“Adrian…” she murmured my name, her eyes fluttering. “Adrian…”
The urge to ask her what she was thinking grew, the desire to dig into her mind, to hear where she was at. I wanted to get a knife and carve my way in, learn it all.
The things I’d done to her… her body was destroyed, ravaged, maybe impossible to repair. I suddenly felt sick with myself, but I knew I’d do it all again.
That was, I think, the most sickening part of all. Neither of us were redeemable anymore; she’d sucked me into her disgusting world and ruined me too.
I stilled, eyes closed, hand bracing my chest as I battled with myself.
Penny cried out all of a sudden, and I turned my head as movement caught my eye, the blood-stained plank slamming down onto my face, nails ripping intomy cheek. I fell back, slammed onto my ass, and the bitch was on her feet, wide-awake and gleaming.
She stalked over to me and, with an almost reluctant expression, swung the plank again. I let her land it, let it push me into unconsciousness.
Maybe there I could learn my damn lesson.
Thirty-One
Penny
Icouldn’t be as elaborate as him, didn’t have hours on the internet to research, or the wherewithal to do anything crafty. All he’d done to me… just looked exhausting.
So I knocked him unconscious and wrapped the rope around his arms and legs until even I couldn’t undo it, just a mess of knots and twists that kept him constrained.
My bodyhurt.As soon as I had him tied up, the remainder of the rope knotted around a pole, I left him there, stumbling away, my mind a foggy chaos, running on fumes. Every step made my pussy throb and tug with the drying blood and tender wounds. My muscles screamed from being pulled too hard, and my head pounded.
I needed medicine. Bandages. Fucking morphine and antibiotics. I didn’t really know, having neverdealt with this before, never tried to heal myself or anyone else. I knew I needed something. Before my heart gave out, before I bled my veins dry onto the dirty floor.
This wasn’t how I wanted to go. Alone and festering.
Crying with every messy step, I somehow ended up navigating my way back to Adrian’s bathroom, sweat beading across my entire body as the pain made me almost black out. I had to rest against whatever wall was closest until my head stopped swimming, then I could push on.
I rummaged through the cabinets, bottles and packages falling out around me as I shivered and shook — adrenaline rocketing through me and mixing with the endorphin crash.
There. Pain killers. Fucking antiseptic. I climbed into the shower and lifted one leg, screaming deep from my gut as I poured the liquid between my legs. My tooth went through my lip, and my jaw squeaked from the pressure of holding myself up and accountable. It would be so easy to slip away…
“Holy shit,” Icried. “Holy shit.”
Panting, I continued working, running warm water over myself, then patting it dry, rubbing in ointment, and slapping on as many bandages as I could. It was a mess, but my pussy was protected now.
Bruises and cuts everywhere, but they would heal. When I touched it to put the ointment on, it was the right shape, everything where it should be.
Just injured. Broken.
I took a whole pile of painkillers and collapsed onto Adrian’s sex bed, sleep taking me away fast.
At least a full day passed like that, a day and a bit, based on the changing light, where I drifted between the bathroom and the bed, trying to heal, to recalibrate. I didn’t go and check on Adrian, almost hoping he was dead down there.At least then this could end on a fizzle, and not the car crash I knew was coming.
I wished I were no longer alive as pain ravaged me and I was all alone. But my life was no longer mine to take; my death didn’t belong to me at this point.
Adrian deserved it, I decided. And I’d let him seize it. But something was stopping me from walking down there, setting him free and handing him a weapon.
So I slept and recovered until eventually my stomach was so empty it screamed, and I went in search of sustenance, hobbling around the space, trying to focus my mind.
Still bandaged up, I threw another of Adrian’s t-shirts over my head and wandered out on bare feet, looking for the kitchen. It was time to take the next step.
With a pile of food in my arms, I padded through the apartment, through the winding halls and back into the theater. It was still so spooky to me, this building. All shadows and ornate carvings throwing dark shapes across the walls and lights. It was too elaborate, too well-planned for the man who seemed built from the same chaos as me.
Why not just shoot me in the forehead in the prison? Why all this?
