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I’d tried not to let the scene at the takeaway affect me, but how could it not? Not only had I seen dead bodies, but they’d been slaughtered.
How could I become involved with someone who barely flinched at such horror? Who killed others like them?
It was midday by the time Ewen knocked on my door.
‘Hey, I thought I’d bring you some toast and coffee,’ he said hesitantly, nudging the door open as he balanced a plate on top of the mug.
Sitting up, I tugged the duvet up around my chest and beneath my arms.
‘I shouldn’t have let you come yesterday.’ Ewen placed the plate of buttered toast on my lap and put the coffee on the bedside table. ‘I didn’t realise how bad it would be.’
‘Do you enjoy it?’ I asked.
‘What?’
‘Killing people.’
‘No,’ he said without a pause. ‘Never.’
‘What about torturing them? Hurting me gives you a hard-on. Does hurting them do the same?’
‘No. It’s not the same.’
‘The tears are the same. The bruises. The cries.’
Ewen ran a hand through his hair and sighed. ‘Taking a life, and torturing someone, takes something from me. It leaves wounds that are impossible to fill. What we do is different. It’s mutual. Consensual. Fun. We both give and take. Submitting willingly is what makes it hot. The fact you allow me to take from you and give to you is what turns me on. There is balance.’
He looked like he’d not slept. Like the night had affected him, too.
‘I wouldn’t get turned on if you were truly sad. It’s not seeing you cry or suffer that I enjoy. It’s when you are suffering for me, when you let me hurt you the way you need to get off. I’m not a monster.’
‘I think I get it,’ I said. His shoulders dipped as he released the tension he must have been holding.
‘Thank god,’ he whispered, inching closer to me and capturing my hand, pulling my fingers to his lips.
‘Can we go see Ruby today?’ I asked. ‘I need to see she’s okay.’
‘I’m not sure if they are at the point where she’s ready for visitors,’ he said between kisses against my fingers.
‘I don’t have to talk to her. I just need to see her with my own eyes. This is the longest we’ve ever been apart. We have our problems, but she’s the other half of me.’
‘Of course. I’ll go call the hospital while you dress.’
He stood and smiled. ‘But eat your toast first.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
The way the muscles in his arms corded made me clench my thighs.
‘We won’t make it out of the house if you keep that up.’
The hospital looked more like a fancy hotel than any medical centre I’d ever visited. A nurse in a neat, slightly old-fashioned uniform led us through the mahogany-panelled halls and up a flight of polished stairs.
‘Your sister is doing a little better today, now that we weaned her,’ she said.
‘Did you find out what she was taking?’
‘It’s more a case of what she wasn’t. She didn’t know what she’d consumed as her boyfriend had been giving her a cocktail of them with no information. She’s quite upset that he hasn’t reached out to her, but it’s for the best. She’s going to need support when she leaves to avoid falling back into the same crowd.’
