Keep Me(50)

“Are you just going to shove the trackers in?” I ask Julian as he brings me into our bedroom. “With no anesthesia or anything?” My tone is deeply sarcastic, but I am genuinely wondering about that. I know my husband enjoys inflicting pain on me sometimes, so it’s not entirely out of the question that this will be some type of a sexual thing for him.

Julian’s jaw flexes as he lowers me to my feet. “No,” he says curtly, releasing me and stepping back. My eyes immediately stray to the door, but Julian is between me and the exit as he walks over to a small commode and rummages through the drawers. “I’ll make sure you don’t feel a thing.” And as I watch, he pulls out a small, very familiar-looking syringe.

My insides grow cold. I recognize that syringe—it’s the one he had in his pocket when he came back for me, the one he would’ve used on me if I hadn’t gone with him of my own volition.

“Is that how you drugged me when you stole me from the park?” My voice is even, betraying little of the fact that I’m crumbling inside. “What kind of drug is that?”

Julian sighs, looking inexplicably weary as he comes toward me. “It has a long, complicated name that I don’t remember off the top of my head—and yes, it’s what I used to bring you to the island. It’s one of the best drugs of its kind, with very few side effects.”

“Few side effects? How lovely.” Taking a step back, I cast a frantic glance around the room, looking for something I can use to defend myself. There’s nothing, though. Other than a jar of hand creme and a box of tissues on the bed stand, the room is immaculately neat, free of clutter. I keep backing away until my knees hit the bed, and then I know I have nowhere else to go.

I’m trapped.

“Nora . . .” Julian is less than a foot from me now, the syringe in his right hand. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

Harder than it has to be? Is he fucking serious? A fresh spurt of fury gives me renewed strength. I throw myself on the bed and roll across it, hoping to make it to the other side so I can dash for the door. Before I get to the edge, however, Julian is on top of me, his muscular body pressing me into the mattress. With my face buried in the fluffy blanket, I can hardly breathe, but before I get a chance to panic, Julian shifts most of his weight off me, enabling me to turn my head to the side. As I suck in air, I feel him moving—he’s uncapping the syringe, I realize with an icy shudder—and I know I have only seconds before he drugs me again.

“Don’t do this, Julian.” The words come out in a desperate, broken plea. I know begging him is futile, but there is nothing else I can do at this point. My heart pounds heavily in my chest as I play my last card. “Please, if you care for me at all—if you love me—please don’t do this . . .”

I can hear his breath catching, and for a moment, I feel a spark of hope—a spark that’s immediately extinguished as he gently moves my tangled hair off my neck, exposing my skin. “It’s really not going to be that bad, baby,” he murmurs, and then I feel a sharp prick in the side of my neck.

Immediately my limbs grow heavy, my vision dimming as the drug kicks in. “I hate you,” I manage to whisper, and then the darkness claims me again.





Chapter 16

Julian



I hate you . . . If you love me, don’t do this . . .

As I pick up her unconscious body, Nora’s words echo in my mind, repeating over and over like a glitchy record. I know it shouldn’t hurt this much, but it does. With just a couple of sentences, she somehow managed to flay me open, to break through the wall that has encased me since Maria’s death—the wall that has enabled me to keep a distance from everyone and everything except her.

She doesn’t truly hate me. I know that. She wants me. She loves me or, at the very least, thinks she does. Once all of this is over, we’re going to go back to the life we’ve had for the past couple of months, except I will feel better, more secure.

Less afraid of losing her.

If you love me, don’t do this . . .

Fuck. I don’t know why I care that she said that. I certainly don’t love her. I can’t. Love is for those who are noble and selfless, for people who still have some semblance of a heart.

That’s not me. It’s never been me. What I feel for Nora is nothing like the soft, flowery emotion depicted in all the books and movies. It’s deeper, far more visceral than that. I need her with a violence that twists my guts, with a longing that both demolishes and uplifts me. I need her like I need air, and I would do whatever it takes to keep her with me.