Page 43 of These Tears

‘Why do you keep coming here? Huh?’ he asks. And now his face looks a different shade of wrong. ‘Did you build a fantasy in your head again?’

‘What?’ My mouth stays open. The warmth of his touch hasn’t even left my fingers, yet the look he gives me now sends a chill straight through me.

‘Tell me about that fantasy.’ The slow, crooked grin makes something ugly spider up my spine.

He leans in slightly, taking my hand again, tracing soft, lazy lines over my knuckles. ‘Do I have you in this room?’

His thumb keeps moving, almost thoughtless, as if mapping the words straight into my skin.

‘No?’ he whispers, watching me too closely. Then, softer, ‘What about the yard? Under the willow?’

My breath falters.

He angles his head, reading the reaction he’s pulled from me like it’s feeding something in him. ‘Am I still in chains,’ he asks, voice dipping, ‘or are you?’

The images rush in: my wrists where his are, metal biting skin, him standing over me, my legs wrapped around him—

My breath catches.

His thumb stops moving.

‘Is that it, Leah?’ he presses, leaning closer, his grip tightening just enough to remind me I haven’t pulled away. ‘Is that the reason you’re here? Is that what gets you off?’

I don’t answer.

I can’t. Because the images he feeds me are too unclean and feel too close to horror.

And even closer to truth.

‘We could ask them to turn off the cameras for a few minutes,’ he whispers. ‘I could give you that fantasy.’

‘You’re being an arsehole,’ I growl, holding my ground against the onslaught of his touch, his scent, his eyes that are now pinning me in place.

‘Why? If I give it to you, then you just might leave me alone.’

Leave me alone.

It echoes. Breaks. Crashes through my thoughts. When it hits the bottom, it hurts in my chest like death. It weighs on my shoulders like history.

I’ve done it again: seen what I wanted to see.

I wrench my hand out of his. My chair scrapes hard across the tiles as I stand too fast and the sound cleaves through the room.

My feet eat the space between the table and the exit. He doesn’t make any effort to stop me from leaving.

I knock on the metal door once, then again – harder. Pain bursts across my knuckles and brings the world back in parts: the room bleeds into my vision fully, the wind outside reminds me I can still leave. I can still crawl out of this pit.

Behind me, the chains shift.

‘Leah.’

My hand stills against the door.

When I turn my head, he isn’t smiling any more. His eyes stay fixed on my boots. When the door cries open, his throat works once, but he still doesn’t look up.

‘Don’t come back for a while,’ he says, low enough that I’m almost unsure whether he said it at all.

That just drives the stake deeper into my chest.