Page 66

I nod. Breakfast with his family like I'm someone worth meeting them. Like this is the usual thing you do after you've just assaulted a woman. The whiplash makes me dizzy, it isn't normal. He isn't normal. I think of what he said about his mother, about her being another captive. Is this my fate? To end exactly like her?

"What happened to her?" I surprise myself by asking. I expect him to give me some lyrical response like he always does. To turn my question into another story time that he can use to scare me into submission, but he's already had his fill, he doesn't care enough to stay.

"What?" He doesn't turn, he's already moving for the door.

"Your mother. What happened to her?"

"She was Father's favourite pet." His voice is low, smile dark. "But just like you all do, she disobeyed and she paid the price. Comply or die. That's all it takes to survive, Amora. I hope you'll learn from her mistakes." He says the words like they're a solemn vow, unbreakable. He moves back over to the bed in a swift step, ducking down to meet my eye.

"This was her room, you know. This bed, her bed. This is where I'd lay with her, where she'd tell me stories and sing to me." For a second, I see a flicker of emotion in his eyes. I didn't think he possessed it, but they soon return cold. "It's yours now."

There's a beat of silence as I stare into his eyes, trying to process his words. It only lasts a second before the panic sets in. No. You can't keep me here. You can't. I want to scream the words, but my mouth seals shut. All I can do is plead in my mind, begging in a way that makes me feel sick. Please don't keep me here alone. I need to be with them, to keep my promise. I can't end up like his mother, I can't.

I force out the words that almost break me. "But what about the cells, the girls?"

"They're disposable, Amora." His fingers brush against my cheek, slow and intimate. "Besides, I'll need somewhere fitting to fuck you, to feast on you, to indulge in every fucking fantasy my mind can conjure. I'm not a cell dweller, Amora. Not like the vermin below, not like the blood before me." His hands find my throat, thumbs digging in deep as air constricts. "So you'll stay in here now. Guards will be posted outside your room." He nods towards the balcony doors. "The balcony outside is too high to climb and too far to fall. You'll die if you try."

I can't breathe as his fingers dig deeper. My eyes are wide as my hands scratch against his wrists.

"Now you stay here and you fucking appreciate the gift I've given you." He shoves me hard, forcing me to fall from the bed onto the floor with a thud. Pain sears through my hip where I land. My chest is screaming as I suck in air, watching as he moves to the door. He doesn't turn back, and I'm thankful. I'm so fucking thankful.

I stay motionless on the floor, my insides churning. My chest crumbles as his touch lingers, the smell of him fixed on my skin. I can feel the tears building, threatening to spill, and I let them. I let my body break, rattling with sobs of everything that happened in this room, in the courtyard.

A small breeze blows through the open door of the balcony, the curtain blowing beside me and dragging me from the overwhelming grief.

I push myself up and head outside, letting the cool air hit my face. My hair sways over my shoulders as I stare out into the night; the stars above that used to be full of memories, of childhoods spent with Rosa wishing on shooting stars and hunting for constellations. Now they're tarnished with the memory of this night, of what he did, of what's to come, and I don't know if I'm strong enough to endure it.

I don't recognise myself anymore. The girl who used to braid Rosa's hair, who'd hold her through every panic attack and promise her the world would be okay—she feels like someone I read about once, not someone I am. Whatever's left of her is buried under everything Vincent's taken, layer by layer, until there's nothing underneath but this empty, hollow, numbness that scares me more than the pain does.

I move slowly, feet cold against the stone as I place my hand on the railing, looking out over the edge into the dark below.

I'm so tired.

The thought isn't loud. It's quiet, almost soft, the way exhaustion talks instead of pain. For a second, I let myself imagine it—the silence, the stillness. No more hands, no more rooms, no more waiting for the next thing to be taken from me.

It would be so easy. Easier than anything has been in weeks. No more enduring this, no more bracing every time a door opens. No more being his. I almost believe it would be a relief. No one would care; the only person who would is gone, too. I could be with Mum, I could be somewhere I don't feel him.

For the longest moment, I stare down at the ground below. I wonder how much it'll hurt. Maybe God will grace me and let me die on impact. It's unlikely; I'd long lost sight of him after waking up in the cells. I'm starting to wonder if he even exists, and if he does, why isn't he listening to my pleas? Why is he letting me go through this?

If Mum was here, she'd say it's a lesson. That he has one for us all.

I'd call her a fucking liar.

On cue, to add to the grief and the shame that's already taken over my soul, Rosa barges her way into my head, her voice flooding my ears.

No. You don't get to come now, not when I'm so close to being free. You don't get to crawl into my head now when you abandoned me, too. Maybe not in real life, but in my head. Every single time I'd beg you to come whilst I drowned in the darkness, you didn't. So you don't get to come now.

"I'm done, Rosa. I'm fucking done." Tears slip down my cheek, my voice cracking.

I half expect her to reply, that somehow out in the darkness she can hear me, but her voice stops talking in my head. Every voice stops. Now I'm left with an unbearable loneliness again, which is worse than before.

I peer down at the rose bushes below, and I feel nothing. I am nothing.

Tell me you're mine.

Of course he comes back now I'm at my lowest. Even on the edge of death, I can't escape him; proof that I never will. Too high to climb, too far to fall. To him it had been a threat, another way to force me to comply. But to me, right now as I stand on the ledge, it's a promise.

God, I hope he's right.