Every word is slicing me deeper and taking me farther and farther back into the recesses of my memories and farther away from this room with Liam. I keep speaking to him, recounting my memories out loud as they play like a movie in my head. Every thought and memory passes my lips as I completely slip into the past, and I recount it all to Liam.

I smell the cedar of the cabin where he kept me. I remember the rainfall of the showerhead and the clinging of the metal hooks holding the shower curtain sliding over the rod as I held it above my head. Aiden stood there, eyes closed, dick in hands like he was getting ready for a show. When he heard the metal rings slide, he opened his eyes just in time to see it come crashing down on his head.

“Fuck,” he howled. Blinding fear filled my stomach when he stepped toward me, hand outstretched. My back was to a wall. I thought he would fall. He didn’t. The hit didn’t even make him stumble. Spittle flew out of his mouth as he was breathing through his rage. His face was turning so damn red. He was vibrating with anger.

“Goddammit, Savannah!” he yelled into my face has his hand clamped over my throat. I scratched his hands and grabbed his wrists, trying to pry them away from my neck. No air was escaping from my lungs. I tore one hand away, feeling the wall around me for anything I could reach. There was nothing. I had no one. I had fucking nothing. Nothing except the dots hazing in on my vision. I reached my hands out trying to scratch his face, his eyes, something. But he held it so far away from me. I couldn’t do anything. I slapped his arms and scratched. He kept yelling, more and more anger building with each word. I thought I was going to die in that moment, so I gritted out through my teeth, “Fuck you.”

My words sounded so garbled to my ears, but I knew he understood. He yelled in fury then used his hands on my neck to bring my head forward, only to slam it back into the wall.

My breathing was still ragged when I woke up chained back on the bed. I was clean. He washed me while I was passed out, dressed me in fresh lingerie. I looked around the room expecting to find him there, I didn’t. I didn’t yell this time. I knew there was only one person who was going to walk through that fucking wood door. The sole window in the room was boarded up. I didn’t know how long I was there, if it was day or night. I sat there waiting for him to come back in. I knew it wasn’t over.

“You’re awake. Finally, sleepy head. I missed you.”

I had been staring at the wall, lost in a sea of pain and oblivion. I rolled my head toward him, sneering. How dare he act like he didn’t try to choke the life out of me? How dare he come in here with fucking endearments? He sat on the edge of the bed. I rolled my face away from his hand when he tried to cup my cheek. He gripped my chin in his hand, holding me there. “You will listen to me, Savannah. My Vannah girl. You’re mine. You’ll always be mine. You love me. I know you do. It’s time to start treating your man right.”

“You’re no man,” I whispered. My voice sounded broken, my throat raw and bruised from the earlier trauma. He balled the V of the neckline of the white silk nighty he dressed me in. “I’ll remind you that I am a man since you seem to have forgotten. I haven’t though. I still stroke myself daily thinking of your sweet cunt, how you scream for me.”

Terror like I’ve never known seeped into every fiber of my being. Yes, he had hurt me at this point, but I never thought, I never thought...

He ripped the silk straight down the middle, baring me to him. He grabbed each of my breasts in his hands, playing with them roughly. I couldn’t control the sobs as I pleaded with him. I told him I would cooperate, just please stop. “Please, please, please, not this,” I begged.

He laughed. He got up from the bed. I sagged in relief, thinking he was just trying to scare me, when he walked out of the room. I couldn’t stop crying and thanking God that he walked away. My heart stopped when he came back into the room, holding something I’d only seen on the internet. A ball gag. He strapped it around my head.

He licked up my neck and whispered in my ear, “When you’ve learned to be a good girl, we can remove that. The only begging I want hear is when you beg for me.”

I shook my head and screamed around the gag. He stroked himself before shoving himself into me. My eyes bulged from the pain of being ripped in half, bile crept up my throat. I tried to hold it down, knowing it had nowhere to go past the gag.

He pumped in and out of me roughly as I cried. His hands were all over my body. I prayed. I prayed for it to end. I prayed to escape. And, when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, I prayed for my own death.

The beatings and the rapes kept happening, multiple times a day for I don’t even know how long. My body was exhausted from the torture and brutality. Each time he came into the room, he’d dress me in a new set of lingerie. In the seconds my hands or feet were unsecured, I’d fight as hard as I could, but my strength was diminishing. He kept me on a diet of chicken broth and bread. He said he’d make my favorite meal if I agreed I would love him for all of eternity. I wasn’t sure I could lie without throwing up.

Aiden came into the room with a bowl of broth. I could see the steam rising from it as soon as he walked in. He usually let the broth cool to room temperature before serving it to me. “I’m so fucking horny for your hungry cunt,” he told me. “I couldn’t wait any longer. Eat your food then I’ll treasure this body of mine.”

The sip of broth burned the roof of my mouth. A plan formed in my mind, one I didn’t thoroughly think through, but I had to do something. My will to live was slipping each second. I’d be lost if I didn’t try. I hesitated to open my mouth for the next spoonful, like I didn’t want it.

He leaned closer to me. “Eat, Van. Now.”

I opened my mouth, complying. When the scalding liquid hit my tongue, I spit it in his face. “I’ll never be yours. I don’t love you. I fucking hate you,” I seethed.

He held his face, screaming in pain. He ran out of the room, leaving spilled broth on the floor. I yanked and pulled at my binds, trying to break them from the bed or slip my hand free from the loop. I was still struggling when I noticed Aiden standing menacingly in the doorway. He strapped the ball gag around my head, but not even that would stop the scream when he pulled a knife from his pocket.

“You are mine. All mine. I will never let you belong to anyone else. It’s me or death. There are no other options.” He laughed, his eyes wild. He ripped apart the fabric, exposing me again. He squeezed my breasts. “These are mine.” I shook my head, but he slapped me and held the knife to my throat. “You fucking love me. You love this. If you wanted these games, Van, all you had to do was ask. I would give you anything. I never want you to forget who you belong to.”

He removed the knife from my throat, dragging it down my body. “Where should I do this?”

He squeezed a breast again, dragging the tip of the blade across my sensitive flesh. “These would make a nice statement, but they’re too pretty to ruin. Same goes for this,” he said, shoving the handle of the knife into my vagina. I screamed in pain around the gag. The tears wouldn’t stop falling or blurring my vision. He pulled the handle out of me, flipping it, dragging the blade across my skin. I bucked, trying to get him off me.

He sliced down my hip. “Stop that,” he yelled into my face.

I opened my eyes as wide as I could, cursing around the gag, calling him every vile thing I could think of. Each scream or buck was met with a slash across my skin. I kept going until I was too weak to move. “I think I decided, Vanny. I know where I want to mark you.” He rubbed his hand over my stomach. “One day when this is fat with my child, I’ll be able to see my name stretched across your skin.” He rubbed his hard dick against my pelvis. “Just the thought makes me hard.”

He brought the point down to my skin, pushing into the flesh. Blood was all over the white sheets from each cut he had made so far. He suddenly stopped, dragging the knife away. He undid his pants to free himself. “This is going to get me so hot, if I don’t do this, I’ll come too quick inside of you.”

I looked at the wall, too weak to scream. He screamed in my face, “You'll always belong to me. You're mine. This is just a little present, so you don't forget. YOU. BELONG. TO. ME.”

I could only cry as he carved his name into my skin and came in his palm. He repeated over and over that I was his and now I’ll never forget it.