“I need to change,” I whisper, rubbing the back of my neck, then my throat.
Anton’s leash might be gone, but a phantom collar remains.
Koby straightens, stepping aside without a word as I rush past him, out to the guest bathroom.
Closing the door behind me, I press my back against the cold tiles, my chest heaving. Anton’s voice still echoes, my own thoughts tangling, struggling to break free.
My fingers shake as I tear the ribbons out of my hair, watching them pile around my bare feet. The paralyzing helplessness claws up my throat until I choke on it.
The dress feels sewn onto my skin, every button resisting when I try undoing them. I tug and yank and tug again, growing more desperate to justget it off. My pulse soars when one pops off, skittering across the floor. That’s not good. I ruined it.
Koby raps his knuckles against the door but doesn’t wait for an invitation. The door swings open, and he steps in, eyes seeking mine, the warmth and worry in them settling my nerves.
He comes closer, slowly, as if approaching a rabid animal. I don’t blame him. Our track record proves I can switch into a wild beast faster than either of us can comprehend.
And right now I’m a cocktail of unpredictable emotions. Rage and shame mix with fear, humiliation, and I’m not sure what I’ll do next. I feel crazy. Out of my body with anger at Anton’s enduring power over me. I’m barely holding the pieces of my scattered psyche together.
“Come here.” Koby holds his hand out.
I don’t hesitate, flinging myself into his arms. His scent hits me first. A mix of cologne and shower gel that works like sobering salts, anchoring me in the right mindset.
“You’re okay,” he says, one hand smoothing down my spine, the other cradling the back of my head. “He’s not here.”
“I hate it... I hate how he makes me feel. So lost. So confused. Like I’m stillthere. Nothing but a shell.”
“You’re with me, hellcat. You’re not going back.” He threads his fingers through my hair, untangling the last traces of the half-up, half-down updo. I close my eyes, allowing his affection to wash away the lingering vulnerability.
The trembling eases, little by little, and soon, I stand on my own... even while the dress is still suffocating me. I step back to strip out of it, no longer concerned about ripping more buttons.
Koby leans against the wall, watching me throw the offensive garment into the hamper and pull his hoodie over my head. It’s too big, swallowing me whole, but somehow that makes it better. I could disappear inside it if I needed to.
He’s watching, a vein ticking at his temple, but I don’t think he sees me. He’s lost in thoughts, jaw set tight, eyebrows pinched.
I try seeing myself through his eyes and I don’t like it one bit.
Rage fits aside, Koby only knows the fragments I’ve given him about my time with Anton. The grooming. My autonomy slipping away. The helplessness and how fragile he made me...
But that’s not all there was.
I wasn’t passive the whole time. I didn’t blindly follow every command. Koby doesn’t know I fought. He has no idea I clung to everything that makes meme. I bet he thinks I’m a damsel in distress, but the truth is much darker. I never told him how I learned obedience in the most painful way.
Rising on my tiptoes, I press my lips to his. “Story time?”
22
Leilani
Isnapped. Hard.
Anton left early that morning, no word from the nanny cam all day, and the isolation, thesilencedrove me crazy.
It was a small mercy at first, but as the hours crawled by, it started ringing in my ears, and I became restless. The walls were moving, closing, the cage shrinking and sending me into a spiral.
I went for the door first, battering it with my fists until my knuckles split, then my shoulder until it bruised. When that didn’t work, I rammed a chair into the wood a dozen times before it cracked... revealing steel beneath.
Still, I didn’t stop.
I screamed for help, threw bottles, books, the fucking lamp at the window and watched it all bounce off the bulletproof glass. I turned the condo upside down searching for a gun, a knife, something lethal enough to end the nightmare, but I found nothing. Not in the closets, drawers, cabinets, not even under the floorboards I pried up with bleeding nails.
