I don’t think there’ll be any talk of a big game or illusions this time around. He’s going to get straight down to business, torturing me until he’s bored and then kill me. The mug is a representation of that. A small shiver starts up in my bones as the familiar sensation of fear begins to overwhelm me. The knowledge that I’m done for—that the brief taste of freedom I had was a complete lie.
I should’ve killed Monster when I had the chance. I should’ve doneanythingin my power to end him forever—I shouldn’t have even contemplated giving him the antidote to the oleander. If he were dead, I wouldn’t be back to this hellscape.
A fearful voice whispers the same thing over and over in my head:Monster’s going to fuck and torture me until he’s bored of me, and then he’ll end me.
I can only pray to God that he kills me sooner rather than later.
The steel door opens with an ominous creak. I flinch back, staring wide-eyed as the door slowly swings outward, and Monster steps through. He closes the door behind him, folds his hands in his pockets, and stares at me. I try to keep a straight face while holding his gaze, but I can’t stop my bottom lip from trembling. I’mterrified. My terror isn’t a new sensation, but it’s one I was trying my best to forget.
“You’re awake,” he says, echoing the same words he spoke to me nearly a year ago, after he nearly killed me—only tothenrealize my innocence.
I’m no longer innocent. I committed the crime of attempted murder, even if I pulled back at the last second. I have no doubt that, in Monster’s mind, I deserve every inch of what he’s about to do to me.
And maybe I actually do deserve it. I’m a piece of fruit that fell from a rotten tree; my blood is tarnished, my verysoulis blackened just by my heritage alone.
“Do you like your accommodations?” he asks, casting a pointed gaze around the room. “I imagine they’re better than the shitty little apartment you were stuffed in while waiting for me to retrieve you.”
“I’d give this place a one-star on Airbnb,” I snap. “And we both know I wasnotwaiting on you. I was running from you.”
He gives a casual shrug. “Perhaps that’s what you’d like to think…” he meets my eyes again, and I’m hit with the crushing force of the darkness in his gaze, theanger.“But you knew I’d come for you. You chose to save my life rather than let me die.” He takes a few steps forward. Grabs the back of the metal chair and starts dragging it along the floor on his way to me. “If you wanted me to leave you alone, you would’ve let the poison finish its job.” He stops the chair less than a foot away from the corner of my bed and gracefully lowers himself onto it. It’s a struggle not to shrink back against the pillows, but I manage to hold myself in place.
Monster’s eyes flick to the mug of tea. “Not thirsty?”
“That mug is cruel, and you know it.”
“Ah, does it bring memories to mind?” His eyes are startlingly dark and frighteningly empty, almost soulless. I’ve seen Monster furious before, but I’ve never seen him wear a look like this. “The night when you couldn’t even bring yourself to kill me?” he mocks.
“Fuck you.”
“Soon, Flower. For now…” he lifts the mug and holds it in front of me. “Drink. We don’t want you getting dehydrated, now do we?”
“Your enthusiasm for hydration still knows no bounds,” I retort. “I’m not drinking anything you give me.”
“Why not?” Monster asks, tilting his head to the side. “Are you afraid that I’ve… put something in it?”
“Yes.”
A crooked yet somehowflatsmile takes over his lips. “That’d be a fair assumption, Flower. After all, who wouldn’t be vengeful toward the person who tried to kill them?”
“You tried to kill me first. I was literally on the brink of death on my tenth day with you. Conversely, I gave you the antidote as soon as you passed out. You stopped when I had seconds in that cell; I stopped when you still had minutes.”
“I don’t care for this competition.” His tone is hard. “Drink the fucking tea.”
“No.”
“Either you drink, or I force your jaw open and pour it down your throat. Dealer’s choice.”
Christ, he’s fucking psychotic, and that tea isabsolutelypoisoned. I don’t know that it’s toxic enough to give me a fatal dose, however—I don’t think Monster would allow me such a quick escape. No, I wager it has just enough poison to put me through a world of misery without giving me the relief of death. Maybe he even put oleander in it…
True fear sets in, blowing away my pride with a gust of wind and leaving behind only raw, exposed terror. It gouges me open from the inside out, spilling my emotions onto the cold, polished floor.
“Monster, please don’t,” I whisper, all my bluster gone. “I… I don’t want—”
“I don’t give a singlefuckwhat you want, Scarlett,” Monster says harshly. His eyes are no longer blank—now, they’re filled with every inch of anger I’ve been expecting from him. The fury he managed to contain in my apartment. “Drink. The goddamn. Tea.”
My chest shakes as I stare at the tea. I know I don’t have a choice—not really. Hewillpour it down my throat. I’mgoingto ingest the tea, whether by my own volition, or by force.
I take the mug from his hold with shaking hands. Inhale a deep breath and briefly flick my eyes upward. Maybe if I drink it all at once, it’ll kill me fast. Maybe he did put a fatal dosage of poison in it.
