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It’s been four, maybe five days, I do not know, but it feels like I have been here with Niklas for an eternity. This terrifying sense of belonging is looming inside me, and I try my best to push it back every time it moves closer to the surface.
When he lifts the hoodie from my thigh, uncovering one of my ugliest scars, I realize that I have not thought about them since he brought me here. Maybe it is because of the trauma, maybe I am clinging onto this new reality, trying to erase my old one… Maybe it is the terrifying sense of belonging that distracted me, but when Niklas acknowledges it, it all hits me at once… just like that branding iron did months ago.
I hoped the memory would fade… but it burns just as hot as it did that day…
I cried… I cried for weeks…
I cried when he stripped me naked and took every piece of fabric away from me…
I cried when he tied me up for the first time and hit the back of my body with a belt almost a hundred times…
I cried when he left me there… bleeding and tied up… until the next day…
I cried when he tied me up for days and made me sit in my own filth…
I cried the first time his filthy dick ripped through my unwilling core…
I cried the first time his dick made me throw up as it hit the back of my throat…
And then I stopped crying… No matter what he did, my mind went somewhere far, far away like the victims you read about, developing a split personality to cope with their abuse. I never understood the science behind that until those moments. I wasn’t quite at that point, my emotional side was, but my body felt every lash, every blow, every thrust inside of me. Unfortunately, the lack of tears proved to be a mistake because, as I found out later, that’s what he craved… my tears…
One day, as I saw him come into the room where my dungeon was, my mind was already traveling to that place where it was safer. However, he had something new up his sleeve and nothing could have prepared me for it.
In that darkness, I never saw it before—the old stone fireplace in the corner of the room, outside my dungeon. He lit it and with its warmth radiating through the cold stone dungeon, he managed to pull me out from the place I hid inside my mind.
I thought he was doing something nice for once… I thought… it doesn’t matter, I thought wrong. Because I missed something else as I was distracted by the warmth I have not felt in weeks, I missed the branding iron he held in his hand… I missed how he warmed it up in the flames of the fireplace… I missed how he stalked towards the door to my dungeon…
The key in the lock pulled me out of the warm place I was enjoying. The hot red end of the branding iron made me throw up instantly.
That was the first time I found out that what he wanted from me above all else were tears of pure, unhinged pain… he got them that day… and every day since.
I blink and I realize I am not in the dungeon anymore. I also realize my voice is raw.
Have I spoken all those words out loud?
I am shaking and Niklas’ large hands are holding my upper arms, holding me together in a moment I think I could quite literally fall apart limb by limb.
“Suki…” his voice is laced with pain and a new fury. The fire in his eyes burns hotter than ever before and it fuels mine. My demons howl in response, singing heathen songs and dancing around the fire.
Slow tears run down my cheeks, and I am not even sure why I am crying. Is it pain? Is it trauma? Is it… relief?
“Suki…” he says my name again, his voice stronger, laced with an emotion I cannot quite understand, but its impact is strong… and I break.
I cry… I cry so hard I feel the wooden floor shaking under me. I hear the birds flying away from the trees. I feel my mind trembling with the aftershocks of an earthquake no one could have predicted. The next second he pulls me to his chest, and I feel like I could suffocate from his huge body encircling me. I am completely surrounded by him and I hold on for dear life, my small hands clutching the sides of his body as my tears soak his t-shirt.
And I cry.
I cry for the pain I have been through. I cry for my broken soul. I cry for the stupid girl I was when Adrien caught me. I cry in relief that I will never, ever be in that situation again—in the arms of this stranger… I know that for sure.
And when the tears are finally gone, here on this porch, wrapped tight by the man that gave me what I needed without even asking, I make a vow.
Adrien’s beating heart will be mine, and I will burn it as he watches.
The crying stops, and as Niklas pulls away from my body I take a breath that reaches deeper and deeper as he moves further away from me, still clutching my upper arms. And when that breath fills my lungs completely and my eyes close, I swear… I can feel them, every single shard, every piece of my soul that was scattered around this mountain, being melded back together by the fire burning stronger inside me.
I am not my old self anymore. No, I am starting to become something else, something else entirely.
And when I open my eyes to find Niklas staring at me, his strained and confused gaze shifts instantly. It turns evil, monstrous, satisfied—and he smiles.
He fucking smiles. And it is beautiful.
