Page 4 of Imprisoned Obsession

The tube hangs out of her open mouth, ending her life with a messy jump in her heart rate. The green line rests peacefully as silence reaches my ears, filling me with apprehension.

Amber eyes meet mine once again. Smothering déjà vu laughs in my face as a new form of fear rushes through my veins.

Run. Run. Run.

It echoes sharply in my ears, demanding that I take action.

Once again, my body fails me.

The man calmly hooks his big hand under her bandaged chin and smoothly slides the tube back down Janice’s throat.

He doesn’t give Janice another look as he leaves her side. His confident steps equal the number of times I have stopped breathing.

The control in his massive body frames my fear like a portrait of pathetic cowardice.

The sensible part of me, the part that isn’t helplessly drawn to his suffocating power, knows I can scream for help. He won’t be able to leave without running into a nurse or a doctor. He won’t be able to hurt me, he won’t get away with killing—

I could die here at this very moment.

With a simple flex of his wrist, he could tilt my head and crush my airway. That is if he doesn’t shatter my spinal cord first.

My heart flutters when his hand twitches.

Then, his hand captures my neck. I swallow hard, wincing at the sheer strength of his fingers as he closes my airway. Struggling against his grip is futile; he only needs one hand to subdue me while my legs are stuck in the rumpled blanket.

He’s unnervingly calm. He just stares without emotion: no sadistic delight, no remorseful regret, and no hesitation.

For an alarming moment that feels like infinity, he slackens his menacing grip. However, he doesn’t let go.

The sheer force brands my skin with his fingerprints, promising a bruise will form later.

I wheeze, cough, and gasp. It hurts to breathe when he controls the amount of oxygen I can take in.

With an eerie gentleness, his hand takes a new path along my quivering jaw. Caressing the delicate curve towards my ear, he purposefully strokes the flushed skin.

When I find my voice, it’s too late to call for help.

He wrenches my head back, and a crack in my neck ricochets in my ears as he finds a harsher grip on my hair. Any hope of escape burns away with the lustrous amber of his eyes.

I think it’s going to be the last time I see something this dangerous and beautiful.

He leans down and kisses me ravenously, hungering for my quivering breath. He holds me with a hint of cruelty, coercing submission from my weakened body.

It’s not tender or romantic like I imagined my first kiss would be. It’s harsh, demanding, and utterly demeaning when his tongue slips past my teeth.

He tastes of sin and shameful indulgence.

As I flex my aching jaw, he twists my hair more violently.

The rich taste dwindles as he curls his tongue around mine. He takes and takes with no intention of giving, a pattern I have noticed whenever he looks at me.

At the burning building, when he silenced the heart monitor, and now—the fiery resolve to selfishly bring me to my knees to worship him.

Who is he?

Why’s he doing this to me?

I don’t know him, have never seen him before, and haven’t done anything to cause the burning of my home or hurting Janice.

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