, cruel, and absolutely frightening. “Answer the question or you’ll have to take two in a row.”
I shake my head, my vision becoming blurry, and it’s then I realize my eyes are filled with tears. I can feel the air being forced out of my lungs and how the gun gains more weight with every passing second.
“If you’re calling my bluff…” He exerts force on my trigger finger.
“Wait, wait!” I blurt, the high of emotions wrecking through me like a hurricane. “It…it started during the last year of secondary school.”
“I didn’t ask you when it started, I asked why.”
I purse my lips. “Mental stress.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question. What’s the reason behind the mental stress, Cecily? What drives a confident girl like you to the point of dissociating from the world?”
I can feel my carefully built armor cracking, disintegrating, and scattering around me in bloody pieces, but I still hold on to the illusion that I can hide this part of me. “Does there need to be a reason?”
“There’s always a reason for choosing to escape inside your mind.” His voice hardens. “Why do you shut out the world and people who care about you to entertain your demons?”
My spine jerks, more at his tone and stiffening posture than what he’s demanding of me.
A crazy thought forms in my head. Could he be interested in this because he encountered something similar?
Or am I imagining things?
“Answer the question, Cecily. Properly this time.”
The nonnegotiable quality of his voice mixes with his firm grip on my finger.
If I die, then he killed me.
The fact that this might be the last moments I have, that in a few seconds, he might blow my head off, gives me the courage and openness I’ve never experienced before.
Not even when I’m drunk.
The words tumble out of me in broken sentences, “My…my secondary school boyfriend…uh…he tried to have sex with me, but I always told him I wasn’t ready, and he was mad about it so he…drugged me and stripped me. I was frozen on the bed as he turned my body left and right. I was screaming in my head, but no sound came out. I was calling for help, but no one heard me. All I could do was watch as he removed every piece of my clothing. I couldn’t stop him, couldn’t fight, couldn’t do anything as I lay there and smelled his putrid cologne and cigarettes. He tried to rape me, but the moment he put his thing in my mouth, I vomited all over him. He called me disgusting and left, but not before taking pictures and videos of me in compromising positions. He said…he said if I told anyone or reported him, he’d release all the material he had on porn sites.” I choke on my words. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t even tell my own parents. I was so scared and wanted to confide in them so badly, but that would have meant that Papa would see his little girl all drugged and stripped and think he couldn’t protect me. Mum would feel so bad, too, and hurting them would’ve killed me. So I preferred to keep it a secret. But I think—no—I’m sure I overestimated my ability to get past the traumatic experience. Ever since then, I go into these phases where I’m helpless, unable to scream or move or ask for help. Just like then.”
Silence falls in the room except for my harsh breathing and the involuntary sniffles that accompany my tears.
I try to stop them, but I can’t.
I can’t help the breakdown that storms through me and destroys everything in its path.
My heart hurts and everything in me aches with a force that I can’t contain. And the sole witness of my pathetic, vulnerable state is none other than Jeremy.
The devil Jeremy who forced me to tell him about a part of me I’ve kept buried for so long.
The monster Jeremy who has no heart to feel what I’m voicing for the first time since it happened about two years ago.
But maybe this is better. If I’d told this to Papa, Mum, Ava, or the others, they would’ve been devastated. They would’ve blamed themselves and blamed me for keeping it hidden. Emotions would’ve been at an all-time high and it would’ve broken me.
But Jeremy is an emotionless vault. A heartless man who only serves his own agenda.
He won’t pity me.
He won’t judge me.
He just listened, and for some reason, that’s comforting in a bizarre way.
His grip remains firm on the trigger and his body language doesn’t change.
But then he pushes my finger.
Click.
My sobs echo around us as the rush of life surges through me with a ferocity I’ve never felt before.
I could’ve died just now, but I didn’t.
It’s like I’ve been reborn.
Calmly, almost methodically, Jeremy pulls the gun from between my clammy, numb fingers and places it against his temple. “Your turn.”
“Stop, please.” I barely see him through my blurry eyes.
“Don’t you want to see if I survive or blow my head off? If it’s the second option, you don’t have to worry. It’ll be ruled a suicide.”
I whirl around and fist both hands on his jacket. “You might be content with this game, but I’m not. I don’t want to watch you die.”
“Is that worry I hear in your tone, Lisichka?”
“It’s common sense! Who in their right mind would play a death game?”
“Me. So either ask the question, or I will.” He starts to remove the gun.
I have no doubt that he’ll keep his word.
Jeremy is no different than an unmovable mountain. A merciless apex predator.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I blurt, my voice hoarse and my nose clogged from all the crying.
“Because your darkness calls to mine. I want to unleash that repressed part of you and toy with it, with you, like when I smeared your innocence all over my cock. I want to own you, Cecily, every part of you, what you show and what you hide beneath self-imposed shackles. I won’t stop until you’re fully, thoroughly, and undeniably mine.”
I shudder at each of his calmly spoken words, at the assertiveness behind them, the determination coating them.
And for the first time since I stumbled into Jeremy’s path, I realize just how screwed I am.
Because this man won’t stop. No matter how far I run or how well I hide, he’ll flip the world upside down just to find me.
He doesn’t want me for me. He wants me due to his fixation on me or whatever image he’s created of me in his twisted head.
So when he pulls the trigger, a sane person should wish for his death. As he said, it’ll be ruled a suicide and I’ll get rid of him.
But I find myself holding my breath, trembling and pining for the thud of his heartbeat beneath my fingers.
The evidence that he’s alive.
That he’ll keep his promise and strip off my every self-imposed shackle.
In a last-ditch attempt, I reach for the gun and I gasp when he pulls the trigger. I slam my eyes shut, not wanting to see the bloodbath that could explode on his face.
A click sounds in the air and a long breath whooshes out of me.
His heartbeat doesn’t thud beneath my fingers, doesn’t spike—it remains the same. Alive but completely unaffected by the near-death experience.
That rush of life from earlier buzzes to the surface again, hooking against my bones and leaving me breathless.
I slowly open my eyes to find him watching me in that intense way that knots my insides.
“Your turn.” He hands me the gun.
I want to scream.
I want to hit him with it upside the head.
But instead of doing that, I grab it with unsteady fingers and then throw it with all my might at the window.
The shattering of glass nearly deafens me. Soon after, the gun falls to the wood porch outside with a thud.
My chest rises and falls so heavily, I can’t contain it, or the tears that are still staining my cheeks or the way I look at Jeremy.
It’s new, slightly spooked, slightly apprehensive, but it couldn’t be any more true. Real. Powerful.
He’s a force to be reckoned with and I’m right in his path. I finally accept that, even if I’ll never accept the reason why he’s so obsessed with me.
Or more like, I don’t understand it.
He offers no explanation or excuses so that I can see his point of view.
As he stares in the direction of the shattered window, I slip out of his hold, all but jumping back like a scared kitten.
I overestimate my ability to remain standing. My legs are like Jell-O from all the adrenaline and I have to grip the table for balance.
Jeremy pushes up to a standing position, and a ripple of fear rushes through me and locks my limbs. No matter how courageous I try to be, this man is still the most intimidating force of nature I’ve ever encountered.
Especially when his features are closed off and he’s risen to his full height.
“Are you going to run, Cecily?”
I bob my head up and down.
A sadistic gleam illuminates his usually dark eyes. “You sure about that? I won’t take it easy on you.”
“When have you ever?”
“True that.” He steps toward me and I take several back as his voice lowers, deepens, and crowds with tension. “I won’t give you a head start.”
Not thinking about the consequences of my choice, I run. All I know is that this option is better than a game of death.
The adrenaline from earlier rushes through my limbs and I climb the stairs that lead to the first floor. At first, I don’t hear him, and I think maybe I’m faster due to the superhuman energy that I gained tonight.
But then a thud of steps follows after me and I shriek when I feel his overwhelming presence behind me. I grab a fake plant and throw it at him.
But he dodges it and the pot crashes to the floor.
Blimey!
If I stay in the house, I’m going to get myself trapped. In a snap decision, I slip from between the stairs’ wide railings and jump.
My legs take a hit, but it barely hurts under the circumstances. I roll down on the ground, then leap to my feet and sprint without looking back.
I pause at the threshold of the kitchen door, casting a glance at where I threw the gun.
Only, it’s not there.
I don’t hear any footsteps or sounds.
The next second, a fistful of my hair is grabbed from behind. I shriek, clutching his hand to stop him from tearing at my scalp.
“Caught you.” His hotly murmured words drive me into a state of madness.
I claw at his skin, kick, and bite. Or try to. Most of my attempts end up an epic failure.
He’s a beast who’s come out to play and I’m his prey of choice.
He shoves me against the porch railing, pressing my stomach into the wood.
My hair nearly rips out from the savage hold he has on me and I can feel him bending down behind me.
From the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of him grabbing a shard of glass. Before I can panic, he releases my hair, grasps a fistful of my jeans, and cuts them from behind.
Crimson red explodes on his palm from the glass and drips all over my thighs—warm, dark red, and absolutely fucked up.
But he doesn’t seem to care about that as he shreds my shirt, bra, and underwear so that I’m standing there completely naked.
Then he spins me around to face him and switches the red piece of glass from his injured palm to the other one.
I watch in stunned shock as he slides his bloodied fingers from my hip to my stomach, my breasts, coating them in red before he wraps them around my throat.
My eyes bulge even though he’s not exerting force. “W-what…”
“Shh.” He runs the shard of glass over the tip of my nipple. “Are you scared?”
I nod. Scared is an epic understatement. This man is crazy. The calm type of crazy, which is the most dangerous type.
“Good. I love how your cunt feels when you’re scared. It tightens and swallows my cock like my favorite slut, but first…” He releases my throat and reaches in his waistband, then pulls out his gun. The same gun I threw away earlier. “We’re not done.”
He slides it in his mouth, licks it, and I gasp when he glides it between my inner thighs, over my folds, and then drives it inside my pussy.
I’m soaking wet from the chase, from how he savagely caught me and shred my clothes off me, but I’m not ready for a gun inside me.
The metal feels cold as it’s swallowed by my walls, but then he thrusts it in, and I get on my tiptoes.
A carnal sensation grips hold of me the more he rams the weapon inside me. My skin tightens, my thighs clench, and my nipples pucker and stiffen.
I’m being fucked by a gun.
Holy. Shit.
Does he really want to kill me?
And why am I getting wetter and slicker?
I can’t stop staring at his punishing eyes, at the sheer power they exude without him having to say a word.
It’s like I’m caught in a trance no one can save me from.
“You pretend to be all righteous and morally superior, but you’re nothing but a greedy little whore.” He slides the gun inside. “Is this how you’ll milk my cock, too? It’s bigger, but you’ll fit me, won’t you? You’ll swallow and take every inch of me.”
A whimper rips out of my throat.
It’s weird how I never liked anything sex-related before, but I’m enjoying how he blows my world to pieces in the most unconventional ways. How he speaks to me in that crude manner.
The man has a gun inside me and a shard of glass to my nipple that he turned red with his blood, and I can’t stop wanting him.
“Say my name,” he orders, the command nonnegotiable.
“Jeremy,” I moan, ready to tell him anything right now.
“Say you wanted me that first time, not some other fucker, me.”
The words get stuck at the back of my throat. I’m not sure I can admit that part. I can’t even admit it to myself after all this time.
Jeremy’s expression darkens. “So while I chased you, feasted on your blood, and fucked you to oblivion, he was the one you were thinking about?”
Who’s he?
I still shake my head, because I don’t like the way his lashes fall over his eyes, shuttering over his expression and sealing him away.
A click sounds in the air. From the gun. He pulled the trigger.
Holy hell.
I’m not sure how it happens or why, but a strong wave washes over me. It’s life, I realize, that rush of breaths after believing I could’ve died.
Jeremy throws the shard of glass aside, unbuttons his jeans, and fists his hard, pulsating cock.
“My turn.” He wrenches the gun from inside me and slides it in his mouth.
The same gun that’s all messed up with my arousal is now between his lips as he licks it clean. Then, the crazy bastard places it against his temple.
“Beg me to fuck you.”
A whole-body shiver goes through me. “If I do, will you stop playing with the gun?”
“I wasn’t asking, Cecily, and this isn’t a fucking negotiation. Beg me to ram my cock inside you and fuck you like you want—rough and out of control.”
I can’t stop staring at the gun shoved up against his head. There’s a fifty percent chance that he’s going to get himself killed.
That might seem like a good percentage, but it’s not. Far from it. One can be lucky for only so long before he vanishes, just like that.
“Please,” I murmur.
He jerks himself up and down in a brutal rhythm that makes my mouth dry. “Please what?”
“Please take me.”
“It’s fuck, not take. Say it properly.”
I bite my lower lip. “Please fuck me.”
The word is barely out when he digs his fingers into the flesh of my outer thigh, lifts my leg, and drives inside me.
My whole body convulses as I fall into his chest, my heart pounding while his remains the same—eternal, unaffected, absolutely cold.
It’s been some time since he was inside me, and I feel his size with every motion and every thrust.
“You’re mine, not anyone else’s, fucking mine. Now, beg and say my name.”
“Please, Jeremy, please.”
He drives into me in a brutal rhythm that triggers the primal part of me. Unable to stand on one leg, I grip his shoulder for balance.
The position, the fact that I’m entirely naked, covered with blood, and he’s fully clothed is a clear translation of the power imbalance between us. Of how much he owns a hidden part of me.
The part that’s yearning to let go and let him ravage me until there’s nothing left.
The part that’s been hoping, pining, and being absolutely ashamed of this side of myself.
There’s no shame when I’m in Jeremy’s arms. He doesn’t judge me. He wants me to own that part of me.
And most importantly, he fucks me like he craves me, like he can’t keep his hands off me.
Like if he stops fucking me, he won’t be the same.
I hold on to those emotions as I beg and call his name. The more I beg to be fucked, the harder he goes, the deeper he delves, the crazier he becomes.
He bites my neck, my breasts, my earlobe—anywhere his teeth can reach.
It’s a claim, a territorial declaration of ownership, and I have to bear his marks.
With each thrust, he hits my G-spot, once, twice, until I’m unable to stand.
The stimulation builds inside me and then explodes all at once. I hug his shoulder as the orgasm racks through me with stupefying strength.
“Ask me a question.” His voice barely reaches my hazy brain.
Only when I open my eyes do I realize that he still has the gun to his temple. The twisted pleasure comes to a slow halt.
“Jeremy, please stop.”
He drives into me, ruthlessly, not looking close to being done. “Ask. Me.”
“What do you want?” I whisper, quivering against him.
His thrusts grow in intensity and length. Jeremy is a sight to behold when he’s orgasming. His muscles stiffen and harden beneath my fingers, and he slightly bites the corner of his lip. But most importantly, his grip on me tightens like he refuses to ever let me go as warmth spills inside me.
“You,” he says, then pulls the trigger.
I scream.
