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"Fine," she said quietly. "I need to get back to the theater. I'm not trying to run your life, Des. I just want to share it. If you can't let go of enough control to do that, I think we've got a bigger problem."
She wanted him to reach out to her, to stop her from leaving, but real life wasn't like that either. Each of them had to work out their own shit for this to work. So, though it hurt like a son of a bitch to do it, she picked up her things to leave. He kept his eyes on the playground, but she touched his shoulder, a quick digging in of her nails and clutch of his shirt, and then she forced herself to walk away.
"You know where I'll be."
Chapter Fourteen
Julie finished retying cables and tucked them back on the shelf of the sound cabinet. She didn't have to be doing this busy work, but supposedly it was helping her not to think about how mad she was at a certain Dom, roofer, rigger, man, child, idiot, thing.
"All about control," she said sarcastically. "Yeah, staying in control of your own death. Great. You'll still be dead. I guess you'll be in total control then. Jerk."
She sighed and wandered out to the center of the stage. Center of the world, centered mind. To her, it was the still point of the universe, a place where answers could be found. She took a few meditative breaths.
"I can't control this," she said aloud, speaking to the darkened chairs of the audience. "That's the real problem, isn't it? When you fall in love with someone, you get this mistaken notion that you have some kind of veto power over the things they'll choose to do with their lives. Maybe you do for the smaller stuff, or the stuff they can let go because they're willing to share those things. But how you live or die, I guess that falls under the single vote category. Maybe he thinks about it differently. It's a choice about how he wants to live."
Yeah, that was it. Sometimes she hated how the stage could speak through her so easily, making all sorts of annoying, fucking sense. Real life wasn't a play. It was supposed to be contradictory, and all about bullying the people she loved into doing what she wanted them to do because she wanted them to stay...
A lump formed in her throat, making the next words come out thick and hard. "Stay forever."
The pain rose up to choke her, and she shoved it down. "Stop it, you moron. You don't even know what the deal is. It could be some chronic condition, not life threatening." No matter that all the information she was getting suggested otherwise. "Regardless, he's not dead yet. Not even close. Okay, yes, maybe closer than most people in terms of statistics and odds, but--"
She cut herself off at the faint vibration that went through the boards under her feet. Familiarity with the theater told her someone had entered the building. She'd locked the front, so it had to be the stage door. Her heart lifted. The rented equipment had been taken away a couple days ago, and the first read-through of Done Right with the cast members was tomorrow night, so she'd told Harris to take today off for a quick breather. Which meant the only one coming to see her had to be Des.
Yes, she was mad at him, but she wanted him here to yell at, to figure it out with her. To help her feel better about what he had to decide for himself, damn it. To hold him and tell him she didn't understand, but she would try, because it wasn't so much lack of comprehension of his feelings as it was fear of something happening to him beyond her control.
She moved into the wings, intending to meet him halfway. A heartbeat later she strangled on a scream as large, rough and frighteningly unfamiliar hands clamped over her throat and waist. They spun her around. A foot hooked her calf, knocking her to the floor. A knee in her back pinned her like a speared fish.
She smelled a foul odor, male sweat mixed with something else like mothballs, a noxious, untended scent. She squirmed violently and screamed, though she knew the noise dampening curtains and their lack of close neighbors made that pointless. Her hair was seized and her face slammed into the boards. Blood flooded her mouth and she was afraid bones in her face had been broken.
"Stay still and don't talk. Don't turn around and look at me, or I'll do it again. I'll keep doing it until you're still."
His voice was high and thin, at odds with the weight pressed on her and the size of his hands. What made the falsetto terrifying was the unmistakable sound of excitement, the erratic whisper of his breath. She couldn't tell his age. She needed to fight, but he'd struck her face so hard the first time a repeat performance might crack her skull.
But you have to fight. You have to.
He didn't want her to see him. Whatever he planned, that could mean he intended to leave her alive. He had all the advantage in strength and position. Every movement sent shards of agony shooting through her back and neck. He was already putting dangerous pressure on her spine. He was a big man, she guessed, or maybe he just knew his pressure points.
"Good," he said as she became still. "Now shut up and don't talk. Don't make a sound. You do what I tell you to do. That's what you like. I've seen it, here on the stage. You like it when a man tells you what to do, ties you up. You're going to get wet for me. It doesn't matter how much you fight. I might even like it if you fight a little so I can rough you up more."
His hands were squeezing her ass, pawing between her legs. She felt sick and more terrified than she ever had, and that made her furious. But her rage would just goad him. "Yeah, you'll fight because I tell you to do it. And then I'll--"
Her attacker made a choking sound, and suddenly his weight was off her, a screaming relief. A thud was followed by a crash, then brief--very brief--sounds of a struggle, more choking.
Julie scrambled to her knees and spun. Before her was a scene she'd expect to see on stage, only this surreal drama was happening in the wings.
She recognized her attacker vaguely, and guessed he'd attended one of the shows, perhaps even sat in the front rows where her casual glance would have registered him. An overweight man with thinning blond hair and blue eyes that would have been attractive if they weren't brimming over with madness. He had a weak mouth and chin, but large hands far more powerful than the man himself looked. He was wearing blue jeans that had been opened to show a pair of wrinkled pale blue boxers beneath.
It nauseated her, but she was glad that was as far as he'd gotten. If his genitals had been hanging out, she was sure she would have vomited. As it was, she was having a hard time keeping her last meal down and not toppling over. She was dizzy from the rush of adrenaline, the blow to the face, and the wave of terror still gripping her, her mind not yet believing she was safe.
He was on his ass, legs sprawled out before him like a kid who'd fallen down on the playground. Desmond was kneeling behind him. A thick length of stage rigging was wrapped around the man's neck and pulled taut in Des's hands. While they might not be as large as this man's, she'd felt Des's strength and knew they were as strong or stronger. Particularly when fueled by the cold, still rage she saw in her Dom's eyes. She'd thought he'd been angry the day Pablo had messed up, but what she saw in Des's face now was death, plain and simple.
As the man tried to flail again, Des twisted the rope around his neck. When he choked, Des spoke in a mild tone even scarier than his expression.
"You don't want to be moving. Just like you told her, hmm? Very bad shit is going to happen to
you if you fight that rope. The windpipe is absurdly fragile. Slightest amount of pressure for no time at all and you're dead. No one here's going to give you CPR, and we'll take our damn fucking time calling 911."
She had never been so glad to see someone, and especially him, who'd she'd already been hoping to see. It had been him she'd heard when the floor boards vibrated, because that had happened seconds before she moved to the wings. Her attacker had already been lying in wait for her, a frightening thought, but it was okay. Des was here.
