But after a moment, I felt his body shift, leaning into me until his hot breath shifted the hair off my shoulder, causing another flood of shivers to fall across my body. “Don’t worry,Abigail,” he hummed like death singing his songs of endlessness, “He won’tsee it when I steal you away. He probably won’t even notice you’re gone. Another light, snuffed out.”
My lips parted, my thighs clenching, my entire body tensing at his words. The buzzing started in my head and fell right between my thighs. And why wouldn’t I get turned on by something like that? I had only been reading about it, writing about it, for years.
I swallowed, my heart racing as my hands tightened around my cup. He was right. Steven would never notice my absence. Not even a little. Nobody would. I would just disappear. Poof.
But this man, this…this…idiotwas only saying that because he heard the conversation Jake and I had. This wasn’t real. He was the kind of guy that thought I’d suck him off if he proved he was just like those men in the books. Absolutely not.
No. And I prayed this little display of his would keep me from having weird delusions about him again because it was disgusting. Absolutely horrific.
I sneered and met his eyes, steeling myself even when those silver-blue eyes of his glinted in sick delight behind that stupid mask. “You don’t have a chance with someone like me,” I bit back, allowing a bit of that rage I always swallowed back out for a change, despite the sweat dripping down my spine. “And I don’t know where you got that name, but it’s not me.” I slid off the stool, quickly fixing my dress, and finished off my drink just as Steven walked out of the backroom. Thank God, for once, because if he hadn’t, I would have had to walk out of here alone.
I turned to face him, my face falling when I saw what they had done to him.
Black eye, split lip, cut above his eye, and he was favoring his left side. I hadn’t seen it before because I had been too focused on what he might have seen to care about what he looked like.
This was just perfect.
His anger-filled eyes met mine. “Let’s go.”
I nodded, not sparing anyone in the room another glance as Ifollowed him towards the door.
“Woof woof,” I heard the masked man hum as I passed him.
I clenched my hands at my sides, my insides shaking in fear. He was just some creep in a bar, he didn’t know anything about me. The Abigail thing caught me off-guard, sure, but other than that, what did he know? That I lived on the sixth floor somewhere in Colorado Springs? There were over 800,000 people in this city. He would never find me again unless I came back here, and in that case, I was safe with Jake.
I was fine.
But as I stepped through the door, I found myself glancing back, only for my breath to catch and my eyes to widen when I caught him staring right at me.
I quickly turned away, feeling irritation and fear thrum through me. Was it all in my head? It couldn’t have been. He called me Abigail. I had heard it. He knew enough about me to know that.
What else did he know? And why? Did it have something to do with Steven? It had to. He must have worked for whoever was in the back with Steven. What was he doing? Scouting me out? Trying to see what I knew?
My eyes widened as I stepped outside. He knew my pen name. Which meant he knew I had money. Was that what this was about?Money? Steven couldn’t pay them, so they were sending a guy after me?
What. The. Fuck.
My eyes lifted to Steven, but by the way he was walking, his footfalls heavier than usual, his shoulders tense, his hands gripped at his side, there was no way I could talk to him about this now. I had to wait.
Was I going behind the tattered curtain next? Goddammit.
~~~
April 18th, 2022
I sat cross-legged in front of the mirror. My leg didn’t hurt anymore, and I could move my fingers without too much pain now, which helped in only one regard: getting enough makeup on my face to cover up the evidence.
My music played in the background as I hummed, and worked meticulously at covering up what Steven had left the day we left The Club.
He had taken me back to his place and beat the shit out of me. Then he apologized and fucked me while explaining in kind words that I needed to know how he felt so I could help him heal. That I shouldn’t have pushed him to this point. That I should have helped ease his pain.
He told me that if they came after me, that was just the kind of sacrifice that ‘good girls’ did for their men. That I had to be a ‘good girl’. Prove to him that I was worthy of him. Take the hit if I needed, tell them I wasn’t worth anything, and move on.
But I was worth millions, and they knew that. They were finding that out, which meant he would too.
It also meant that the man was real, and he very well could be following me, but I prayed it wasn’t true. I prayed they were delusions. I needed them to be delusions.
Steven had bought me enough makeup from the drug store to cover me up until I was able to get home late last night. I fell asleep in it, took a long shower this morning, went through anextensiveskin care routine, and now here I was, sitting in my bedroom, with my nose less than two feet from my mirror, putting on more makeup because I wanted to go out. Ineededto go out. I hadn’t written anything in days, and I was getting concerned texts from Katie butfuck, I had to get out of the house.
