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Chapter 30
SUKI
Three days have passed since I sneaked into Connor's helicopter and left the peak that quickly felt more like home than the place I'm fighting to get back to now. Connor knew I wanted to escape, he also knew he should have told Niklas about it, yet he decided not to. He made up some half-assed excuse that he didn't know if I would sneak in or choose the snowmobile, but we both know now that he was perfectly aware I was going to choose the helicopter.
Once it set off the ground, slithers of regret started wrapping themselves around my soul, growing larger and larger the higher we flew, and they ripped it away from me. There was no turning back though, I had to leave, even if my soul did not come with me. I knew this would happen, weeks ago when we sat in front of the fire and I shared with him what I did to my mother, I knew since then that my soul would not leave with me. Not when my demons danced freely on heathen songs sung by his, not when even I could not deny how well I fitted into this world…hisworld. Isolated on that beautiful peak in the company of the dangerous valleys and the looming mountains.
And Niklas… the quiet stranger that saved me, captured me, and threatened to rip me open and make me bare myself not only to him, but to myself as well. I am still fighting myself, but fighting him was getting harder and harder each day, and I had to leave before I gave in. Because how could I not oblige him when he was the one that helped me put my soul back together?
Only now, I have lost it again, for different reasons though, a sacrifice I made knowing that staying there would have cost me my heart. He would have pried it out of my body and fed it to the monster lurking inside of him, and no matter how deeply I would have reveled in that decadent devourment… I could not risk it. Not when I cannot trust myself, my instincts, my heart, while it was cooped up on that mountain, in that beautiful world that seemed to be built for us.
When I met Adrien, I thought that was it, I finally found the man that I could trust with everything—my soul, my body… my depravity. He took them all and broke them, but I managed to save my heart when I saw what type of monster he was. Yet, that does not mean that it did not break at all. It broke, it definitely broke… not for the man that he was, but for the man he appeared to be for all that time we talked online.
Yet Niklas, I crave him in a way I cannot rationalize. I crave his body, his voice, his fucking heart, and that beautifully psychotic mind. He is a ruthless murderer with no remorse or empathy, and I crave the destruction he brings. I crave the chaos, but he craves the fear. My fear. What happens to me when he gets bored with the lack of it in my voice? The only thing I truly fear now is what I feel for him, and that does not translate into any song.
What happens to the siren when she stops singing?
I cannot help but wonder if I will be enough after that. I do not want to be there the day his monster stops smiling at me and the demons halt their efforts to break me open and watch me burn as I finally accept my own. I know that is what he wants from me, maybe even more than he wants to devour my heart and make it his. He wants me to succumb, to revel in my heinous cravings, to accept this gruesome calling. And I had to leave, because more and more I wanted that too.
Now, three days after I left, in this small hotel room in Bear Creek, I find myself looking at this little suitcase that holds the clothes and shoes Connor brought me at the cabin. I turn to look at the old clock sitting on the bedside table, and I realize I have been staring at my packed suitcase for almost forty-five minutes. I am about to leave, gohome, back to my sad little apartment, back to a life that was never truly mine, and more and more I am questioning my actions.
I am free, yet I feel no joy. I am trying to fool my brain into thinking that it is only because I am still too close to the two people that captured me. Yet the slithers of my soul that still cling to me and the heart that bleeds inside my chest, are screaming otherwise. They know… I will never feel the happiness they crave, not away from him.
Home.
What a sweet term for a place I never had a real connection to. A space inside a shitty apartment building, with shitty neighbors I do not even know, in the middle of a city that means nothing to me. Yet I am fighting my ass off to go back there. I roll my eyes at myself, at the ridiculousness of this situation, making a mental note to open my laptop when I get home and look for a different place to live. New town, new home, new everything.
After spending these few days in Bear Creek, I am more certain that what I am looking for is a small town like this one— charming, yet rough around the edges. Most locals are friendly, and the ones that aren’t, tend to keep to themselves. Only three days have passed, yet I already know that when I’m gone I will miss the local cafe, the bakery, the owner of the small hotel I’m staying at… and that view of the peak from down here. If it’s even possible, it’s even more beautiful… this ethereal aura about it. A home up in the clouds. It could have been my home.
I violently shake the thought away. I have a plan and I need to stick to it.
I grab the suitcase and leave the room that kept me safe for the last three days. I miss being up on the mountain, constantly sheltered by Niklas, because here, alone in this hotel room, alone in general, I barely slept, constantly scared that Adrien would get me. I chose this though, no matter how much Connor insisted I stay with him, I needed to be alone. Even scared.
Now, I feel like I am running, running from my troubles, running from him, hiding, when actually I should find him and finish him as I promised myself. I wanted to, I really did, but at this point Adrien is not the only thing I need to run from.
It is too much, too many things plaguing me—the heart that breaks for Niklas, my demons demanding blood, and the guilt at the thought of his ex—if it wasn’t for me, she might have been alive today. An innocent soul caught in the crossfire of these disturbing desires. Yet no matter how much I want to truly feel guilty about it, the only guilt I have is for the lack of it. More and more, I see in myself the same darkness that most likely drove my mother to her demise and I am not going to take the same path.
Connor took time off work to drive me home. It is a long way, and I am thankful he is taking me, because when Adrien kidnapped me, my wallet disappeared as well. Most likely burned to eliminate any trace that I ever existed in his life. Without a driver’s license, I cannot rent a car myself or fly or pay for any of it for that matter.
Luckily, the birth certificate I have at home will help me get them back—my license, access to my bank accounts, and my bank cards. Funny how the practicalities of life are forgotten when you get kidnapped. Connor will have to help me break into my apartment since I do not have a key anymore. You do not think about how thankful you are that your bills are on a direct debit and there is money left in your account, until you realize that without it, you might have not come back to a home at all.
“Are you ready to go?” Connor waits for me, leaning on his car on the quiet street of Bear Creek. The sun isn’t fully up yet, but since driving back home is going to take at least twelve hours, most likely split in two days, we want to set off early.
“Ready.” I hand him the small suitcase that actually belongs to him, and as I open the door to his truck, I stop to look around. The sleepy town slowly comes to life as the bird song fills the snowy streets. Lights turn on in the apartments above the small shops, the sun creeps from behind the low buildings, and the peak stands proud in the distance.
I take a deep breath and will my demons to end their useless fight as I climb in. I knew it was going to hurt, yet the agony taking over my heart in this moment is nothing like I expected.
I blink once, twice, and by the third time, the peak is getting further away from me in the rearview mirror of the car.
Agony…
NIKLAS
I never thought that being alone, trapped on my mountain, would be torturous. I never thought I would ever resent the remoteness, the silence. Yet here I am, standing on the porch, looking down the hill that holds the road covered in an impossibly thick blanket of snow.
Too much time has passed since the house has fallen into an unnatural silence. I spent too many days trying to convince myself that I don't need Suki, that it was the proximity, the attraction, or our past that made me want to break her open, feed on her beautiful mind, her depraved soul and that fucked up lust that matches mine. It was futile, and the more I thought about how hard she rejected her nature, how she rejected me, the easier it was for me to realize why it bothers me so much.
In these last two weeks alone on this mountain, I wished that caring was the only feeling that could describe what I felt about her. It isn't. It's an unnatural addiction, a sweet destruction of my soul, a burning mark on my heart which that meek four-letter word that starts with an L doesn't quite do justice.
