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“Hey, listen. You must not know women very well. But down there? Murder is less of a sentence than sex. Okay? You’ll find me hanging from that nice ceiling you built, by Anabel’s hand.”
“The company we keep.” He stabs one of the broccoli stems.
I pucker up for a kiss, and he reluctantly leans over the table to peck me. “We’re a sick little family, aren’t we?”
“Mm.” He grunts after a peck, then goes back to his food.
My face grows hot when I think about the brand I’ve been hiding from him. I mean, he did all this for me – stepping way out of his comfort zone. It’s the least I can do. Yeah… it’s time.
I stand up, wipe my mouth, and walk over to him.
“Hm?” His brow creases as I slowly lift my shirt. “Sia, it’s alright, you don’t have to.”
“I want to,” I say, my fingers shivering. Not from the cold this time, but because I never let anyone see this. It represents all of my pain. “I want you to know all of me.”
There’s a long moment of him staring at it. Does he think I’m disgusting?
All of the tenseness disappears when his fingers brush lightly against it, followed by a soft kiss that tells me he’s not at all bothered.
“I accept you, Sia, scars and all.”
Chapter 21
Alessia
I feel hands on me… not just from one person, but many. They’re bone-thin and scratching at my legs as I struggle to climb away.
Each tear at my skin burns like fire.
They ignore my pleas to stop.
The ladder I’m hanging onto is flimsy and teetering. It shakes terribly, making my heart stall every time I think it might topple over. God, if it does, I’ll just fall into the sea of angry bodies waiting to claim me.
My arms refuse to move. It’s like they’ve been carrying heavy boxes all day and don’t have an ounce of strength left.
Everything fails me. I’m holding on as tight as I can, looking just over the hill toward freedom. But these grasping hands, they keep holding me back!
One look down shows hooded faceless figures clawing desperately to keep me in place. “Why!” I shout at them, to which they do not respond. It’s like they can’t. They’re choking or something, and I’m their air.
All at once, they grab on in a joint effort to keep me from reaching another rung. My teeth grit as I muster all my strength to move on.
Another hooded man with gigantic, almost inhuman arms and a potbelly marches up to me with a scalding hot poking stick in hand. When I hear the same rumbling on the other side of me, I see another identical figure. They’re both towering over the others, converging to one location – mine – with hot spears pointed to impale me.
I’m trapped. I’m fucking trapped.
“Ahh!” I scream awake, jolting upright with tears streaming down my eyes.
I can’t catch my breath.
Just a dream, I tell myself, clutching my heaving chest. Just a terrible dream.
Cold sweat drips down my forehead and back. It felt so real… being trapped, stabbed, what a goddamn nightmare.
Oh no.
As soon as I start to calm, bile overflows all the way up my esophagus like a river overwhelming a broken dam. I grab my bucket and yack horribly into it. My head feels like it’s going to explode as everything pours out of me, and my eyes bulge nearly out of their sockets.
Second time in a week. And it’s been twenty-two days since I was supposed to get my period.
