Page 77 of To Have and to Hold

The Skull’s foot caught the small of my back and had me falling flat. With effort, I slid farther away, still toward the door, but this time on more of a wide angle.

He grunted, wet sucking sounds coming from his mouth and moments of strain that told me he was attempting to right himself. Once he was on his feet, he’d want to end me. There were no doubts on that anymore. There was also no chance of me surviving another assault, and in this tiny space, he’d find me in a matter of seconds.

Don’t panic.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I said. My mouth was so close to the floor my lips brushed concrete. At first, I was facing away from him but in one painful, mind-blurring twist, I rolled to my other side. Even in pitch black I didn’t want my back to him. The door, propped open, offered a meager slant of light, pale yellow and weak. It brushed across his shoulder, down his torso, a thin pencil-line of gold tracing the black. His cheek shone with streaks across the rippling skin, light becoming expensive marble on a face. His eye was a hollow crescent hidden in the dark.

“You’re apologizing.” A weak, guttural laugh followed. “For deliberately aiming to disfigure my face.”

His voice was distorted, like his tongue had grown two sizes, but it was intelligible. I tried to remember, with the lightning images I had, where my tiny bomb had gotten him. The side of the face, I thought, the ear and head. Maybe one eye. It was amazing he could talk, but the hooded sweatshirt and scarf must have protected his mouth somewhat. Sickness encircled me when I had a moment of wondering if most of my fire hit the floor and not him.

“You’ve…kept me here against my will, messed with my mind, attempted to control me. It was the least I could do.”

“Sass,” the Skull grunted. “I thought I’d smacked the last of that out of you.”

“We’re both injured, neither of us can move very fast. Or far. Call a hospital.” I added, “If not for me, at least for yourself. You must be in a lot of pain.”

“So you can scream your bloody head off until someone notices you? I think not.” The Skull faltered, coughing, then letting out a thick cry as the movements coursed through his wounds. “I’d rather die here with you than have you discovered.”

“Why is it so important for you to keep me?” I asked.

A moment passed where I thought he’d fallen unconscious. No sounds escaped him—no damp breaths or clogged yelps. Was he dead?

“I thought you were…pretty,” he said at last. “I wanted you for…my own.”

“Liar. The one thing you haven’t done is touch me.”

“…Is that an invitation?” he muttered weakly.

I gripped onto courage as if it were a tangible ball in my palms. “If that was what you wanted, you would’ve done it the instant you took me. Instead, you played games, whittled away at my mind. Still are, even though your best option is to get some help. But you’d rather suffer than have it be known what you’ve done.”

“I’m not…finished yet.”

“Look at you. You can’t even stand.”

“Neither can you.”

I bared my teeth. Distract. “This is what failure looks like. And by all appearances, this is going to be the last thing you get to remember before you answer to death. So well done, sir. Despite your planning and opportunity and the perfect chance to kidnap me, despite your arrogance and your surety that you’d succeed, you gave me the tools to end you. To think a pack of gum and some batteries turned your face into a puddle.”

Now move. One quiet slide forward at a time.

The Skull seemed to find some rage. “I meant for you to suffer and I think I’ve done that job just fine. And those around you will forever chase their tails because they will never figure out the one reason why I wanted you in the first place. You are going to rot in here and your family will never know. Your fiancé—whichever one that is, I can’t keep track—will never marry you. You will never have children of your own. You will be scarred, damaged, and so mentally simplistic because you’ll forget what clothes feel like. You are my animal, Emme. A pet I get to treat as I desire, and I will get out of here, but you won’t. I will keep you in chains in this room. I will have you sleeping in your own shit. Your nightmares contain my mask. You scream at the thought of me while I’m turned on by the fact that I get to wrap my fingers around your throat any time I want. Right now. Tomorrow. A week from now. You’re mine. Do you hear me?”

I didn’t answer.

“Do you hear me?”

Still, no answer came.

“Where are you?”

His howls rose to a crescendo, followed by his struggles to move.

I slid faster, as fast as my strength could take me, across the floor. Different now, a varnished concrete. I squinted as the furniture took form, as the stairs came into view.

“Emme!”

I was halfway through the next room.

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