I fill my burning lungs with air and slowly pull out. I’m still hard. I could come again. A third time, too. It still wouldn’t be enough. Nothing would ever quench this hunger for her.
I stretch out beside her and gather her into my arms.
She presses a kiss to my lips. “If I get pregnant, my father will kill you.”
“He won’t. It’ll be the opposite. He’ll ask me to take responsibility.”
She smiles. “Will you?”
I kiss her, breathing her in. “You shouldn’t doubt that, Princess. You have no idea how badly I want it.”
If there were no war inside my head—and none with her family—I would make love to her every day until she carried my child. I never wanted a family. But with her, I do. I want it with an intensity that makes me willing to burn everything else down to make it real.
I press a kiss to her head.
Let me let that go, I whisper to the boy.
Can’t he fucking see I’m happy? Why won’t he let me live?
I hold her tighter as the memory starts to claw its way back.
“Don’t,” I whisper to him. “Please.”
He doesn’t listen. He shoves me deeper. All eleven days of hell unspool, one by one. The hunger. The humiliation. The beating.
It slows on the eighth day—I’m on my hands and knees, naked, a collar cinched around my neck. Justin orders me to eat dog food off the floor. When I hesitate, he whips me. I crumple. The wound on my chest is still fresh.
I cry out and crawl forward again, forcing myself to eat. I don’t chew, just swallow.
I choke. Vomit splatters onto the floor.
He whips me again. Harder. I feel my skin split open.
I cry out, collapsing onto my side, whimpering and thrashing.
“Pulisci il pavimento.”
(Clean the floor.)
When I’m too slow to rise, he strikes again.
“Alzati.”
(Get up.)
My body trembling, I force myself up and start eating what I vomited. Tears blur my vision; the nausea rises again, burns my throat. I push through it. I have to do what he says, or he’ll hurt my mother.
The memory keeps playing, punishing me for daring to want a happy life. I descend deeper into the void.
In the distance, someone calls my name. A soft whisper.
But the boy isn’t done punishing me. He won’t let me leave.
The whisper fights against the screams that hold me captive.
Slowly, it silences them.
Finally, it pulls me from the dark.
