Page 18 of Vile Emotion
“From what, Juliana? What were you running from? Your already pathetic life?” He taunts me.
There are no words further exchanged. We stare at each other—well, one glaring and the other just staring wondering what she did to deserve this kind of life.
I never meant to kill anyone, let alone two innocent people. I know I said I would use Alaric as my revenge but before that could happen, I had to think. To think of the consequences of this. Would I even come out of this unscathed? He said he was going to let me go… what did that mean? Asking him is out of the question and further reiterating what happened that night would fall on deaf ears because Alaric doesn’t care about my reasonings.
He doesn’t care about my well-being or the scars that mixed itself with the ones that I got from the car accident. On the outside, my skin healed but inside, I was falling apart. Every bit of me was melting away.
I was too weak to end my own life and I was too terrified to try and run away in this instance. He was watching me and I had to know how he could find me so easily but … for now, I would retreat. Bide my time in this restaurant and serve up the two weeks.
I shouldn’t run, I know that but I have to. Something in me tells me that whatever Alaric has planned for me is destruction itself.
Alaric watches me like a hawk as I reach for the box and open it. It’s an emerald ring, one that I could get mugged for ifsomeone felt jumpy. It is in the shape of diamond studded vines encircling the ring circle and the big rock looks like it is the heart of the vines.
Alaric watches me as I slip the ring on but there’s this momentary pain that feels like thorns have entered into my bloodstream and have embedded themselves there causing me to hiss.
“I had the jeweler customize it. Go ahead, try and take it off. Lose some skin and bleed with even more pain than it was putting it on. I’m fine with it. I dare you.” Alaric taunts with a twisted smile on his face that causes me to break out in goosebumps.
“I, I have to finish my shift.” I say and begin to walk away.
Alaric stands and grabs my wrist turning me back to face him. He towers over me as he moves from my wrist to my hand.
“I’ll always be watching you.” Alaric leans low but his eyes are on me as he kisses the ring on my finger.
My eyes widened at his action. Alaric puts down more than enough cash for the food and leaves the diner yet I can’t move. I’m paralyzed. Not because there’s butterflies in my gut. No! Not ever but there is this other feeling. It’s daunting, filled with dread and I know his words are right. He’s done nothing to me yet and by the time he lets me go, I might be descending six feet under. Buried in an empty field where no one can ever find me.
14
When I step outside, I crack my neck at the type of madness that I’m feeling at this moment. Something tells me to go back in there and grab her by the back of her neck, drag her out with me whether she’s kicking and screaming but another part of me sees that as some weird type of possession.
I don’t want to own her in that way. I don’t want my hands on her in an intimate way but I had a point to prove. I needed her to see that and for her manager to know that she had a husband. There was this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when he had his arm over her shoulder.
It wasn’t the feeling of a person touching my wife but rather someone trying to water my plants for me when I said I already took care of it.
I’ve never been the type to extend gratitude when someone did something for me so with this bastard of a manager… everything in me called to me to go inside and destroy him.
To smash his head against the counter and pour the hot black liquid over his face. Let it be scalding hot so that it could teach him to not touch other women who work for him.
Juliana thought that she really ran away from me but she didn’t realize something… when she was in that damn prison, in a place where she treated it like a vacation sometimes with making friends or even smiling there, I had her injected with a tracker that was embedded into her bloodstream.
There was no way of getting away from me and that ring, would cause her more pain rather than pleasure,
Instead of heading into my car, I growl out trying not to fully release it so it sounds like a very disrupted jaguar that’s lurking on the outside of the mom and pop diner. Slowly, I track every movement that Juliana is making as she continues to serve others while I sit back on the hood of my car. She isn’t looking at me because she’s avoiding them but I know she can feel my anger, she can feel it because she almost drops the next table’s order and when she hands them the food, her eyes find mine.
I tilt my head watching her like an animal watching their prey tracking their fear to see what they will do in the next minute.
“Stop looking at me.” I mouth to her.
My eyes won’t move from hers and there’s no way that I can. I have to watch her every move. Track it all; every breath, every sigh, hell every single time the air conditioning blows those loose tendrils out of her face.
My eyes should move. They have to yet they don’t. I glare at her waiting for her to turn away yet she has the gall, the gumption to maintain eye contact with me.
How dare she?
While Juliana has looked away,I’m still stalking outside, lurking but not in the shadows. She hasn’t dared to look at me directly but she’s taken glances.
Glances at the crazy man that’s sitting on the hood of his car watching her. I’m sure by now I’ve tanned a little.
My cell goes off and I don’t have to look down to know who is calling me.
