Chapter
17

The night faded slowly as I awoke. Bright sun filtered through the windows, despite their dark tint. A heavy weight pressed down upon my chest, my head ached, my back was on fire, and my labia were numb. I looked down and saw Caesar’s arm, and tears filled my eyes. I didn’t succeed. I didn’t escape Caesar. Three chances and I’d failed them all.

Trapped with a monster who wanted something from me I couldn’t give, I shifted and stifled a gasp.

“Good morning.”

No, not yet. I needed a little more time. A few more seconds to myself. But Caesar didn’t allow it. He turned my face toward him. “I said, good morning,” he repeated.

I didn’t say a word. I had one choice he couldn’t steal from me. My voice and thoughts belonged to me.

He sighed and looked me over. “I shouldn’t have done it,” he said.

I didn’t know what he meant, but I still didn’t answer him. I stared at him, wide-eyed, and waited. I’d told him there was more than one way to escape. I sank into my silence as it wrapped around me, soothing the ragged edges of my psyche.

“The silent treatment? How old are you?” he asked.

I read the frustration in his voice but didn’t care. I just wanted, for once in my life, to make a decision that made me happy, without thoughts of my predicament, what I could have had, or the degree it had all slipped through my fingers.

“I’m not going to apologize for fucking you last night, but I should have waited until you were awake,” he said.

A bomb exploded in my head as helpless tears filled my eyes. The bright sun faded to nothing, and the soft bed under me might as well have been cardboard.

Even when I try to die, he claims me.

My vision turned watery, but I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. Couldn’t stop the way my heart dropped and I couldn’t think straight. I hated being so weak. I hated not having a way to fight him. If I screamed and clawed, he enjoyed it. If I wept and went weak, he pushed me to grow stronger, just so he could break me down again. And even when I could do nothing, when I faded from the now, he used my body without shame.

Why, Caesar? Why me?

I didn’t break my resolve and talk to him, but the questions pulsed in my head.

“Stop crying,” he told me.

Let me go.

He framed my face and thumbed away my tears. Hard and soft. His touch hurt me and told me he could be sweet. I hated it. Trying to shift away from him, I bit my lips against gasping. I swore my back muscles separated from my spine.

“You have a deep-tissue bruise on your back from the stairs. Moving will hurt like a bitch for a while. Would you like some medicine to make you feel better?”

Caesar got out of the bed, his naked body awash in sunlight. His tattoos stood out in stark contrast to his skin. So cruelly beautiful. He padded, barefoot, to his dresser and picked up a prescription bottle before he turned back to me. He rattled it in his hand before smirking at me.

“All you have to do is be a good girl. Say my name, pet.”

I swallowed. Every step. Every damn step, he trapped me.

“Oh, did I tell you I expect you to make your clothing appointment today and get out of bed?”

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t deal with the pain. I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed to do anything and not scream my head off.

I swallowed my shattered pride. “Caesar.”

“There’s my girl.”

He left the room for a few minutes and came back with a bag of ice, a towel, and a glass of water. He set everything down before popping a pill into his palm and helping me sit up. I gulped at the shift in positions.

“Take your medicine, then I’ll roll you over to ice. Doc says two days and you’ll be fit.”

He pushed the pill into my mouth and handed me the water. “Swallow it down.”

I did as he asked.

“Open wide.”

I wanted to lie down. My back was on fire, so I opened my mouth for him.

“Lift your tongue. Don’t want you hoarding pills.”

After he checked that my mouth was clear, he helped roll me over to my stomach and placed the towel-wrapped ice on my back over the most painful area. The soft material of the towel helped keep the sharp edges of the ice from poking into my skin, but the weight still stung.

“You did a number, Ash. But you only hurt yourself. See how silly that was?”

Burying my face into my pillow, I couldn’t block out the sound of his voice, but I could hide from the sight of him. The ice cooled my skin, and I eased into the bed.

“Hiding from me won’t work,” he said.

I turned my head away from him. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I need to.”

His voice was small, a faraway noise filled with sadness. It was a note I couldn’t quite grasp, and it made me wonder.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered.

“You remind me of her.”

Of her?

“Who?”

“Yolanda.”

I waited, but he didn’t continue. Instead, I heard drawers open and close, and then the sound of fabric shifting. Who was Yolanda? And why did she make him steal and hurt women? Thoughts of what he’d told me made me wonder, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask. I didn’t want to know Caesar. I didn’t want to have anything change my viewpoint that he was evil. As he came around the bed, I turned my head away from him again.

“I buried her in pieces next to our mother,” he said before he left the room, the resounding click of the door booming through my skull as loud as his parting shot.

Yolanda, his sister, he’d buried near their mother. Her pieces. I trembled, unable to form even a sound. Jason had torn what little shreds of my soul were left, and they scattered inside of me like shards of glass. They cut and punctured my organs until I bled. Bled with pain and disgusting memories that filtered every action of my life. I couldn’t sleep with a man, couldn’t let someone kiss me, without remembering his pain. When I went to college, I looked for a man I had no doubt resided on the other side of the spectrum.

Did I know what a memory like that could do to a person?

Yes.

When I’d seen the picture of Yolanda downstairs, I noticed her youth. So young to be torn and forgotten. A memory like that could send anyone to the edge. And Caesar? What had that memory done to him? I closed my eyes tight, knowing the answer. It made him the man who took me from that movie theater. But was that enough of an excuse for what he’d done to me?

No!

My mind screamed, but on the edge, another part of me whispered softly.

Maybe.