His(17)

I stood on the paint cans, my breath coming fast. I would have one chance. I’d have to get through as quickly as possible. I took a deep breath, lifted the wine bottle, and swung.

CRASH!

Glass shards from the window came shattering down over my head. I swung the bottle again and the rest of the pane broke through. Sunlight poured through the broken window, and I could see the forest beyond. I grabbed the edge of the sill and tried desperately to pull myself up. My feet slipped against the water pipe but didn’t hold.

Oh, god. I wasn’t going to be able to make it. Last semester Jules had signed us up for a rock climbing class as an elective. I had gone once and never again, and now I was regretting it. My arms were just too weak to hold my weight.

No. I had to do it. A noise from upstairs made my heart jump into my throat. Footsteps. Oh no!

I crouched down and jumped up as high as I could, clutching at the broken pane. My hand caught on a glass shard and a stabbing pain went through my arm. Blood welled on my skin. I ignored the pain and pulled hard, hard—

“What in the—”

The voice in the doorway behind me made me pull harder. The light in the room flicked on.

No!

My feet kicked at the pipe, scrabbling for purchase. I had my elbow on the ledge, pulling to get through, when I felt an arm come around my waist and hold me tight. Glass tore at my shoulder.

“NO! NO!” I was so close. So close! Blood poured from my arm as I reached out. I had my hand in the dirt outside, but the man was pulling me back in. My fingers clawed at the windowsill, but it was no use. Blood ran down my fingers, made them slippery. I had no hold on the window. He dragged me back inside.

“No! NO! Let me go!”

I flailed in his arms, trying to punch him in the head. He caught my arms and held me in a bear hug, pressing me against his body. No matter how I twisted, I couldn’t get out. My eyes couldn’t stop looking out towards the sunlight, toward freedom. Would I ever get to see the sun again? Or would he kill me now, here, in the dirty basement?

“You’re—Jesus, you’re cut badly,” he said. His grasp loosened. Now was my chance. I took all of my energy and whipped my head around, smashing it into his nose.

He let me go. Go! I ran to the basement door and limped up the stairs. Blood flowed down my arm, but I pushed myself to keep going. I could make it, and if I didn’t then I would die. Die trying to escape. I was halfway across the living room when I felt his hand grab my shoulder. I turned to swing at him again, but then I felt the pinch of a needle in my neck.

Heat washed through me and the room spun. I saw him draw back, the syringe in his hand. Then I fell backwards and the world went black.





CHAPTER SIX

Gav

Stitch by stitch, I sewed her arm shut. I did not want her dead, no, not if I could help it. I wasn’t that much of a monster, and there was something in her face that made me want to know more about her. I could always kill her later if I decided I needed to, anyway.

The glass had sliced through the lower part of her arm, almost to the bone. She was lucky it hadn’t severed the artery. Lucky, too, that I was there.

I’m sure she wouldn’t think so.

Was it luck, then, that brought her to me? Dumb, blind chance that set her outside my window? No, I thought there was something more to it than that. Even though I was an abomination in every sense of the word, sinful beyond normal sin, I couldn’t believe in a world that was so cold and unthoughtful. There had to be something behind this girl, this beautiful girl appearing at my doorstep.

The devil planted temptation. Dare I pluck this flower?

I pulled the needle through her skin.

Not for the first time, I wondered what it would be like if I were squeamish about blood. So many people were, after all. It was a normal fear.

I had always loved bodies, the sheer corporeality of their flesh, the hard bone tied together with thick knotted tendons, the sticky tissues.

And her body…

She was asleep and didn’t feel anything, but I still felt a strange nervousness when I ran my hands over the curves of her living breathing person. Her hips rounded into thick thighs, ripe and smooth. Her chest moved in slight gasps of breath. Inhale, exhale. Her hands, pale and delicate, her fingers cut sensibly, her wrists—

Her wrists.

I leaned closer to her body, smelling her scent. Turning her palm up, I ran my hand over hers and stretched out the skin along her wrist.

Scars, running alongside the carpal tunnel. White dimpled lines from a knife’s edge.

I knew those kinds of scars. Old scars. I knew all kinds of scars. But these scars were attached to a body I found myself much intrigued by, and I could not let go of her hand once I saw them. My fingers traced the line of those white subtle seams over and over again, as though trying to stroke the truth of it out of her body.