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“Please. You know how I feel about you. I love you. I respect you. I would die for you if I could do it in some faster way. But I can’t do it like this. You have to release me before I’m too broken to exist outside of you.”
He closed the distance between them and stroked the side of her face. In spite of herself, she pressed closer against the warmth of his hand.
“You can relax. We passed that point a long time ago. I felt it the day you broke in my hands.”
He was probably right, but knowing that window had already slammed shut didn’t bring her any solace.
Saskia glanced around the gallery at what remained of her paintings adorning the walls. She’d created her best work with him—her only work that counted as anything more than mimicry. They were each their best when they were together... artistically at least. Outside the art, they were a tangled mess destroying each other. And it only grew more perverse the longer it went on. Couldn’t he see that?
Quill turned and strode out of the gallery, the doors clanging behind him in a deafening finality that echoed along the walls. Saskia went after him, reaching for the handle to follow him out, but the lock turned before she could pull it open.
“No!” She pounded on the door. “You let me out, you fucking monster! I fucking hate you!”
She slid to the ground, her ear pressed against the wood, listening for the outer door that would signal he’d left her. But there was no clanging outer door—just a silence that was everything but empty.
She felt pressure push back against the wood, and heard a sliding sound and a soft thump, and she realized Quill sat on the ground on the other side, wrinkling his nice suit.
She pressed her cheek against the door. This locked door was always between them, even when it wasn’t. He wouldn’t let her in, yet he wouldn’t let her go. Would she always be in the gallery, frozen in this limbo?
“Saskia...” There was a long pause while he seemed to gather his thoughts. When he continued, the words were broken, filled with more emotion than she’d ever heard from him, more emotion than he ever would have let her witness without the door as a buffer between them. “I know I’ve destroyed you... I know... I’m fucked up. And I’m not going to stop. You can’t rehabilitate me. Your love can’t change me. I’m going to just keep pushing you and pushing you until there’s nothing left. I know you hate me... and I don’t blame you.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“You said it. You said you loved me. And you said you hated me. Which is it?”
“Both.”
“You want me to let you go. What will you do if I let you go?”
Die.
“Just let mein,” Saskia said instead. “I can’t stand it out here in the gallery at night anymore. Please. If you aren’t letting me go, why can’t I really be with you? In the main house. In your room. Please, just let me stay with you.”
How had she gone from wanting to escape him to just wanting to be closer to him? Like a child that announces he’s running away from home because his wishes aren’t being fulfilled only to return in time for dinner.
Quill was so right. She’d already broken apart. There was nothing left to run from or to. Nothing to try to save or salvage. The only thing left was the relief of surrender.
There was a long silence, and she wondered if he was still out there or if he’d abandoned her yet again.
“You will sleep in the cage,” he said, his voice back to the cold indifference she’d grown uncomfortably used to.
“I-in your room?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” At least it waswithhim. “Will I be able to stay in there with you permanently?”
There was a long pause, and she was afraid she’d pushed him too far, that he might take back what he’d just promised.
“Unless you’re being punished for something, yes.”
“C-can we go now? To your room now?” She looked back at the paintings on the gallery walls, convinced she saw some sign of hostile jealousy in them.
“Yes,” he said.
The door opened abruptly, and Saskia tumbled backward. Quill towered over her in the doorway, that hard look back in his eyes. He held out a hand, and she took it and allowed him to help her up off the ground. He pulled her against him, closing his arms around her. It was a clawing clinging vise, not an embrace, not a give and take. There was no trust in the movement. Only fear and possession.
Saskia felt his self-loathing in the way he held her. He believed he deserved to be abandoned, and the only way forward was to capture and imprison what he wanted to hold onto. Even if he’d never admit he wanted to hold onto her.
