Page 36 of Tainted Serenity

My gaze focuses on the wall in front of me, the movie appearing to be a live feed. The camera captures everything in the darkened room as if it has night vision. A foreboding washes over me, that gut instinct returning and telling me something is utterly wrong. It’s like a potent emotion I could physically touch, reach out with my fingers, and grab ahold of. My eyes never waver from the wall, trying to figure out what this feeling is as my heart pounds harder the longer I stare.

Then, my eyes catch sight of a moving figure, someone tossing and turning around in bed. My breathing pauses while I hold myself perfectly still.

Under the pink duvet covers lay a woman, and I automatically lean forward as if that would give me a better chance at seeing who.

Chestnut hair cascades across the pillow beside her body; those navy blue ends that I have dragged my fingers through many times as I enveloped myself in the lovely scent of her.

My fists clench, and my chest physically tightens with unshed emotions. A sense of enchantment washes over me. She lies there, so goddamn beautiful and perfect, like the epitome of Sleeping Beauty. Her chest softly rises and falls, those pert breasts underneath the covers following the act. An uncontrollable need makes me have to restrain myself, needing to hold her in my arms for fear that my sanity will deteriorate if I don’t.

She is alive.

She’s fine, and she’s alive, and that is all that matters.

The relief that washes over me is quickly swept away by an even bigger wave as I stare at her sleeping frame. Within just a few seconds, her calm state turns into despair as her eyebrows draw together, worry etched across her face. Without hearing anything, I know she’s whimpering, and this time it’s not because I caused her pleasure. She is having a nightmare, and I am forced to watch her suffer while not being able to do anything.

This is another kind of torture.

“Poor Naya is having a nightmare.”

I can practically hear the smirk in his voice, and the urge to fucking kill him becomes stronger. If only to do justice to both her and myself.

My little doll.

She turns, allowing me a better look at her, and my heart swirls again with beastly insects wreaking havoc inside of me. It’s like I’m a virgin teenage boy all over again, crushing on the girl he can never get while desperately dreaming, hoping, fucking craving.

Those beautiful freckles that are scattered across her cheeks are more visible now through the camera, and I long to kiss them again. A craving fills me, one so deep it could send me into ruins, like an avalanche that eventually collapses and destroys everything in its path.

Her forehead is covered with sweat, and her eyes dart rapidly beneath her eyelids. She is suffering without me being able to kiss her and make love to her to make her feel better.

But that isn’t the worst, and when my eyes catch sight of what’s inside the room with her, my heart nearly bursts with renewed panic.

A shadow in the corner of the room, one I would otherwise never have noticed if it weren’t for the slow steps they take forward. It appears to be a man, dressed in black clothing that covers his arms and legs, with a beanie on top of his head. He holds something in his hand, and when I eventually spot it, bile rises in my throat.

A knife.

“Leave her the fuck alone!” I scream, rage filling me from the inside out.

“I do not tolerate disobedience, Madden.”

The man takes a step closer to where Naya lay, and my fists clench tighter until crescents create in my palm, drawing a profound sense of blood.

Raw anger surges through my veins, turning my vulnerable emotions into deadly poison, morphing my demeanor into a firestorm enough to kill the silence inside the cell I’m in.

I watch as he glances up at the camera that captures the room in an eerie glow, recording it twenty-four-seven. There’s something sinister about his gaze as he stares at the camera, and it feels as though he can see through it, to me, while his lips lift into a smile resembling malevolence. Then, he steps even closer to her, letting the knife grace against her cheek. She turns, shuddering in her sleep, but luckily, she does not wake up. I watch the blood trickle from her chin as he presses the knife against it, and I explode.

The rage fills my body like a blazing inferno, causing adrenaline to shoot straight through my blood. I don’t know what I should do with myself; the anger taking over and making it impossible to stay rational.

Hot, flaring, searing pain makes my vision turn until all I can see is red. Like a bull provoked, I fly at the wall, my fists pounding into the hard façade until pieces of the worn stone wall break. I breathe through my nose, unable to even open my mouth to draw in proper breaths. The uneven wall rips open the skin on my knuckles until blood seeps out like a beautiful waterfall. I welcome the pain as if it is home, embracing it as if it’s the only solid thing in a world full of chaos.

And right now, it is.

By the time I’m done beating the wall, I’m breathing hard as my chest heaves up and down with each breath of oxygen I take. Sweat beads my forehead, making my red hair strands plaster against my skin, but for the first time since I set foot inside this hell hole after watching everything happen to Naya, I feel okay. Relatively so.

Anger is an emotion I’m well accustomed to, and it is one that makes me feel steady. I fall against the wall, my head leaning against it as I try to calm down.

They fucking threatened my girl, and for that, they will pay.

A screeching sound echoes through the walls from the speaker again, before his booming, raspy voice fills my ears in an unpleasant way, causing me to flinch inwardly.

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