EVE
Left in Elijah's room once again, I sat on the bed. My dreams eluded me every time I attempted to remember them, a feeling inside me that something wasn't right. The days blended into the nights, the hours passing quickly and so slowly at the same time. Elijah was angry with me, but I didn't know why.
My stomach churned as I thought of food, my eyes blinded to whether the sun was high in the sky or setting over the horizon. I couldn't see past the black cloth tied over my face, couldn't move due to the restraints used to keep me in bed. Elijah hadn't offered me breakfast, hadn't worried for my needs after allowing me to use the bathroom just once before he left to tend to his duties.
Drifting through what felt like molasses, I shook my head when sleep escaped me, casting me out into some dreamless state where I was floating within clouds of consciousness, lost to everything around me. The room was deathly quiet, the darkness invading me until I was hovering above myself looking inward until I questioned whether I was dead or alive.
Kicking my foot every so often, I brought myself back to the present, but as time passed, I slipped again into the ether, my mind conjuring images that I wasn't sure were fake or true. My arms yanked at the ropes binding my wrists, the burn of the twine pulling me from the abyss to remind me I was here on this bed awaiting his judgment.
He'd been angry when we woke this morning, untrusting, uncaring, and for the life of me, I didn't know why. Didn't I give him everything he asked of me? Hadn't I helped him in every way he needed? What had I done to deserve the restrictions he placed on me now that we lived in this new place?
A shuffle sounded in the distance, the bang of a door, the light rhythm of unhurried footsteps approaching. My heart raced to hear something - anything - in this dark, quiet room and I prayed that he wouldn't turn away before releasing me from these restraints. Another door creaked open, the footsteps a beat against the floor of the bedroom. I turned my head in the direction of the sound, my arms shaking against the ropes holding them in place.
Something clattered on the table near me, the mattress dipping beneath my body where Elijah sat to my side. He yanked the blindfold from my eyes and I squinted against the shock of sunlight streaming in through the window.
"I've brought you tea," he said, his normally booming voice soft and careful. It reminded me of who he'd been when I first arrived here. The tenderness he'd shown me over the course of the week I'd spent secluded inside his room. Despite the games he'd played, the lies he told, the back and forth, those days had been an awakening of sorts, moments crafted by the side of him I'd never known before.
His hands were working to untangle the ropes binding my wrists. Ignoring the burn of air colliding against flesh rubbed raw, I breathed in the scent of him. "Will you be kind again, Elijah? Sweet, like you used to be?"
The tick of his jaw drew my gaze, the sharp line of his cheekbones pushing out until shadows fell across his smooth skin. "I've never been sweet." Blue eyes finding mine, heat rolled behind them. "You should drink your tea and stop telling stories. It bothers me that you believe them."
He hadn't lifted a finger toward me and still I felt slapped. "What stories?" I asked, the covers rustling beneath me as I pushed into a sitting position.
Pulling the teacup from its saucer, he handed it to me. I wrapped my fingers around the warm ceramic, enjoying the warmth of it against my palms. Heat always helped the blood flow again, and my fingers were numb from having remained bound to the bed.
"The one you told me last night was interesting." His head canted to the side just slightly. "Or do you not remember what you said?"
I'd spent the majority of the day trying to remember something from last night. Like a hummingbird hovering over the open mouth of a flower, the recognition that an important moment had happened - a truth had been revealed - stayed just out of reach.
He tipped the rim of the cup to my lips, his eyes commanding me to drink before I could answer. Each time we stopped talking, the silence would settle between us as an unsettling white noise. I became lost in it, dragged back to the same abyss of being blindfolded and bound. It's lonely living a life like mine since marrying Elijah, but even more so when your senses are stripped away. That's what the white noise does to you. It fills yours ears with a constant vibration, seducing your mind into compliance. You drift from the world that exists around you and find yourself stuck in place. I needed something to pull me back, so I slurped from the cup just for the sound.
"Drink deeper," he demanded, voice gritty and curt.
I did, the sound of my throat working the liquid down replacing the slurping and white noise. Shoving my tongue against my lips to stop the flow of tea, I took a quick breath through my nose. His gaze darted up, eyes narrowing. "Drink."
I can't breathe, I thought, unable to speak without dribbling tea down my chin. My head spun from the lack of oxygen, but still I drank, only because he wanted it.
The last drop fell past my lips and Elijah pulled the cup away to place it on the saucer. Light clatter overcame the white noise that kept creeping back no matter what.
A sense of weightlessness overcame me. Not heavy and imposing but just a hint of the ether I fought against all day. Why now when I was no longer bound and blind?
"What do you remember, Eve? Of last night?"
He was always asking me questions. Always. Even without answering mine, he tosses another my way, somehow digging deeper inside me without concern that I'd become hollow because he'd stolen all there was to know. He couldn't get to that one hidden place I'd managed to protect, the one so guarded not even I could penetrate its walls.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" He repeated as a question. Always questions.
Something was hidden in that place, but I was never strong enough to reach it.
My throat swelled suddenly, my tongue overfilling my mouth. The room spun and tossed, my stomach quivering with the need to heave. Parting my lips, I struggled to make it stop, drawing in wisps of air in the hopes they'd clear the clouds of confusion. "Nothing," I managed to answer, unsure if the word made sense to his ears.
"I don't feel so good." I may have spoken the words aloud, but I wasn't entirely sure. Three of Elijah stared back, four then two. Shaking my head, I blinked several times to find one of him smirking at me.
"You're sick again, my love. Sick like you were in the cabin after we married. It took me days to relieve you of your demons."
Even my memory of those days was blurry. Unable to sleep when I should, so damn tired when I walked beneath sunlight, I only came alive when he worked to free me of my sins. I didn't remember ever sleeping, and eating was impossible with how badly my stomach always hurt. I should have known when I saw the teacup, should have realized the demons had returned. I could only hold down the tea he’d given me in the week we'd spent in the cabin.
"Again?"
He'd worked so hard. I remembered that much. Sweat would drip from his skin and his lips would pull into an unforgiving line. His eyes would go wide, anger and fierce resolve beaming behind the silver-blue. He chased the diseased spirit from my body, only proclaiming me saved when all I knew was him. Then I'd run off. That must have been when the demon found me again.
Smoothing his palm over my forehead, he smiled. Sure that it was beautiful as always, I couldn't tell with how blurry his image had become. "I don't know when Satan corrupted you again, but I'll rid you of him. Starting tonight, we'll begin again. And this time, I'll have the backing of the family to watch me. Now that they know we're married."