Page 169 of These Tears

I do. Sniffling the rest back into myself.

‘Who were you going to call?’ he asks.

I have no answer. My head can do nothing but shake.

He says it very slowly: ‘You can’t leave.’

That’s all. But it lands differently – far heavier than a simple command.

He isn’t just a kidnapper, a terrifying abuser. He’s intelligent. Calculating. Always three steps ahead.

A memory echoes in my head – you don’t know what’s at stake…

The more I learn, the more questions rise.

‘Why not? You have Inga here. What do you need me for?’

His brows draw together. He blinks once, then again, as though I’ve skipped several steps in the conversation and landed straight on the ending.

‘Inga?’ he echoes with disbelief.

One beat. Two.

Something wicked unfurls across his face. ‘Are you jealous, Leah?’

I scoff, but the sound tastes like fear and heat on my tongue, and I know exactly where this is heading.

‘You are,’ he concludes with a crooked grin – one that might have passed for handsome under kinder skies. ‘Don’t worry, elskling.’ His face shifts, the smile twisting into something far more chilling, and he says through clenched teeth, ‘You’re the only one who gets to abuse me.’

Air stops moving through me.

‘A—abuse you?’ I stammer, staring at him, hoping for the word to rearrange itself into some shape I can understand.

He tilts his head, as if he’s about to impart some dark lesson.

‘“In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man.” Nietzsche.’

He always reaches for the old philosophers, hunting for meaning when none exists.

‘You… dare,’ I grind out, voice trembling. ‘You bring me here, violate me—’

‘Who violated you?’

I ignore it, refusing to fall into his web. He hadn’t touched me in the way he meant. But that doesn’t make what happened right.

‘Did you do the same to Melody?’ I blurt out recklessly. Desperately. ‘Did you toy with her, too? Shift the blame because of your own insecurities?’

He draws himself upright. One knuckle pops in the silence.

‘Did you?’ I push.

I know… I know I should stop. I know it’s dangerous, but something gluttonous and heinous deep in my chest demands the truth.

His eyes widen. The walls he’s worked so hard to keep in place crack, exposing a fraction of a rawness painful enough to make me stop cold.

He steps back. And again.

His chest moves in quick, uneven beats. A hand closes, opens, then closes again.