I remain still.
Completely.
Like a board.
Despite the war zone in my heart. All the wars start in my stupid, defective heart.
My scream dies out.
Screaming is useless when Aiden’s hand covers my mouth. His strength is like a unified battalion; dangerous and wrecking.
The hardness of his chest crushes my breasts as his entire body imprisons me against the door. I can feel his heartbeat, loud and raging. I’m tempted to reach out a hand and feel the pulse under my fingertips. His normal, healthy pulse.
The only thing that makes him human.
The temptation is taken away from me when he grabs both my wrists with his free hand and slams them against the door above my head.
The sound pulls me out of my induced stupor.
This scene is familiar.
Whenever Aiden doesn’t get his way, he resorts to establishing his dominance. It’s part of the push and pull game he plays so well. A game in which all I’ll ever be is a pawn.
A game I always lose.
“Welcome back, sweetheart,” he murmurs in his raspy, chill-inducing voice.
Is there a way to throw acid on his voice and stop it from being this good on the ears?
His lips hover inches away from my mouth covered by his hand. Whether it’s a threat or a promise, I don’t know.
“Are you done running away?” His thumb caresses my cheek in a sensual rhythm. Up and down, like a lullaby with skin against skin.
For a second, I’m lost in his touch. In his closeness. In his scent.
Damn his scent.
He smells like pain and pleasure. Sweet and bitter at the same time.
I would be lying to myself if I say I didn’t miss him, and I promised to never lie to myself again.
I missed his maddening touch and that heated look.
I missed his kisses and the baths he ran for me.
I missed his scent and his crude words.
But most of all, I missed him.
The man, the monster.
It’s all in vain though. No matter how much I miss him, it doesn’t erase what he did. It doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been a pawn on his board all along.
So I hold on to the boiling anger, hate, and bitterness. I hold on to how empty it felt to be told I was merely a game.
The itch to fight him and spout profanities at him awakens in me like a phoenix from the ashes. My muscles tighten ready for a fight, for a duel.
However, I bite my tongue. Confrontation will only give him leverage over me.
Instead of giving him what he wants, I go slack in his hold and lower my gaze, cutting off eye contact.
I erase him and his metal gaze, sinister features, and tousled hair.
“Look at me.”
I don’t.
He watches me in the quiet of the bathroom. I feel it like needles at the top of my skull about to cut it open.
The silent war goes on for minutes or hours. I just stand there, watching my black shoes and filling my head with Sun Tzu philosophical tactics.
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Silence is my only weapon and I’ll use it until the very end. No matter how suffocating that silence is.
In the quiet, Aiden releases my mouth. I don’t scream. I keep the sacred silence as if my life depends on it.
He grips my jaw with two rough fingers and forces my head up. “Fucking look at me.”
I stare at the ceiling with its white lights.
“Elsa,” he growls, the sound echoing around us like a dark promise. “Don’t push me.”
“Show me your worst,” I say with a levelled tone.
His lips crush to mine. I keep my mouth clamped shut. He’ll have to bite my lips off if he wants to kiss me.
He grunts against my mouth and nibbles on the tender skin.
I don’t open up.
I don’t give him a way in.
I hold on to the anger and pain. Anger and pain allow me to ignore my body’s reaction to him.
Anger and pain turn me numb to his touch.
Aiden pulls back but doesn’t release my wrists. “Are you sure you want to play that game with me?”
I say nothing.
I’m safely tucked in a numb halo right now. If I say anything, I’ll lose the shelter this place offers.
Aiden yanks my skirt up. Air hits my bare thighs and goosebumps cover my skin. His strong palm grips my pussy over my boy shorts.
My breathing hitches, chest rising and falling like I just finished a hundred-metre run. My toes curl in my shoes. I stare at an imaginary dot on the wall beyond Aiden’s head.
He lied to you.
He has a fiancé.
You are the other woman.
He slips two lean fingers under my boy shorts and rubs them over my folds.
“Hmm, you’re not wet.” His dark voice reaches my ears through my chanting. “Is this a challenge, Frozen? Do you want to bet how long it’ll take for me to make you wet?”
I continue staring at the invisible dot, silently repeating the mantra.
He doesn’t deserve my words. He doesn’t deserve anything.
Aiden circles my clit, slowly teasing the swollen nub. If I don’t focus on it, I’ll feel nothing.
Nothing at all.
“You’ll be wet,” he rumbles near my ear, the sound shooting straight to my core. “You’ll be soaking my dick when I fuck the defiance out of you.”
“Or you can rape me and use the blood as a lubricant.”
Aiden stops, his fingers freezing over my folds.
He leans back and watches me closely. Intently. Like a stone.
This time, I meet his gaze. I meet those cloudy, sinister eyes that sometimes seem like an endless void. A place where you go and never return.
I want him to see my expression. No idea what it looks like right now, but I hope it’s filled with anger and hate. I hope he sees he did this to us.
He broke us.
Broke me.
He told me he chose me, but he never did.
Not really.
His choice has always been a barbie doll with ‘Queens’ as her last name.
“You think I’d do that to you?” He enunciates his question, almost as if he’s angry.
“You’ve done worse. Being mentally and emotionally raped is worse than being physically raped.”
I mean it. If he shows me his worst, I’ll be able to hate him once and for all. I’ll stop dreaming about him and his touch and his damn freaking scent.
As if reading my mind, and deciding to go against it — as usual — Aiden releases my sex and my wrists. My arms drop on either side of me like lifeless body parts.
I don’t move from the door. Not even when he steps back further.
His face remains impassive, but when he speaks, his voice hits me like thunder in a winter night. “Well played, Elsa. Well fucking played.”
“Are you done?”
He smiles, but it’s neither mocking nor in triumph. It’s a challenge at its purest form. “I just got started.”
“You can use my body all you like, but I’ll never forgive you, Aiden.”
“Then I won’t touch you.”
My eyes widen.
Perhaps my ears are damaged because I could swear I just heard Aiden say he won’t touch me.
His strongest weapon has always been physical intimidation. Hell, except for today, I’ve always become a wanton mess in his hands.
I narrow my eyes. “Is that a promise? Not touching me, I mean.”
“Until you forgive me, I won’t fuck you.”
“Which means never.”
“Believe me, sweetheart. When you know the truth, you’ll beg for it.”
Dinner with Aunt and Uncle never felt so awkward.
Aunt is walking on eggshells around me and Uncle seems as if he doesn’t know what to say to dissipate the tension.
“Are you taking your meds?” Aunt asks while cutting shrimp and putting it on my plate. “You have an appointment with Dr Albert soon, so you have to watch your calorie intake and —”
“Blair,” Uncle cuts her off.
“Right.” She touches her temple. “You’re with Ethan now. It’s none of my business. Old habits die hard, I guess. Did he at least book your appointment? I emailed him all the dates colour-coded. There are tests and consultations and —”
“Blair.” Uncle touches her arm.
“Fine, fine. Let’s just eat.”
But she doesn’t just eat. Aunt basically empties the entire table on my plate.
“I forgot the soup.” She stands up. “I knew I forgot something.”
“Is she okay?” I ask Uncle after she disappears into the kitchen.
“She just needs time to get used to the new change. It’s not easy on her.”
I nod.
Uncle clears his throat. “Blair has always felt guilty about Abigail, she just didn’t show it. I’m not asking you to forgive her, but can you at least try to understand? She was shaking the entire way to Birmingham the other day. She loathes that place with a passion.”
My hands pause on the knife and fork.
I can relate to her. It’s not easy to go back to a place that traumatised you. During my entire stay at our house in Birmingham, I never had a full night’s sleep.
Not to mention the basement.
It’s still there at the far end of the tower, taunting me to come close and relieve bloodied memories.
Dr Khan said revisiting the place where a trauma started can trigger my subconscious. Dad also said that the basement now has a fingerprint-lock that I can open any time I like.
Truth is, I’m scared of that basement.
I’m scared to know what happened in there. If I step over that line, I would never be able to return.
I have the scar to prove it.
Maybe, just maybe, I don’t want to learn more monstrous things about Ma.
“Eat, pumpkin.” Uncle offers me his warmest smile. “She spent the entire day preparing this dinner.”
I swallow past the clog in my throat and take a bite of the shrimp. It’s hard to taste over the stickiness at the roof of my mouth.
Aunt returns with the soup, her eyes wet as if she’s been crying. It’s like having an arrow shoot straight to my heart.
“Aunt —”
“It’s your favourite.” She cuts me off, her voice shaking at the end. “I might not be a good parent, but I can at least cook what you like.”
“It’s okay, Aunt. I understand what trauma feels like.” I stare at my lap before facing her again. “I shouldn’t have blamed it all on you. Mum was sick. Even if you were there, I don’t think much would have changed.”
Her mouth hangs open. “Elsa…”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. I’m sorry, hon.” She leans over and wraps me in a motherly hug. It’s warm and smells like cotton candy and summer. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around from the beginning. I’m so sorry.”
Me, too.
What would it feel like if I were born to a normal mother?
I guess I’ll never know. Whether I admit it or not, my mother was a monster.
I’m the daughter of that monster.
Now, I just have to decide whether to fight or embrace it.
I have to decide if I’m the type of person who locks children up to torture them like Ma or the type who sets them free like Dad.
Death or life.
Darkness or hope.
As I wrap my arms around Aunt, I know exactly who I want to be.
