Page 60 of Blackmailed to the Altar

“In here,” she called back.

Her voice echoed from the bathroom in our wing of the villa, and I jogged over, wanting to get this over with, noting all the candles lining the way. She didn’t even need the lights on, therewere that many marking the way to her. Roses were strewn on the floor, as well.

“What the hell is all of this?” I asked, looking around the room. I felt like I’d walked out of my reality, and stepped into a horrible mockery of it instead.

She stood in the middle of the room, wearing a short, white sundress, her hair loose, just like I liked it. “I wanted us to talk, and I have a special night planned.”

I backed away from her. She knew exactly what my weaknesses were, and I needed to stay away from temptation. She was the most manipulative woman I’d ever met, and I would not fall back under her spell.

“We broke up, Amelia. There is no special night. The only reason I am here tonight is because I want you to stop calling me, stop texting me, stop showing up at my work. You think my parents are going to be persuaded to save this arrangement? They don’t care about you. Just like me. We. Are. Done.” I said the words slowly and concisely, hoping they sank in this time.

“It was only one time, Sebastian. She meant nothing to me,” Amelia pouted. She ignored everything else I’d said to her. For fuck’s sake.

“I’m sick of this, Amelia. Male or female, stepping out of our agreement without permission is cheating. I told you from the jump that’s not what I want in a partner. I told you not to bother, if you couldn’t accept those terms. Yet you still broke the agreement, time and time again. There is no us; you stomped all over it.” I turned on my heel to walk away. It was stupid to even try to have a conversation with her.

She truly believed cheating on me with women didn’t count. She said any other man would be happy to share her with another woman, but I wasn’t any other man. I didn’t fucking share. She’d trampled all over everything we had, our love. I was done pretending.

A crash from behind stopped me at the entrance of the room. I turned around to see Amelia had thrown a glass trinket at my head, and it had exploded on the wall next to me.

“Don’t you walk away from me, Sebastian.” Everything in her reach turned into a projectile, as I dodged flying items, attempting to back out of the room.

“Arjun was right about you!” she screamed, as she threw some shoes and kept following me. She called me every name in the book, curses flying like her rage.

I tripped on the bottom stair when she uttered that haunting phrase.

“Do you smell smoke?”

At first, I thought she was playing another game with me. She rushed up the stairs, back into the room we had just left, and screamed, “Sebastian!”

That wasn’t faked. I took the stairs, two at a time, to see the flames had spread. “We can’t put this out. Let’s go,” I told her.

“We have to, it’s my house,” Amelia cried. She was just fanning the flames.

“Even in a fire, you’re a crazy bitch. This isn’t your house.” I grabbed her arm and started to drag her out of the room, but the fire was on our heels. The smoke made it hard to see, and I couldn’t find the stairs, and Amelia was lagging behind.

Had the hallway always been this long? Did my parents get out? Did the servants? I wasn’t sure of anything as we stumbled along, coughing and wheezing.

I fell over before I reached the stairs, flames and smoke licking the ceiling above us. I crawled onward, realizing Amelia wasn’t behind me anymore. Just as I turned around to look for her, a beam cracked above me, falling across the hall, and separating us.

She was screaming my name, but I didn’t look back at her. I couldn’t save her, but I had to get myself out before this becamemy tomb. A small piece of the ceiling fell on me. I was knocked to the ground, and could feel the searing pain all along my body.

Get up, I begged myself.

Nothing moved, and the burns became deeper.

Get the fuck up, I demanded of my body.

I could smell my flesh in the air. A feeling of power rushed through my body, and I managed to pick myself back off the floor. My hands were terribly burned and stuck to the knob.

I screamed as I pulled my hand away, the flesh pulling like cheese from the handle. I threw open the doors, and the rush of oxygen made everything exponentially worse. A loud boom came from behind me, and the world shuddered as I went flying through the night air.

“Sebastian!” I heard my name being yelled over the roar of the flames, as my broken body laid starfished on the grass.

“Sebastian! Sebastian!”

“My mind fractured that night, knowing my family was screaming for me in the flames, until their voices went silent,” I clarified.

“Is that when you became…?” Mya’s hushed tone was like she was worried she was going to spook me.

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