Page 123 of The Ripper

How could I have missed that?

I remembered that I had suspected that Arella had grown up in an environment as crime-filled as I did, and therefore had never batted an eyelid at what I had brought her into.

That was why my life and what I was doing didn’t scare her.

That was why the only question she asked when she first patched me up was whether I was killing innocent people.

“Fuck.”

CHAPTER 24

FAITH IS FRAGILE

ARELLA

Five days.

Five fucking days in which I haven’t done anything but walk around the back yard with a book and three fully armed guards on my tail, watching my every move as if I was going to jump over the fence and run through the woods.

While I knew the wilderness surrounding the house like the back of my hand, I wasn’t going to do it, because I was highly aware of the fact that I wouldn’t have gotten far before being jumped, and probably drugged again, then brought back.

The waterfall in the woods lit up in my brain, and the cave hidden behind it. It wasn’t too far, and I could have hidden there, but Julio knew about it, because when we were teenagers, we would go there to train, and since he was our father’s little minion, he would have told him.

They watched me like vultures, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to find surveillance cameras in my own bedroom. I didn’t look for them though, precisely because I was afraid that I would find them, and I didn’t want to imagine that my father’s guards could see me every night, when I would touch myself.

The horror.

I thought about him every second, full of regrets. I thought about his face, how much I missed him, the sweet nothings he caressed my ears with, and the firm touches that made my body fly up to the highest heights of pleasure.

I should have told him everything. I should have admitted who I was and told him about my family, but I didn’t, and the thought of the possibility that I would never see him again ripped away at me like a ravenous wolf, biting out of me without tiring, cutting off my breathing and circulation.

He was looking for me.

I knew he was, and I was certain that he was desperate in his searches. I was sure that every minute was tearing him apart, taking him further and further from the gentle man he was with me. I was sure that he fell into the void and that he was pouring his helplessness on others, maybe even innocent people, but my heart only cared about the agony inside him, not at all about those who might have been at the receiving end of his rage.

I also knew he had no way of finding me, and that was going to eat at him until nothing of the man I love remained.

It hurt me to my core, because I was the cause of his ruin.

The bruises his teeth left on my skin had faded into yellowish stains, which were soon going to dissipate into nothing.

Nothing.

Exactly like my heart, which was empty without the one she beat for.

The last signs of his existence on my skin were about to disappear, but I was going to feel the needles of his touches for the rest of my cursed life.

I sat on the window seat and looked beyond the reinforced concrete fence that surrounded the residence, towards the tall hills behind the house, where the sun fell slowly, ready to hide away in order to allow the moon to reign.

My father didn’t come to talk to me today either.

It seemed like the defying behavior I displayed at his welcome home ball, the one that he threw with so much hope, disarmed him, and now he didn’t even want to see me anymore.

Tears gathered in my eyes and fell down my cheeks, warm and bitter, and I hugged my knees to my chest as the darkness slowly set in.

I craved the shadows, because in black I felt like I was his again, and I waited for nightfall everyday just so I could see his face and feel his ghostly touch again.

I knew he wasn’t there, but as the blood orange shades in the sky turned to deep violet, I could almost feel his long, strong arms embracing me, almost hear his voice, almost sense his scent in every breeze, and the memory made my skin burn as much as it made it ache.

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