Page 21 of Repossess My Heart

His growl sounds from the doorway, one it takes me a moment to realize came from him before he spins on his heel, “It’s not a fucking game!” My heart flutters at the sudden intensity consuming his eyes.

The rage…

A yelp leaves me as he stalks towards me. I don’t even have a chance to back up before he captures my wrist in a punishing hold. He whirls towards the far wall, jerking me along behind him. Each movement is wild, rushed, but smooth and deadly all the same. I watch with wide eyes as the wall parts revealing the depths of his insanity. Pain erupts in my wrist as he jerks it at an odd angle, shoving me forward, right in front of rows and rows of…eyes. I want to scream, whimper in pain, but I don’t. My unsteady breath fogging the glass container closest to me. The orbs perfectly preserved, suspended there.

“You forget who…whatI am, Reverie. This isn’t some fucking game I play when I’m bored. Your eyes are wrong. Empty. They can’t be fucking empty when I kill you or it won’t-“ his words cut off abruptly as I rip my eyes away from the preservation jars. Thousands of eyes… floating in clear liquid, but they all look empty to me. Dead and soulless. Like hers did when CeCe carried her through the door. He doesn’t continue his chest heaving, giving me my first real glimpse of the frustration he’s been feeling…

Because of me.

He frowns for a moment before washing the confusion from his features.

He doesn’t know why.

“So, you need my eyes to look like theirs before you’ll kill me.” It’s not a question, more a statement I needed to say out loud to grasp the insanity of it.

“Can’t you see it, sweetling? How beautiful they are? All that fear… that misery.”

My eyes slide back to his…collection,searching each pair for a hint of emotion, “Nine… I don’t see anything.”

He huffs, “Of course not, there’s something wrong with you.”

I frown for once… I’m not the problem, but I keep my mouth shut. No point in arguing with a crazy person. We’re silent for a beat, my brain rambling through every terrible option I have before settling on one that makes my stomach feel ill.

“Then… give me to someone else. There’s plenty of other people to fill your collection.” My gut churns again at the thought, but I keep going. Letting the words leave me despite everything in me screaming stop. Screaming that Nine feels like the one… the only one I want to do it.

Fuck, there is something so terribly wrong with me.

With us.

I get less than half a gasp out before his mechanical hand closes on my throat. He’s not squeezing hard, just holding it there. Even then the ache bleeds from the bruises, “No. I need them. Your eyes are beautiful. Almost as beautiful as hers was, I need them to be perfect. They can’t be like the other one, I couldn’t keep those. I have to keep yours.”

Hers? The other one?

My hands fly up to my neck as I work my fingers between the bruised flesh and the hard unyielding metal of his hand. “You’re going to get in trouble, killed even for a stupid pair of eyes.”

I stare up at him, his own glacier blue eyes trained on a jarred pair in the very middle, one that has a familiar icy blue hue. Almost identical to his.

What the fuck?

He doesn’t respond, his eyes unfocused, staring at that jar, lost to something I can’t see. I let my weight settle against his. Staring at his collection while hunger gnaws at my stomach and a heavy sense of dread settles on my chest. Weighing it down like wet cement.

Nine

“You’re doing it again.”

My head snaps down to Michael, my eyes avoiding his mangled face. Wishing it didn’t always look like that.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m always happy to see my big brother, but why is it always here… with her?” I don’t miss the tension in his voice. The resentment he always felt for mom. He never… got old enough to understand how hard she tried. That she was every bit a victim of our circumstances as we were. His eyes remain cold on the scene ahead, deepening my frown.

“She should’ve kept her damn mouth shut-“

“Michael.” I interrupt him as my hands clench at my sides. My grip tightening each time she screams.

“You’re not focused. It’s been a long time since it’s been this bad… why?”

“I don’t know.” I keep my eyes down, away from them like always.

“Michael! Please, please don’t touch him. He’s a child! Please God!” Mom begs.

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