Page 109 of Promise of Destruction
sixty-nine
Soren
WhenIwake,it'sbecause my bladder feels like it may explode. Panic sparks inside me as I test my bonds, wondering if Declan may have crept back in to free me. The room is dark, and I can't see anything, but I can feel the resistance when I tug at the belt around my wrists, which are raw from all of my struggling. My throat is raw, too, from all of my screaming. And for what? None of it has accomplished anything, because I'm still tied up here, still naked and exposed and humiliated. Is this all a game to him or was it a long con to get me to drop my defenses? Maybe I was right all along and he is a killer. Maybe he's just fucking with me until he gets tired of me and decides to dispose of me?
"Quit struggling."
The voice that comes to me through the dark nearly makes me piss myself, but I manage to hold it in as the scream escapes me.
"Declan?" I swallow, twisting to look for him in the dark.
I'm not afraid of the dark, but Iamafraid of what I don't know. And the truth is, I don't know Declan Evers. I don't know whether he'd let anyone in here, whether he'd let anyone hurt me. Part of me says no, that he wouldn't betray me like that. Butanother part of me doesn't know what to expect from this man who came into my life like a fucking tidal wave.
A small click in the corner makes me cringe, but the glow of a lamp illuminates him a second later, leaning forward in the chair he's sitting in.
"I told you to stop struggling." He says again, his voice thin. He sounds tired, as if he's the one who was tied to a bed and left to scream and beg for his freedom. "You'll tear out your IV."
"IV?" I ask, remembering the doctor he brought to my house, the needle he stuck in my arm. But that was before we left to go to Costa Rica, before...
My mouth is dry, and yet I have to pee so badly I'm on the verge of tears. I’ve never had a need so great. It’s like my bladder is being squeezed from the outside in.
"Please." I groan. "The bathroom."
"You're not going anywhere." He says it casually, as if we're just at the office and he's denying me a break in the middle of a meeting.
"Please!" I beg, my skin burning with the need that's so violently taken over my every thought that I haven't even doubled back to that IV comment yet. "I have to..."
"Pee?" He guesses, chuckling like a kid who still finds amusement in bathroom talk.
"Yes," I cry, tears slipping down my cheek as the pressure feels like it's going to rip me apart.
I don't know how long I've been tied to this bed, or how long he'sgoingto keep me tied to it, but I don't want to be left to lie in my own piss. It's a humiliation that's less than human.
"I'm sure you do, little bird. That needle in your arm has been pumping you full of fluids for the last… hmm… ten hours or so."
It's more than I can contend with, my brain stuttering as it tries to process the information he just gave me. I pull hard against the belt, but I realize it isn't there anymore. The leatherstrap that rubbed my wrists raw is gone, replaced with the distinct sound of metal as I tug against the bedpost.
Handcuffs.
"Why are you doing this?" I sob, aching and angry. God, I'm pissed.
He told me I was his toy, and if I was smarter, I'd have believed him, run the other way, tried to put as much distance between us as possible. Clearly, I'm not.
"I told you already, but you're not listening." He sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face as if I'm the one who's vexing him. The audacity makes me want to strangle him. "You know, when I was young, my dad died... left my mom a widow. It's hard raising a kid alone." He swallows, licks his lips. "It's hard being alone at all. But doing it with a kid is another beast. She was lonely, I guess, so she looked for love wherever she could... more often than not from losers who weren't capable of loving anyone but themselves."
"I don't want your sob story." I snap, grinding my jaw. No amount of tragic backstory will make what he's doing to me right now okay. No amount of mommy issues will make it okay to stalk someone and tie them to a bed and refuse to let them go.
"Good, cause that's not what this is." He laughs, unbothered by my venom. "My father treated her like a queen, or so she always said. I can't remember much about him. But I do remember the losers she'd date, the way she'd wear bruises like pearls, the way our possessions started to disappear, the way she'd limp and wince and try to convince me nothing happened. I never saw them hurt her, but I could put the pieces together."
"So, you abuse women because other men abused your mommy?" I spit, swallowing the whimper at the end of my sentence at the pain of holding on so tight to my faculties.
"No." He laughs. "I don't abuse women, Soren, no matter what you may think of me. I'm giving you what you need, but youwon't listen to me. She developed a limp one day; she couldn't put any weight on her foot. Instead of going to the doctor, she ignored it for weeks— got crutches secondhand and hobbled around everywhere, popped ibuprofen like it was candy. When she couldn't take it anymore, she finally went to a doctor, who had to refer her to a surgeon. She broke her ankle somewhere, never told me how, and it healed all wrong. The surgeon had to break it all over to set it right so she could walk again."
"You're fucked in the head." I sob, pulling at my wrist again uselessly. Tears stream down my face at the humiliation of being denied a basic human right such as getting up to fucking pee.
The worst part is that he really believes what he's saying, that he's convinced himself he's some sort of psychologist who's analyzed me and come up with a course of treatment.
"I'm not saying I'm not." Declan laughs, raking a hand through his hair.
