Chapter 29
Luke
“Boy!”
The fire on my thigh has me jumping, moving as far away from him as possible. When I open my eyes, I’m shocked that the darkness is gone. It’s always dark down here. He never comes down here. He’s down here now…with a bright light on. And he’s not alone.
“You have a new roommate,” he cracks the belt against her bare skin.
I barely glance up, but it’s hard not to. He has a girl hanging from the pipe on the ceiling. She’s crying, screaming at him to stop. He’s already hurt her so badly, there’s blood dripping from cuts on her stomach, legs, and arms. What did he do to her?
“Let her go,” I beg. “You don’t need her.”
“Oh but I do…” He smiles. “She’s here because of you. If you had done what you were supposed to, she’d be at home in her warm bed right now.”
“What?” Her head raises until her tear-filled eyes land on me.
“That’s right girly, he’s the reason you’re not at home right now. He’s the reason you now belong to me. He’s the reason—”
“STOP!”
“Don’t want her to know that this is all your fault? That if you weren’t such a fuck up that this wouldn’t have happened to her? That—”
“PLEASE! Just let her go! I’ll do anything!” I beg.
“Too late.” He laughs at me. “She’s your problem now.”
Without saying another word he slashes the rope that was holding her up causing her to immediately crumble to the floor. As soon as the door closes, I rush to help her.
“Don’t touch me!” she screams. “This is your fault? You’re the reason he took me?”
“I…I’m sorry.”
“I HATE YOU!! You’re a monster just like he is!”
I wake up when someone touches my arm and immediately I flip them over, pinning them to the bed. I haven’t been working out constantly to let someone get the upper hand on me again. Never again.
“Luke…LUKE!” it’s not until I hear Emily’s voice that I finally open my eyes and realize that she’s the one I’m on top of.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I quickly roll off of her and sit up on the edge of my bed. I can’t believe I just hurt her like that; I’ve never done something like that before. Though…when was the last time someone tried to wake me from a nightmare? I usually wake up before they get really bad.
“You okay?”
“No, I’m not fucking okay!” I snap. “I should be asking you that! I just fucking attacked you!”
“You didn’t attack me, Luke.”
“Yes, I did,” I growl. “What are you doing in here anyway?”
“I heard you…screaming.”
Fuck.
“I’m fine.”
“Luke—”
“Go back to bed, Emily.”
Without saying another word, I grab the pair of sweatpants off the floor and pull them on as I walk out of the room. I don’t look back, but I know she’s still sitting on my bed watching me leave. I head down to the gym, needing to lose myself in the only way I know how. The nightmare was so fucking real…her response so real. I’ll never forgive myself for being the reason she suffered the way she did.
More than an hour passes before I finally step off the treadmill. My body is sore, my muscles screaming from being overworked and I’m dripping in sweat but at least I no longer hear her screaming how much she hates me. I mentally start to sort through my day, before I remember that I now have a house guest.
“Shit.” I wonder what excuse I could use to lock myself in the office for the day. It’s not her fault, but the memory of the nightmare is so real that I don’t know that I can stand the idea of seeing her today.
“You okay?”
“Fuck!” I gasp and turn around, not realizing until then that she’s standing in the doorway. “How long have you been standing there?”
“How long have you been on the treadmill for?” she counters.
I grab a towel off the shelf and wipe the sweat from my face, chest, and stomach before tossing it in the hamper in the corner of the room. I don’t look up. I can’t look at her without hearing the words she screamed at me in my nightmare. Some version of that same nightmare has haunted me more times than I can count since I found out who Emily really is.
“Go back to sleep,” I grumble as I walk past her.
“You don’t have a door on your gym,” she points out.
“No, I don’t.”
“I used to watch you when you worked out…before, I mean.”
“Why?”
“It was the only time I could see you,” she admits. “I tried to memorize everything I saw…so that when we were laying together, I could picture you.”
“Em…” she shouldn’t be thinking of me like that. Not now. I don’t admit that I used to do the same thing; I used to try to watch her when we were in that room.
“Was your nightmare about…then?”
“Let it go.”
“I still have them…the nightmares, I mean. Not every night, but they’re still there. Usually, they come when I least expect it.”
“Is that why you slept so little when we were at the resort?”
“Yeah, sometimes I can wake myself up before it gets too bad. I find it better to just stay awake after…”
“I usually come in here.”
“You have a beautiful view.” You can just barely see out the windows, but the moon lights it up just enough. It’s only then that I look up at her. She’s looking out the window, over the large field, but suddenly I can’t take my eyes off of her. She’s wearing the t-shirt I left for her, but apparently decided against both the shorts and pants I offered. Her long legs could go on forever, but it’s her pebbled nipples that have my attention.
“I’m going to shower.” I need to get away from her.
“Luke…”
“What?” I snap, harsher than I mean to.
“We could talk about it…”
“About what?”
“Your nightmare.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Why the fuck do you want to talk about it, Em? Why do you want to relive that time?”
“Because if you’re anything like me, you relive it every. Single. Day. You can’t tell me you don’t.” She cuts me off before I can argue. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be locked away up here where no one could possibly get to you without you knowing.”
“I’m not locked away,” I grumble. “Besides, it doesn’t mean we need to talk about what happened.”
“We can’t ignore it, either.”
“Why the fuck can’t we? I just attacked you in my bedroom, Em. I’d think the last thing you’d want to do is fucking talk about it.”
“You didn’t attack me.” She has the nerve to roll her eyes. “I startled you and you reacted. End of story.”
“No, not end of story. I could have hurt you!”
“But you didn’t.”
“Let it go.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Why are you so against talking about your nightmare? I’ll tell you about mine…usually, it’s that he has you, that he managed to take you when I was sleeping. Some nights you’re the one hanging from the pipe like I was. Some nights it’s about when you were upstairs—”
“Enough!” I scream. “You want to know about my fucking nightmare? Fine…it’s when you find out the truth that it was my fault that he took you. And you scream over and over again how much you hate me. Happy now?”