Page 23 of Love Set Free

I try to count the thundering beats of my heart to judge just how long I’ve been pressing down on her neck. I need to make sure… If I let up too soon… Fuck, if she was pissed at me before, that’s nothing to how pissed she’ll be if she recovers because I don’t actually kill her.

I press and press my forearm into her neck. Until there’s not a single, solitary twitch or flutter of her of eyelids. Until there’s no more up and down motion of her chest as she breathes. Until her body is limp and lifeless underneath me.

And then I press down for a minute or two…or five…more.

When I’m all but absolutely, positively certain that I’ve successfully killed her, I cautiously let up and slowly pull my arm back.

And I wait. Watchful. Distrustful. Ready to relaunch my attack and go back to choking her if she makes any sort of movement whatsoever. For any hint of oxygen being sucked back into her lungs. Any sign at all that there’s still life flowing through her veins.

But…nothing. There’s nothing.

She’s…dead. She’s dead.

I killed her.

It’s done.

She’s dead.

Chapter Fourteen

Jackson

Jesus fucking Christ. If Phoenix doesn’t give me some sort of answer about what the holy fuck is going on… I’m going to completely lose my shit. Just watch me.

“Out? What are you… Phoenix? What’s going on? I know Rodriguez was in the room with us and I heard everything she said. What’s… Where’s Rodriguez? What did you do, Phoenix?”

Ugh! Jesus. Why isn’t he answering me? I really kind of fucking want to know what the hell is going on in that room outside this goddamn fucking box.

Phoenix’s voice sounds…off,as he replies, “Just…a little. More. Time. Babe. Patience, m’kay?”

Patience? Really? Sure, I’ll just show a little fucking patience as I wait for him to give me a goddamn clue as to what the fuckinghellis going on.

And babe? That’s…new.

He’s slipped a ‘sweetheart’ or two at me before now. But “babe”? That’s… How do I feel about him calling me babe? For that matter, why do I feel perfectly okay with him calling me sweetheart?

I don’t have a vast well of people in my past that would’ve landed in pet-name-calling territory and those that might’ve… Yeah, none of them are guys. The various fellow males in my life, if you could consider me having any sort of relationship with them, was of the bro-I-go-to-school-with or bro-I-work-with level of friendship. I’d definitely never been around a guy who voiced any sort of sentiment for me that might go past simple fondness for another dude.

Until now…until Phoenix…I probably would’ve thought it was weird. Having another man casually call me babe and sweetheart. But when he does it…I think I like it. At least, I certainly don’t hate it. Or even want him to stop doing it.

But all of that’s gonna have to be something I unpack later. Much later. For now...

Fuck, I for sure thought my days of not being able to see shit were over after Phoenix had untied the blindfold from around my eyes. But goddamn it, whatever’s going down between Phoenix and Rodriguez is going down somewhere past the left side of my box. There aren’t any decent gaps or holes for me to look through on that side of the box. And no matter how I try to twist or turn my head, I can’t get a good angle to see anything important out of the one good-sized hole on the front of my box.

A diluted-iced-tea-brown wall, with layers and layers of spray paint marring its surface, which is about all I can see as I’m straining to see anything through the hole, tells me jack shit. I mean, it does tell me that we’re no longer in the cement crumbling-fortress of the former industrial factory that had been my prison for these past several weeks. But it doesn’t give a very good clue as to where we are now or what the heck is going on immediately outside my box.

I’m not prepared for the appearance of Phoenix’s flushed face directly in front of the small, rectangular, broken opening in the box and I instinctively flinch away. But I quickly scooch back,reaching with my hand out of the box, wanting to make contact with Phoenix, who is looking sweaty and rumpled in addition to the vibrant pink staining his cheeks.

“What…”

“Shh.” Phoenix doesn’t let me get the rest of my question out. Instead, he hushes me while grabbing onto my hand, bringing it to his face, and pressing his heated cheek against it. “We’re going to have to move quickly now, okay?” I open my mouth to spill forth all the questions that are burbling away inside me, but Phoenix still doesn’t let me get a word out, quickly adding, “I need you to listen to me and just do what I say. Alright? Can you do that for me, sweetheart? We don’t have time for questions or to talk about it. I just need you to do what I say, when I say it.”

If I have any particular skill with any one thing, it’s following instructions without asking questions. So, I nod my understanding and wait for whatever his first instruction is going to be.

“Thank you.”

Despite him saying that whatever came next, we’d have to do it quickly, Phoenix’s eyes flutter closed and he’s silent for several moments, continuing to rest his cheek in the cradle of my hand.

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