Three Years(30)

But I’ve got to do something.

I put my hand on the curved brass door handle, which is cold and heavy. My breath catches when I push it down…and it gives. No resistance. Excitedly, I push the doors open, but the sight that greets me isn’t the one I expected.

I squeal, stepping back just in time to avoid falling through the non-existent balcony to the hard tiles that adorn the ground-floor verandah.

My heart racing, I step back into the safety of the room, realizing that the repairs aren’t, in fact, complete. There’s a huge fucking piece of the balcony missing that almost swallowed me up whole and left me smashed on the ground in a tangle of broken limbs and blood.

The wind from outside rushes in, cold and sweet after three months of stale air. I feel my loose hair fly wildly around my face as the door behind me crashes open and Dornan rushes over to me, hands fisting in my hair as he tugs me back violently.

“Oww!” I cry, as he uses the momentum of tugging my hair to throw me past him and back onto the bed. I land face down, but before I can crawl away he is on me.

“Shut up!” he roars, digging his fingers painfully into my arm as he flips me onto my back. Before I can get away, he’s looped something around my wrists, and secured them to the bedhead.

I struggle briefly before going limp. We’ve done this dance before and the guy knows how to tie his knots. I’m stuck.

I glare at him derisively. “You gonna make me come before you stab me this time?” I ask sarcastically, remembering the night he made my entire body shudder to life before he sank his knife into my thigh.

He smirks. “Only good girls get to come. You’re not a good girl, are you, baby?”

He takes something from the drawer beside the bed and I crane my neck to see what it is. An iPod with headphones already plugged into it.

Strange.

The smirk doesn’t leave his face as he shoves the ear buds into my ears. “I’ll be back in a few days,” he says, winking at me. “But don’t worry. I made sure this is on repeat.”

He presses something on the iPod and tosses it onto my chest, just as someone that sounds like Sepultura starts screaming in my ears about hate and blood. Really fucking loud.

I glare at Dornan as he blows me a kiss and slams the door shut behind him, while a dude screams into my eardrums.





It’s so fucking loud, I feel like my ears are going to start bleeding. I wiggle my head forcefully, but those headphones are shoved deep into my ears, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting them out without the use of my hands.

And it doesn’t stop. For fucking hours. I listen to the entire, ear-shattering, vomit-inducing album, which might be fine at a regular volume—if you love death metal, which I do not—but at full volume it makes me wish I were already dead.

There’s nothing I can do to escape the noise, until eventually it feels like the screaming and the notes become a part of me, trapped like waspish, screaming, vengeful ghosts in the darkest recesses of my mind.

Finally, after what seems like days but what is probably just a few hours, I feel warm fingers at my ears. My eyes fly open and I see The Prospect standing above me, holding one of the ear buds up to his ear to see what I’ve been listening to.

“Damn,” he says, shaking his head. “That shit is terrible.”

Tears of relief burn my eyes and I blink them away impatiently, hardly able to hear him through the music which still seems to be bouncing around in my head. I feel like it’ll be there forever, and the thought makes my stomach turn.

“Thank you,” I say quietly, and he smiles in response.

“I told you I was a nice guy,” he whispers. “You want something to eat?”

I nod enthusiastically, starving and on a wicked comedown from that last dose of heroin, and wait as patiently as I can while he undoes the scarf around my wrists. He helps me to sit up and I massage my numb wrists as he does.

He places a paper bag in front of me. McDonalds. My eyes light up as I imagine the fat and grease that might be in the bag. I look at him for approval and he gestures, smiling.

“Gee,” he says, as I snatch up a cardboard box of fries and start stuffing them into my mouth. “I’ve never seen a girl get so turned on by fast food.”

I ignore him until I’m done, first the fries, then a cheeseburger that practically melts in my mouth. In less than five minutes, there’s not a crumb left. As soon as I’ve finished the food he hands me a Coke—cold and icy—and I sip on the sugary drink like it’s liquid gold.

When I’m finished, I wipe my mouth with a napkin and crunch the rubbish into a ball. “Thank you,” I say, and I really am so fucking thankful it hurts.