She shrugged again.“Probably too late though.”Stepping closer to the glass, the amusement in her eyes sickened me.“I watched him go down on you.Watched him stick his fingers inside of you.I taught him that.I taught him everything.There wasn’t a thing we didn’t do or try.I was his willing teacher, and he my over-eager, ready-to-please pupil.There isn’t a part of him that I didn’t teach.Not a part he didn’t give me.And he even let me peg him.He loved that.Came so hard.”
“That’s bullshit.He never went down on you.”Spots clouded my vision as the heat infiltrated my brain, frying it from the inside.I was in an oven, slowly being cooked alive.Now I knew how lobsters felt.
Her snicker made a fresh wave of nausea roll through me.“Is that what he told you?”
The air in the sauna felt thicker now—like it had weight.Like it was pressing in from the outside as much as from the inside.Even though the throbbing in my head made it tough to concentrate, I needed to let this psychopath know I saw her for what she was—a monster.
“You think that makes you special?”I rasped.“That just proves what you are.He was a child.You didn’t teach him anything—you trapped him.You abused him.”
“He wouldn’t have been able to get an erection or finish if he didn’t want me.If he wasn’t attracted to me.Women can’t rape men.”
“You drugged him.”I slunk down to my knees on the floor.Hot air rises.The lower I stayed, the cooler I would be.
She didn’t react to that, just continued to stare at me.
“He won’t—” Every breath scraped my lungs raw.“He won’t be with you.He won’t let you anywhere near Mabel.”
The expression on her face next made bile coat the back of my dry tongue.“She’s the reason I lost him in the first place.I won’t make that mistake again.”
What the hell did that mean?Did she do something to Mabel?
I sprang back up to my feet and hammered on the acrylic glass.“Did you hurt Mabel?I will kill you if you hurt her.”
Kyla rolled her eyes.“You’re very dramatic.I’m not sure what he sees in you.”
Something inside me snapped—not panic, not fear.Something colder.Something razor-sharp.
“You don’t know anything about him,” I said, my voice low.“You don’t know who he is now.You only know what you made.And that person is gone.”
For the first time, her smile faltered.
Just for a second.
I saw it.
And I pushed.
“He wasn’t yours.He was a child you trapped in your sickness.And now he’s a man who hates you for it.”
The heat in the sauna seemed to spike with her expression, and I had to sit down on the lowest bench.I closed my eyes for a second and pressed my fingers to my temples, massaging them.
“You don’t get to say that,” she said quietly.
But she didn’t sound calm anymore.
I shifted on the bench, forcing my shaking legs to move.The wood was molten hot beneath me.I forced myself toward the wall, toward the control panel I’d noticed earlier—half-hidden behind a warped paneling seam.
If I could—
Kyla noticed.
Her voice sharpened.“Don’t.”
I ignored her.
My fingers found the edge of the panel.Loose.Cheap construction.Not sealed properly.Probably one of the reasons why we had gotten these saunas for such a good deal, and the manufacturer was going out of business.
This human slow cooker wasn’t meant to hold someone forever.Just long enough.
