Page 33 of Imprisoned Obsession

Vivid memories return like a soulless lullaby running through my mind.

Just do it, I repeat knowingly.

Step by step, good girls know what to do. Don’t talk, don’t look, and don’t think.

A stern voice from the past echoes in my head, “Hold out your hands and wait patiently, close your little fingers around the edge, and stand very still. Wait five minutes. Knick yourself, and we’ll start over until you learn to be good again.”

Do that flawlessly, and there won’t be a scorching hot knife to burn me next.

Willa is a good girl. Willa needs to be a good girl.

It’s alright to be scared, I just can’t show it. Don’t cry, crying makes pretty girls unwanted.

“Darling,” Elio murmurs.

Dreadfully haunting amber eyes probe mine; his gentleness is baffling. He smiles, hiding the evil within.

He takes a solid step back, and I follow like a lost animal. Amused approval warms his glacial eyes as he reaches out to turn on the stove.

The burner sparks and the inferno roars to life.

Catatonic terror cripples my heart.

Elio takes the sharp knife and holds the blade over the devouring flames. He stares at the tawny shade spreading across the metal. The white chocolate shavings melt, caramelize delightfully, and char the surface.

He moves the knife to eye level and contemplates it silently. I stare at his rippling tree-trunk thighs, as the tantalizing bulge twitches under my gaze.

A teardrop tumbles down my lashes and hits the ground.

“Hands,” he orders impassively.

I’m scared. I have only held a cold knife in my hand as punishment in the past. I never misbehaved badly enough to warrant a hot knife. Only naughty children got this punishment, and I was never one of them.

“Don’t anger me, little girl.”

Shakily, I open my fists. My nails have torn the thin skin on my palms and drops of blood trickle from the wounds.

Don’t say anything, just take it.

He’s already angry, and things can go very wrong. Nothing is off-limits; he’s capable of doing much worse to me than the homeowners did.

I’ll be lucky to just get a burning knife placed on my hand. If I take the burning without shaking, I won’t bleed. I don’t want to start over and have to endure the pain a second time.

“I’m not like them, darling,” he whispers crossly. “I was once like you.”

I can’t look. I’m not allowed to.

Elio tips my chin up to meet his brilliant eyes, molten amber shining as he presses the handle of the knife into my palm.

He curls his fingers around mine, pressing the rough handle against the torn skin on my palms. It’s not the edge of the knife that he wants me to hold. He wants me to feel the power those homeowners had over me.

To put me in a position of power like he has right now. It’s wishful thinking to think for a moment that Elio would voluntarily give up his control over me.

Fresh tears spill down my cheeks, soaking the pinched white line of my pursed lips. I’m crying for myself and for him.

The scars on his back are from being cut with a scorching hot knife. The homeowners are the real monsters in this.

They are the freaks who created the worst kind of monster, a child who evolved into a man with a sadistic streak.

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