Page 39 of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Again I roll to my side away from him. “There, honey. You’ll be okay now. I’ll leave you to it. Call if you need me.”

Then I hear him leave, but he doesn’t shut the door.Maybe if I just let my head drop under water…Even as I start to sink, flashes of the dark box filling move through my mind like a roughly edited movie reel. Panic grips me and I force my head above the water, gasping for breath, even though my lungs never emptied of air the brief moments I’d submerged.

I guess I’m not ready to die.

The cool water turns room temperature by the time he comes to check on me. “You didn’t call, honey,” he says. The man has the nerve to sound concerned and sorry. Really? Concerned and sorry? Well, fuck him.

As the ignoring his existence seems to be working, pulling emotion from him, I stay the course.

He lifts me from the tub and sets me on my feet on the bathmat. My back stings from the air hitting my wounds and I wince. There’s a tinge of pink to the water from some of the open cuts. It’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. I think I can stand now, if not I’ll fall, because what I won’t do is reach for him.

Luckily, my legs don’t give out, though I might just collapse from all the shivering. After draining the tub, he turns to me, pulling the drenched nightie over my head, and tosses it into the bath.

Gentle hands wrap a fluffy, white towel around my middle, as he proceeds to pat me dry.

From there he leads me back to the bedroom where we’d slept the first night. His room, orourroom as it is for the time being. When he drops my hand, I continue to stand, almost catatonic to the untrained eye, waiting for whatever’s next.

What’s next is for Michael to pull one of his T-shirts from a drawer and slide it over my head. I don’t help. I don’t move. It’s up to him to pull my arms through the armholes. It’s up to him to move me to the bed.

Once I’m settled, he starts for the door but turns. Pacing instead of leaving. I want him to leave, just not enough to talk to him.

“Come on, Liv honey. We’re good now. Talk to me. Please, what can I do?”

Nothing. There is literally nothing he can do aside from attempting to kill me that will elicit even a sound. Yesterday I felt sorry for him. Today, I hate him. I’d kill him with my bare hands if I thought I could take him down.

“No. No.” He continues to pace the room, becoming more agitated with every step. At least that’s how it looks to me, pulling his fingers through his dark brown locks, almost yanking them out at the roots. “We have to get past this. Couples fight, Liv. If you stop this behavior, you’ll see I’m right.”

Still, I give him nothing.

“Fuck this.” Michael stomps out the door. I can hear him doing whatever he’s doing in the rest of the house.

When he walks back in he’s back to angry, tension suffusing the room. “Liv. Look at me now.” Before I ever roll over, thewhooshfrom the switch is back as he smacks it against the bedding. A warning.

One which I heed. He gets the flinch. But he’s also brought me a plate of food. “You need to eat,” he says.

I take the offered fare, and with a heavy stomach, I take my first bite, chewing until the cold bacon, now coated in the solidified fat, becomes macerated in my mouth. I want to gag from the fat but he waits, watching me. Once I swallow Michael steps out again.

A minute later he’s on the bed with his own plate. “See. This is nice.”

At his pause, I know he’s doing that thing where he’s waiting for me to answer. Before I give in to what he wants, my gaze darts to the switch lying parallel to his leg farthest from me, then darts back to look him in the eye and I force a smile. “Yeah. Nice,” I reply.

Back to acting like we’re this happy couple, he piles his eggs on a toast point and brings the whole thing to his mouth. “I think we should try for a baby,” he says, still chewing his food, then he swallows and reaches to rub my belly.

Food sticks in my throat as I blanch. If someone’s eyes could pop out of their sockets, I think mine do, metaphorically speaking.

“Shit, Liv.” He slaps my back several times, allowing me to gag up the bite, which I fold into the paper towel he’d brought me with my meal.

Saved by the knock—wait. A knock? At first I’m not completely sure the knock, which actually sounds more like a pounding, isn’t from a creaky water heater or furnace. Though judging from the way Michael whips his head around to glare at the entrance to the hallway, placing a finger to his pursed lips to shush me, I’m going to say it’s not.

“Wait here.” Framed as an order, he actually sounds concerned. I guess he wasn’t expecting visitors. Set so deep in the woods, this place, you’d have to be invited to know how to get here. Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t come knocking to teach about the word of God. Kids aren’t selling chocolate bars for a fundraiser to help send their team to training camp.

I know he said to wait here, but something feels off and I won’t be taken off guard. Sneaking on soft feet out the bedroom door, I hang back at the edge of the hallway, barely peeking my head around the corner.

Only Michael’s back stays in view from this vantage point as he fishes the keys from his sweatpants pocket and unlocks a metal box sitting on the small fireplace mantle. The pounding knocks become louder.

File that away for later, the metal box is where he keeps his gun. Then he steps completely out of view to answer the door. The tension looms heavy, displacing all other emotions for the time being. I hold my breath and wait. Despite only taking seconds, the waiting seems to stretch out forever.

All of a sudden there’s the loud crack of a gun fired. I hear the thud of a body hitting the floorboards, and then a rapidly moving river of dark liquid spreads into view to pool on the once-shiny wood planking.

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