Page 61 of On Your Knees

And quietly, I vanish.

TWENTY-ONE

Ethan

I pace around the bedroom as my brain wakes up out of the weird sleep it’s been in for… I don’t know how long. I don’t really know what just happened. I’m not sure what I even did.

Did I start that?

I don’t think so, but I don’t remember.

Pain makes its way into my awareness, and I stop. I sit on the bed and look at the bottom of my foot. It’s bloody, and there are pieces of glass embedded in my skin. As I work them free, the task helps me focus. The pain helps me focus too.

Something happened to Levi.

I get up and leave the bedroom, trekking back through the penthouse to the living room. I frown at the couch, vaguely recalling how I pinned him there. I spanked him, but I don’t remember why. The coffee table is overturned. Did I do that?

No. He did. He was angry. Something happened. I remember the glass in the kitchen and go to look. There’s glass everywhere, plus shattered ceramic and a mess of what looks like cereal.

I stare, uncomprehending.

Why would he do this? It’s like he had some kind of… episode.

I have episodes.

He told me that. He told me that’s why he lost his job.

But why did he have one now? And where the hell is he?

I go to check the playroom, turning on the lights, pushing back the blackness. The sight of all the toys and racks and other equipment makes me realize that we haven’t had sex the whole time I’ve been… out of it.

This isn’t the first time that something like this has happened to me. It happened after I murdered Paul too. Then, it lasted for months. I don’t think I even realized where I was, at boarding school, until I got called into the headmaster’s office to “explain” my drawings, which a teacher had found. I didn’t reply until they got physical with me, and then I started screaming.

On some weird instinct, I check the bondage coffin because it seems like a place Levi would go, but it’s empty.

I backtrack through the penthouse and check his room. His room. Fuck. He’s not supposed to have a room. He’s supposed to be with me.

But I haven’t been with him. I haven’t been here at all. And now he isn’t here. So where the hell is he?

My heartrate picks up, making me move faster as I go hunting for my phone. I find it in the master bedroom. I call him—and his phone starts ringing down the hallway. Goddamn it.

Hands shaking, I check the security camera on my front door. I have to go back further than I expect. God, I’ve lost so much time—and fuck, fuck, fuck, he left. He didn’t even have any goddamn shoes on.

Where the hell did he go?

I drop my phone on the bed and go into the closet to grab some shoes. My shirt is ripped, but I don’t bother changing it. I’ve already lost too much time.

I grab the Porsche keys and hurry out of the penthouse. I pace around the cramped space of the elevator as it takes me down to the parking garage. I should be making a plan, but my mind is full of gray fog.

I get to the car and make my way through the garage to the street. I head toward Levi’s apartment. The drive clears my mind enough for me to think. I should call Patrick. He’s pissed at me, but he would help me. I know he would.

Fuck, I don’t have my phone. Jesus Christ.

I can’t go back. I have to find Levi right now. He left without shoes. He wasn’t thinking. He was upset. But why?

I try to think through the last few days, but everything is such a haze that I can’t remember how it even started.

The church.