I slide down the shower floor, back pressed to the cold tile, and watch fresh blood bloom from my wrist. Dark petals unfurl beneath the water’s stream, spreading, thinning, and vanishing.
“Elowen, open the fucking door.” He orders it the way I’ve never refused him. Until today.
In my head, all his orders replay, those he gave me in his gothic mansion in Greenland, then in my grandparents’ house, and then when he came back as Hunter. I laugh, hitting the back of my head against the wall. I’m still stuck in the cruel, false reality where Hunter is Salvario.
“If you’re close to the door, move away.” Hunter’s voice.No—not Hunter’s. Salvario’s.
Hunter isn’t here. He left after I threw the ring. He understood that he can’t deceive me now. The last shreds of my tears mix with the water streaming down my face.
He wanted my body, he got it. He never wanted my heart, that was always Salvario’s, and he knew it.
What did I do wrong to him to make him do this to me?He must have laughed at me. Called me stupid. Desperate. Which isn’t even wrong. I was so stupid and desperate that I threw myself at the first man who showed any resemblance to Salvario, declaring him Salvario.
And now that Salvario is here, I’m no longer worthy of him. I’m no longer the Elowen he left behind.I’m someone I myself loathe.While he was suffering in captivity, I was in another man’s arms.
My brain grows cloudy, random thoughts drifting in and out. My head spins. I try to keep my eyes open, but the water and the spinning won’t let me. I hear the door hit the floor, and nothing after that.
Hunter
My body freezes. My legs won’t lift to move away from the door I’ve just broken down. Blood threads through the water running down her wrist. A woman’s lifeless body, in the same state, flickers behind my eyes, even though I’m not blinking. It’s a feeling of déjà vu telling me that it’s not the first time I’m watching my world drown before my eyes, watching my soul die inside my still-breathing body.
My legs move on their own, carrying me forward once the horror sinks in. I walk to her and crouch down. My body works on its own; my mind is blank, eerily empty. I lift my hand, place it under her nose. Calmly. There are only two outcomes from here: either she’s breathing, and we both live, or she isn’t, and we both don’t.
She’s breathing.
She’s breathing.
The realisation hits me like a physical blow. I fall back onto the wet floor, inches from her. My lungs seize. My skull threatens to split, darkness pulsing at the edges of my vision. I’m still not blinking.
Now that I haven’t lost her, the possibility of it happening—any moment—takes over every synapse, every dark corner of my mind.
I force myself to blink, but even in that split second of darkness, I see her still body. Her blood. I go from breathless to heaving in seconds. My body trembles violently. I force myself up. I need to get control.She’s losing too much blood.I pick her up in my arms, and stride out of the bathroom.
I lay her down on the bed, gripping her bleeding wrist tightly in my fist, then wrap it with my handkerchief and run out to the study, where the first aid kit is kept. I pull it from the drawer and rush back.
I drop to my knees, scrambling to open the kit. My hands shake as I pull out antiseptic wipes. I force them steady.
I’m not losing her.
I’m not fucking losing her.
I clean the wound, wiping away the blood and water, trying to gauge how deep it is. It’s not as deep as I feared, but it’s still too much.
I press a gauze pad against the cut, holding it in place with firm, steady pressure, counting the seconds in my head. I peel it back to check, the bleeding has slowed. I reach for the suture kit, threading the needle with hands that aren’t as steady as they need to be. I draw the wound closed with small sutures. When it’s done, I grab the roll of bandage and wrap it around her wrist.
When I’m done, I’m drained to my bones. Numb from the fear. I sit back on the floor, staring at her pale face, head tilted. My hands, which I forced to stay steady while stitching her wound, begin to shake now that there’s nothing left to do. I clench them tight, but it doesn’t help. The drained color of her face makes her look like someone already gone. But her chest is moving—up and down. I keep my eyes fixed on it, to make myself understand I didn’t lose her.But I almost did.
The door to her room opens behind me, I don’t turn to see who it is.
“What the fuck?” Logan’s panicked voice reaches me before he rushes to the bed, checking for a pulse. “What have you done to her?”
“She did it herself.” My voice barely exists beyond a breath.
“What? But why?”
How would I know?
Since evening, Logan and I have been busy making a plan to kidnap her. I was watching the feed from the camera in her room, waiting for the perfect opportunity to enter her house. I lost it when I saw her kissing him, almost fucked the silent plan we’d made.
