Page 50 of Slaughter

I take a deep breath to calm my nerves. “Let me go, Avery.”

“No.”

“You fucking hate me!” I shout, my lungs burning. “Why keep me here?”

“I have my reasons,” he responds simply.

I grind my teeth in frustration. And my eyes fall to the IV in my arm. Without thought, I yank it out and rip the covers back before I jump out of bed. The room sways, and my vision blurs, and I feel lightheaded. I blink a few times and place my left hand out to grab the nightstand, but it just slides across, and I fall to my knees. Dots form, and my head spins.

“You had some blood loss.” I hear Avery’s voice off in the distance. “Cutting yourself open and almost bleeding to death will do that to you. Plus the fact that you fell and hit your head on the corner of the tub. Knocking yourself out in the process.”

“Fuck you,” My head pounds, and blood rushes in my ears.

“I think you’ve fucked yourself, Bunny,” he says, and I can hear the amusement in his words.

I hang my head in defeat while I kneel on the bedroom floor. My hands fist the red rug, and I rock back and forth, trying to think of a way out. An escape. I won’t allow him to keep me here like this as if I’m nothing to him. As if I was always nothing to him.

Is this how he always saw me? Had I been so blinded by my love for him that I didn’t realize he never saw me as a person? Fresh tears fall down my face at that thought.

“You’re thinking too much.” He interrupts my thoughts. “You’re here because I want you here, Bunny. And that’s all that matters.”

I swallow a sob that threatens to come out. “I don’t belong to you.” My voice is rough, and I clear my throat. “I never did.” Just saying those words has my heart beating faster.

I hear the ice in his glass clink, letting me know he’s taking a drink. “That’s right,” he says in a clipped tone. “You never were mine, Presleigh.” Hatred rolls off his words at the sound of my name. “But you pretended so well back then. I have faith you can do it again.”

He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He knows fucking nothing!

“Or you can continue to fight me along the way.” He chuckles. “I find that I like you better like this than the fake bitch who pretended to love me back then.”

I can’t take it anymore—the way he speaks as if everything we had, the future we were building meant nothing to me—so I change the subject. “How long?” I finally ask. He stays silent. “How long am I here for, Avery?” I snap.

I hear the leather creak as he stands from the chair. Then I see his tennis shoes in front of me. I look up, and he is smiling down at me. He likes it like this. Me on my knees. Him standing tall and all powerful.

“Until I decide I’m done with you.”

I bare my teeth at him. “I’ll fight you. I’ll make you wish you’d just kill me.” A tear runs down my cheek in frustration.

“No, Bunny. You’re gonna wish I killed you.”

I don’t flinch at his words, but the tone causes my chest to tighten. I stay on my knees and bow my head again, unable to look at him anymore.

He bends down, picking me up by my upper arm. His fingers dig into the bruises already left from his belt, but I refuse to let him know he’s hurting me. Instead of placing me on the bed like I think he’s going to, he pulls me toward the bathroom. And then he turns on the water in the bathtub. Blood is smeared over the porcelain. My blood.

“Get in,” he orders, and I do as he commands. He might as well have a chain around my neck because there’s no fighting him. He’s proven that.

I sit down, and he leaves the bathroom, coming back with a towel and washcloth. He bends down beside me while the warm water fills the cold tub. “What did you do with the washcloth that was in the tub with you?” he asks.

I look away from him. He grabs my chin and yanks my face back to his. Dark blue eyes glare into mine. “I asked you a question.”

I still refuse to answer.

“Do you like being gagged, Bunny? Is that why you stuck in it your mouth?”

Motherfucker!

He must have watched the tape. In my decision to cut myself open and rip out my tracker, I had forgotten cameras were in here.

He gets my attention as he wads up the washcloth in his hand. “Open your mouth.”

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