Page 51 of Under Fyre

Days go by in a haze. I only leave the bed to bathe or to eat. Fyre goes to collect wood, make us food, take Arrow for walks. But we spend every other moment entwined on that massive bed, making the springs creak, going through every clean sheet.

Fyre makes more videos.

He takes photos.

I don’t know how, but I start enjoying it. Fyre, fucking me brutally, repeatedly. I pose. I act. But not always. Sometimes it’s real.

The pain is always real, sometimes the fear too.

We stop when I get my period. At first, Fyre thinks he broke me. That he tore me up with his fat cock. But I set him straight.

Eventually.

After so many days cloistered in the bedroom, we break our sojourn by going for a walk—me, Fyre, and Arrow.

Sunlight glares off the snow until we make our way into the shadowy trees. Fyre takes Arrow off the leash and she bounds through the snow like a puppy.

We hold hands, and it feels right.

It feels fucking perfect.

We walk like that for the longest time, and I’ve never been happier in my life.

Then a gunshot echoes in the distance, and everything changes.

My heart pounds, my hand gripping Fyre’s. “Was that…?”

“A hunter,” Fyre murmurs, flicking away my hand and draping his arm over my shoulder instead. “It is hunting season.”

He laughs, but I can’t shake the sudden dark feeling settling over me.

A single gunshot.

How could that ruin everything? How could that tear apart the cocoon of joy and love we’d wrapped ourselves in?

I try to stop thinking about it, and I must succeed, because I’ve completely forgotten about that gunshot a few days later.

Dear God, how I wish I hadn’t.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Fyre

I’m a sinner. Far from perfect. Mistakes I’ve made still echo through my life, like the ripples on a toxic, stagnant pool.

I act too impulsively. That is my curse.

I create plans, but abandon them halfway through, certain that I’m wasting time. That there’s a better solution.

Why did I bring Charlotte to this cabin?

Because I thought she’d be safe. That the change of scenery would jump-start her rehabilitation.

What did we end up doing?

Fucking ourselves into a coma.

I thought sending those pictures of Charlotte to one mod of the White Lily chat room was a brilliant idea. That they’d immediately make me a member, welcome me with open arms, drop their guises, and send me pins to their exact locations so we could hook up and talk about how much sexual gratification we receive from victimizing children.

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