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“I hate you. I’ll fight you.”
He brings his face to mine, and that grin is still there.
“And therein lies the reason it was you and not your meek Barbie doll sisters.”
He sits up, squeezes his thighs around mine one last time, then gets up off the bed.
I remain as I am, lying there, spent, every muscle on fire like I’ve just run a fucking marathon.
But then he draws my pocketknife out of his pocket and opens the blade.
“So I’ll give you a notch for that little stunt.”
He catches me by the hair, drags me to my knees on the floor, and turns my face into the bed, pushing it into the mattress and holding me there by my hair.
I feel the sharp tip of the blade at the back of my neck, I let out a cry and grip the blanket, pulling hard.
“Be still. You don’t want me to slip up.”
It stings, every centimeter of the cut. He’s carving a line into the back of my neck.
Warm blood runs down my spine. I hold still, like he says.
“There,” he says, releasing me.
“What did you do?” I touch my neck, and my fingers come away bloodied.
He looks at the blade, wipes it clean with his finger, closes it, and tucks it into his pocket.
“I like it when you fight, Helena. I want you to fight. To run. To try to hurt me.”
He glances at his forearm, where tracks of skin are missing from where I scratched it off, and I suddenly am very aware of it under my fingernails.
He looks back at me. “Because it’s so much more fun when I have to make you.”
“You mean when you rape me?”
His jaw tightens. He wasn’t expecting that. I know he’s gritting his teeth. I’ve touched a nerve.
“And then pass me on to your brothers to rape me?” I continue.
“Be careful.”
“Isn’t that what you do? Isn’t that the point? You take a Willow Girl, and you beat her and you rape her, and you break her so that when you return her, she’s already dead even if you don’t kill her.”
I sag against the bed, and I’m not fighting anymore. There isn’t any more fight in my voice, because that last part, I didn’t mean to say that out loud. Not for his sake, but my own. Because with those words, I’ve just read my own death sentence.
He’s quiet for a long minute, just stands there and watches me wipe the stupid fucking tears from my eyes. When he steps toward the bed, I lean away, but he stops, doesn’t reach for me, doesn’t touch me.
“You want to keep your soul? I’m not interested in your soul. But don’t fucking push me. I am your only ally in this house. Remember that.”
I snort. “My ally?”
“Now get up and clean yourself up. Have a shower. Lunch will be sent up in twenty minutes, and the doctor will be here at two o’clock.”
“What?”
He walks to the door and only stops once he has opened it.
“What doctor?” I ask.
How many humiliations can he put me through? We were all checked already, my sisters and I, to make sure we were intact, as the doctor called it. Virgins. He knows I’m not. He knew it when he chose me.
“Birth control. I won’t father a Willow Girl.”5Helena“I won’t father a Willow Girl.”
My mind is spinning. What is this? What is happening?
Sebastian’s gone. He closed the door behind him, but I didn’t hear a lock turn. Not too reassuring, though, because if he doesn’t feel the need to lock the door, he isn’t worried I’ll run. And I won’t. The punishment wouldn’t be mine if I did.
It would be my family’s.
I get up off the bed, pick up my discarded blanket, and go into the bathroom. Turning my back to the mirror, I lift my hair and look at the wound. It’s about two inches long but shallow.
I run the water and wash my hands, wash his skin out from underneath my fingernails before using a washcloth to clean up the blood, then look through the medicine cabinet where, remarkably, I find a first-aid kit. After I’ve cleaned and dressed the wound, I go back into the bedroom and walk over to the window.
Venice. He’d said we were going to Venice.
But I stand here in awe as I look out of my window on the second floor of the house, and I don’t see Venice like I imagined it. I see land and water.
I push the windows out and am surprised that I can open them. They must not be afraid I’ll jump, at least not yet. I lean my head out, and in every direction that I can see from here, there is only land and water.
No city. No gondolas. No sound of a thousand tourists.
The grass is green, and it’s well-groomed. There are two gardeners in the distance. To the right of the house is what looks to be a vegetable garden. To the left, I see the dock where three boats bob in the water. They’re wooden and look like the elegant water taxis I’ve seen in photos of Venice.
