Page 6 of To Hell

He wears his scars in a way that makes me unashamed to have mine. He wears them beautifully. And he is beautiful.

I drop my eyes, then flutter my lashes to send the thought back to wherever it came from.

More silence.

Deafening. Brain-screeching. Mind-chugging.

We stay breathing, and with each breath I draw, I feel like clawing at my skin because of how the silence crawls on me.

“Food will come,” his voice is the same as everything about him. Black. Only this time it feels the same as molten, still retaining the heat but clogged already from the absence of fire.

It makes me shiver. He makes me shiver.

“Eat and go to bed, it’s been a long night,” he turns to leave, but I catch up quickly.

“Please, music,” I shrink as I feel his eyes on me, and I don’t wait for him to ask why, “I can’t sleep without noise, please,” I explain anyway. “Master?” It’s a question because I don’t know what he would want to be addressed as yet.

“Alexa,” he thrums, the timbre ricocheting in my clattering bones, “Play something… classical.”

A sound booms through invisible speakers, and I shudder, darting around searching for it. Then the music comes. Classical is my favorite.

Tears swell in my chest and mound my eyes as the song fills the room.

“Tell Alexa whatever you want to listen to,” he spins and struts with glacial steps out of the bedroom that is supposed to be mine.

I sit on the floor, pulling my knees to my chest as the soft harmony forms a bubble wrap around my worn-thin frame. I feel like a fabric that has been overworn and patched too many times, and at any point, I will turn chafed between the hard crush of fingers.

I drop my head on my knees and hug myself, marking this position as mine because I’m not leaving this spot. Everything else feels too good to be real.

He feels too good to be real.

But more than that, he feels familiar. Like the missing piece from the center of a puzzle. Like something I’m missing. Like someone I’m missing.

He might be a good thing—the first in fifteen years.

He might be the worst thing to happen to me yet.

Chapter Four

VIRGILIO

“Like this?” I try to set my foot in front of the other and do a pose I had spent the entire night perfecting for her shoot.

“What are you doing, Virgilio?” Zoe chuckles, dropping the camera, and then pouts at me. “Where did you even learn to do that?”

I shrug, trying to act like a natural—like I have not almost slipped and sprained my ankles, practicing being the perfect model for her all night long. Zoe needed the shoot for her entry into Moore’s fashion contest, and I’m her model.

“I can do this too,” I assume a defiant stance as I cross my arms over my chest and lift my chin. I'm trying for her sake, but ifanybody were to seeme, they would thinkI looked like a caricature.

She laughs this time. “Oh, no,” she shakes her head. “Tell me you didn’t spend last night practicing these poses?”

I can lie, but instead, I just keep mute and maybe pout a little.

When she told me she needed a model, I felt I could do it. I would just stand in front of the camera and wait for her to take pictures of me.

But with time, I started to see the dedication she put into her work, and I didn’t want to be the reason she wasn’t chosen.

Her designs are perfect. The only thing that can hinder her is me, if I don’t model them right.

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