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“No...” he laughs, wiping his lips with his fingers, smirking down at me. “You haven't gotta be sorry.” He's still laughing, trying to swallow down his sandwich. “I've had plenty of women,” he explains, but says he couldn't be bothered to make the effort with them. “I work all the time so I don't have time to fuck about with women.”
I incline a brow at him.
“Except from you, but you're different.” He winks at me, polishing off the rest of his sandwich by popping it in his mouth.
I look away from him, my cheeks warming up.
Gathering the dirty dishes, I drop them into the sink, then I wipe down the sides.
His words are like a mantra in my head:I don't have time to fuck about with women—except from you.Why am I so flattered by that?
“Blaire...” he says my name after a while of silence, and when I peer up at him, I find he's giving me an unusually cautious stare.
“What?” I shove the butter and the salad bits away in the fridge.
“Iwant toask you something-” he says, then he pauses for a moment, chewing the inside of his mouth, “-but if you don'twant totalk about it, then that's okay. Just say.”
Crossing my arms, I rest back against the kitchen counter.
He crosses his arms too. “You said you don't remember meeting Maksim, nor do you have any memories of being young-”
My eyebrows draw together.
“-What's your earliest memory?”
My frown intensifies. “That's a bit random, Charlie.”
For the past few weeks, he's not so much as mentioned my past, and now he wants to know what my earliest memory is?
He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “I've been meaning to ask you for a while now but I don’twant tomake you feel uncomfortable. You seem relaxed with me now.”
He's noticed... Fuck, that's so humiliating. I don’t want him to know that I’m comfortable around him. It gives him all the power.
“Do you mind telling me?” he asks, holding my gaze with trained enthusiasm. “I'd like to know.”
“Um...” I run my teeth across my top lip. “I guess.”
I don't answer his question right away. I'm not shying away from it, which is bizarre to my nature. I'm actually digging into my thoughts so I can explain myself to him. I want to explain myself to him. I want him to know me—or, I want him to know what Maksim will be okay with him knowing.
What I recall isn't a memory, per se. It's more of a feeling. A feeling of coldness and total darkness—claustrophobia—and absolute quietness for long periods of time. There's also this damp smell that I can never escape in my dreams. I tell Charlie this, laughing uneasily. “I don't really remember much before I was thirteen, and what I do isn't exactly clear enough to say it's a memory.”
Silence. He looks puzzled with my answer.
“What isn't clear?” he asks, tipping his head.
I glance down, then back up at him. “I can't tell you that.”
He nods a few times, understanding my unspoken words. “Are those memories like the feelings you remember? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.”
I take a moment so I can find the words, but all I come up with is, “They're sort of like those feelings, though fuzzier.” I won't elaborate more than that because all those unsure 'memories' have something to do with Maksim and how he conditioned me. From what I can gather, I was drugged up and forced to endure sleep deprivation for extensive stretches of time—the objective was to ensure my mind was open. During these times, images and videos would flash through my mind, images of a girl protecting her lover, slaying man after man and woman after woman. The first time I saw those things I was petrified. They never stopped filtering through my mind's eye until I could control my heart rate, as Maksim's voice would tell me. When I could control my heart rate and my fears, I was allowed to sleep, but only to Maksim's voice... to his promises and the promises he made me commit to... the constant reminder that I fear nothing but Maksim's safety; that I live to worship and protect him.
Then there was the pain. Most of all the aches and pain. The stretched out feeling of hanging from my arms. Being drowned in cold water while my hands and feet were in scorching hot water. Electric shocks that made my entire body spasm with agony. Beltings.
It all sounds so sadistic, even to myself as I recall the... 'memories', but it's not. It made me who I am now; a fearless combatant.
“Don't you think that's strange?” Charlie says softly, glowering with confusion. “How you can't remember much?”
I shrug with indifference. “What isn't strange about how I grew up?”
