Page 267 of Love Me in the Dark
That man didn’t owe me anything, and he still protected me when no one else did. He cared when I thought I was surrounded by apathy.
“Don’t hurt him,” I whisper. “Please. If you want to punish someone, punish me. Not him.”
He steps closer. Closer than he should. And when he speaks, his voice is quiet and terrifying in its sincerity.
“I would do unholy things to protect you. Kill a woman? Absolutely. Slit a man’s throat and bathe in the blood? Without a doubt. I would burn a man alive if he tried to take you away from me. And I’d smile while doing all of that.”
My heart stutters at the blatant truth in his words.
His eyes lock with mine.
“So no,” he says. “I won’t hurt the man who protected what’s mine.”
I swallow hard.
“You can’t say that,” I murmur. “That I’m yours.”
“You are.”
“You haven’t even touched me.”
He leans in, close enough that his breath hits the edge of my jaw.
“I don’t have to touch you to own you,” he says. “Not yet.”
He turns away first.
Just walks across the room like we didn’t just pull a live wire between us and stand in the sparks that ignite.
Like my panic, my resistance, mybegging him not to hurt someone elseis just another detail he anticipated.
And maybe it is.
Clearly he’s a master manipulator and I’m just a pawn in some fucked up game.
He reaches the door, then stops. One hand on the knob. The other in his pocket like he’s got nowhere better to be, like this is casual. Like we’re not living in two different versions of reality.
I want to scream.
I want to throw something.
But all I do is hold the damn necklace I’m still clenching in my fist.
He glances over his shoulder.
“I won’t keep you locked in here forever,” he says. “You’ll have choices soon.”
I don’t answer.
“But don’t mistake that for freedom. This isn’t something you get to walk away from.”
My heart pounds again. Hard. Or maybe it never stopped and I’ve just been stuck entranced by the man in front of me.
He steps out into the hallway. Half-lit. Silent.
And just before the door clicks shut, his voice cuts through the space between us. Just as low and calm as before, now tinged with finality.
“You don’t have to understand yet. You just have to stay.”
