The air is musty, as though no one has used this passageway for quite some time. I’m still as Billy skirts around me, our hands still joined, and he pulls me down the long, narrow, windowless hallway before leading me up a winding, wooden staircase, creaking with every step.
“Watch your head.”
He glances down at me, making sure I duck as ordered to avoid colliding with a jutting piece of structure, and then we’re at the top.
The door Billy pushes open is only half the width of a regular one, with him having to turn sideways to get through it. I follow him into more darkness, the door clicking closed at our backs, hereleases my fingers. And for a moment, nothing but the sound of my own blood pounding inside my ears, I feel alone. Lured into danger by the man with the pretty eyes and sinister smirk, making myself an all too willing sacrifice.
“Penelope,” Billy rasps as soft light suddenly kills the darkness.
Blinking, my vision adjusts, and I find we’re in another hallway, though, this one is grand. Wide and open, electric sconces lining the mahogany panelled walls, the flooring beneath my feet matching, and polished so well I can almost see my reflection in it. Gold framed portraits are lit with green glass shades above them, a gentle warm glow from the bulbs inside.
“I didn’t want to bring you through the front door,” Billy informs me, finally drawing my eye from the fancy decor.
His words feel like a glass shard in my throat, impossible to swallow around despite my body wanting to, and only gouging deeper every time I gag, trying to cough it up.
“You wanted to hide me,” is what shakes its way out of me, shame flushing my cheeks when I look down at my feet.
That’s when I feel it, see it. The drying, flaking, bodily fluids between my thighs, down my legs, droplets of blood on my feet.
I’m frowning, even though I don’t want to be, even though I don’t want to have a reaction. I want to not care, but Billy’s brought me to this place, this giant monster of a home, his home,ours,and I already don’t fit here.
“I would never hide you; I just didn’t want to share you yet.”
Of their own accord, my eyes roll up, my long brown hair curtaining my face. I look up at him through my lashes, eyeing him where he stands a few feet away, his position casual, hands tucked into his pockets, head cocked to one side, his face soft, well, as soft as it could ever look. He looks like a royal, a prince, perhaps a king, his mere presence enough to rule and to ruin.
His words sound true, but we’ve never been very good at being honest with each other.
Dropping my gaze back to my feet, I lick my lips, sniffing sharply as I inhale.
“Little Lamb,” he coos, and I can hear it, the smile in his voice, it makes my own lips want to curl in imitation. “Tonight is Novus,” he pauses, and my heart beats faster, waiting for the sound of his footsteps moving him closer, for his summoning of me to go to him. “October thirty-first is the last day of our year, tomorrow is a fresh start, new beginnings.”
Novus.
It feels strange, the word, yet another thing I have learnt. It makes me worry about what exactly it is that I find myself in.
‘We are born anew.’
“Rebirth,” I whisper, dragging my eyes back unto his.
His lips curl, a small smile tugging up one corner of his perfect mouth. It makes me feel warm inside, my chest a fiery burst of feeling, like his smile is praise.
“Yes, Little Lamb,” he offers out a hand, slipping it from his pocket and extending it towards me. “We need to dress for the festivities.”
My feet carry me towards him, moving me silently across the highly-shined floor. My fingers slip into the palm of his hand, his own tightening over mine easily, like we fit, as though we always have. He spins us, heading further down the hall, our footsteps echoing around the wide space. It’s a straight walk forward, a set of very large doors at the end that he pushes inside of, more darkness, another slam at our backs, and then my spine is connecting with another door, the handle digging into my hip.
“Billy,” I breathe automatically, something that, despite our long separation, still feels so very natural to me, comforting.
Billy groans, his hands closing over my hips, fingers and thumbs tightening in their clasp as he pushes me back againstthe doors, “Penelope,” he rasps, using my full name like it’s a special occasion. “I can’t fuck you again, baby girl,” his breath is hot against the side of my neck, the thick coils of his dark hair tickling against my cheek. “I mean, I can, butfuck.I can’t. We don’t have time.”
He pulls back, splaying his hands on the closed barrier at my back, pinning me to the wood with his palms on either side of my head. In the pitch darkness of the room, I can still see his eyes. Shadows cast across the rest of his features, carving him up in the shade.
“Billy,” I say breathily, his eyes dropping down the length of my body as though he can see me perfectly. “What’s The Obsidian?”
His eyes snap to mine, one of his hands squeaking as it drags down the shined wood beside my head, folding over my trapezius, thumb brushing along my collarbone. He grips me hard, his other hand still pressing against the door at my back, but his chest is still and his breath is held, and I feel sweat starting to bead at my nape.
“There are some questions I will never quite be able to answer,” he says calmly, licking his lips, “but this one, I shall try.”
He pulls back, breaking our connection, his hands falling from the wall, from me, and then a click is sounding beside my ear, soft light flooding the space, illuminating the vast sitting room at Billy’s back.
