Darkest Before Dawn (20 page)

H
ot water runs
over my body, but it does nothing to ease the tension coiled tightly throughout my muscles. I feel like a bitch for shouting at Meg, but I have little control over my emotions anymore. The anger ripples through me without warning, and I snap. The sadness drowns me, and I sob. Those emotions are like feral beasts I have no hopes in taming.

I tilt my head back, resting it against the cold tile. Lost in my own skin, I fucking hate this. I hate all of it and sometimes I wish I could go back to the night I was taken and have that bullet go through my skull instead of Bronson’s. Or maybe, back to the night I drowned myself, because this time I would have waited until mother had gone to bed.

Guilt bears down on me over the thought. But to me, death seems like such an easy way out because once it devours you, there is nothing else. Blackness. Emptiness. Nothingness. A dead man no longer struggles with demons.

Tears fall down my face, losing themselves within the trail of water from the shower. And just like that, tiredness falls over me. I can barely keep my eyes open and all I want to do is sleep for days. I want to sleep all of this away. And I can’t help but think sleep is a form of death for the living.

I quickly wash myself, turn the taps, and climb out of the shower, grabbing the towel from the vanity and drying myself off. When I wipe the fog from the mirror, I notice the door is wide open.
Did I leave it open?
My pulse immediately goes into a sprint, but somehow I manage to calm myself down. Maybe partly because, where I am tonight, I wouldn’t care if someone
has
broken in to kill me.

Huffing, I reach up to the top of the mirror, almost like someone else is controlling my limbs. “You’re scaring me…” I pen those words through the fog before walking to my room.

Call me a sadist but right now, the way this depression is rattling my insides, I just want to wallow in it. I want to let it consume me, so I skim through the playlist on my laptop and pick “11:11” by In This Moment, pressing play before I grab a pair of underwear and a T-shirt from my dresser. After I pull them on, I fall back onto my bed.

Rain begins to fall over the roof, and I smile because, so it seems, the rest of the world feels the same as I do. A gust of wind blows raindrops against the window. Branches from the tree outside scratch across the window pane. And I lose myself in thoughts of him. Of that room...

A floorboard creaks and I feel the energy of another person. My skin prickles. I catch the shadow on the wall just before a hand covers my mouth, another one grabbing onto the top of my head.

“Shh,” he whispers, the heat from his breath fanning over my neck. Sobs rack my body. My muscles go weak. “Don’t scream, understand?”

I nod, choking back the tears because
he
came for me.

He removes his hand from my mouth, and I feel the rough texture of rope scratch against my arm as he grabs both my hands and crosses them over each other. Quickly, he wraps the rope around my wrists and sits me up, turning me to face him. I bite down on my lip, tears pouring down my cheeks. I want so badly to touch him, but I can’t with my hands bound like this.

“I love you,” he whispers before tenderly pressing his lips against mine. “And it’s nearly driven me insane, but this is just how it should be. Me and you, like this.”

There’s a pause where we stare at each other, and it takes me just a moment to form words. “I love you, too,” I whisper.

A sympathetic smile forms on his face. “You
will
…for the right reasons this time.” He stands and grabs my bound wrists. “Come on now, darlin’.”

And I stand, following him without a fight, smiling. Beaming. Because he loves me to the point of insanity—with such a fierceness that he is taking me. Stealing me. People search entire lifetimes wanting to be owned and imprisoned by a feeling so strong that nothing can break it. That is what this is.

I don’t make a sound as he leads me through the back door, along the side of the house, and to a car parked across the street. He opens the door for me and when I climb in, I find my book in the floorboard. My heart flitters in my chest. My stomach flips and flops. Sweat builds in my palms and my cheeks flush. This is love. This feeling
is
what makes me know I’m not crazy.

The interior light comes back on when he opens the driver’s side door. Those dark eyes of his lock with mine. He seems even more beautiful than I remember. And maybe that’s because I now know he is mine. I am his. And I am
safe
with him.

He climbs in and turns the ignition, checking the rearview mirror before pulling away from the curb. By the time we’ve reached the end of the road, his hand is on mine, his thumb gently stroking over my knuckles. “The rope’s not too tight, is it?”

I glance over at him. “No.”

The streetlights flick over his face, the shadows accentuating his cut jawline. For a moment, I fear I’ve finally given into the pending nervous breakdown my mind has been battling, and I panic, tightly closing my eyes.
He’ll still be there. He will…
Because so many times I’ve dreamed of him coming for me, and waking up to the reality that I am free has nearly killed me.

“Max,” I whisper. I can’t open my eyes. I can’t bear to. “Max?”

“Yes, dear?”

“What’s your last name?”

“Carter.”

But that’s not enough to convince me he’s real. “What took you so long?” I ask, then open my eyes, and he is still here.

“I had to get things ready.” He squeezes my hand, looks over at me, and smiles. “Because I have to keep you safe with me.”

I settle back in the seat, bliss falling over me like a haze. “You know you don’t have to keep me tied up.”

“I know.” He smirks.

“I’d never leave you.”

“I’d never let you.”

And we drive through the night. I doze in and out of sleep, my hand in his the entire time. I wake just as the blackness of the sky gives way to a deep midnight blue and swallows the stars within the light. Max pulls off the main road, turning onto a dirt driveway and parking in front of a chalet. He turns the ignition off, climbs out, and opens my door. Then he leads me up worn wooden steps and through the front door.

The inside of the house looks like it hasn’t been updated in over thirty years. Over the fireplace is a family portrait, and I assume that small boy standing next to a toddler with pigtails, and in front of beaming parents, was Max. Through the den, down a hallway, and we come to a door.

A door to a basement.

Max opens it, immediately going down the stairs. When he reaches the bottom, he turns and holds his hand out to me. I lift my bound hands and take hold of him.

“Almost there,” he says. We make our way through a rec room and down another hall, and at the very end is a door—with a lock on the outside.

I wait as he undoes the lock, dropping it to the floor. The door swings open and he allows me to enter first.

The walls are freshly painted. Everything in here is dainty and perfect. My eyes land on a bookshelf on the far wall filled with books. My chest swells and I smile. “It’s perfect. I love it.”

Above the wrought iron bed is a simple black canvas with the Pablo Neruda line:
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul,
written in wispy, white letters. That is our line.

Max unties the rope, dropping it to the floor before he spins me around to face him. Gripping the tops of my arms, he leans his head down to rest his forehead against mine. “I thought giving you your freedom showed you I loved you, but I just didn’t understand.”

I swallow. There is so much I want to say to him, but where would I begin? “I begged you not to leave me, I
begged
you…”

“I know you did, but I only wanted what was best for you. Never…
never
did I imagine by setting you free I was killing you.” He pauses, swiping his fingers across my neck. “And if this is what you need to know your worth, if you want to be stolen and coveted, I will do that, but that lock, those ropes, we both know there are no need for those. They are just symbols. You understand that, right?”

“Symbols of what?” My brow wrinkles and a slight smirk plays over his lips.

“Love. Because it, in and of itself, is a prison.” He gently tucks my hair behind my ear.

“And one I don’t ever want to escape.”

“Exactly. I had to realize that people like you and I—other people are too sheltered to understand us, they are too simple,” he says. “And we don’t need for anyone to understand this so long as we do.” He kisses me with such reverence I swear our souls bleed together with this kiss. This is a kiss where the very core of who you are becomes intertwined.

Max backs me against the wall. His hands covering me in a frenzy, like he can’t possibly touch me enough. He kisses over my neck, one hand stroking across my throat. “You,” he breathes against my skin. “Nothing else could ever make me feel the way you do.”

Clothes are ripped off and he throws me onto the bed, winding my hair around his wrist and taking me in the way only he can. He fucks me with his movements and makes love to me with his words. He treats me like I’m unbreakable, but whispers to me like I’m the most fragile thing to ever exist. Sweat builds on the small of my back and he grabs onto my hips, slamming me down on the bed before he settles between my thighs. A slight smirk plays over his lips as his fingers wind around my throat. “So fucking innocent, so fucking beautiful.” He bites down on his lower lip before he slides back inside of me. I toss my head back on a moan, his hands still around my throat. Leaning down by my ear, he kisses along my jaw, grazing his teeth over my skin. “Tell me how you feel, Ava,” he whispers.

I stare up at him. In love.
Madly
in love. “I love you.”

“As you should.” He slams back inside of me before gripping the sides of my face and dragging my lips to his in a ruthless kiss. “And fuck do I love you.”

And I believe he does. Like no other man ever could.

No one
would
understand this. Most people would call us insane, but the thing is, we all have a bit of darkness inside of us. And too often people see this blackened part of our souls as something evil, something twisted and wrong because something tells us everyone should live in the light. But for some, the light of life is just too bright. There must be balance in everything, which means there must be darkness, for without that chasm, light could not exist. And this dark little world of ours—this perfect love—it is the night sky that allows you to see the stars. You see, there
is
beauty within the darkness, if only you teach yourself how to find it.

Sixty-four days in captivity. Two hundred and sixty-five days without him. The rest of my life to be captive to the man who will always own my heart—free or not. Because to be honest, in the sense of love, everyone wants to be held captive.

N
ote from the author
:

W
ithin every book
, I think you will find pieces of its author. Glimmers and glimpses inside their heart, their fears, their dreams. Out of all the symbolism and metaphor in Darkest Before Dawn, what I truly hope I have brought to light is that oftentimes true love comes from loving the dark parts of someone, the broken parts. Being able to understand what makes someone feel ugly and help them feel beautiful, to me, is an attribute that creates the most epic type of love. And this is why most of my stories are dark and twisted and raw—because love was never meant to be easy, it was never really meant to be understood. It was merely meant to exist.

xx-Stevie

F
irst and foremost
, thank you, dear readers and bloggers for taking a chance on a new story. You are what breathes life into these words and the reason these stories are told.

As always thanks to
Leigh Stone
for not only being a loyal friend, but for doing a beautiful job with the formatting.
Eric Battershell
, what can I say? I adore you. You always have the perfect shot.
Johnny Kane,
thank you for being the perfect face for Max.
Megan
from Wild Rose Editing, thank you for your awesome work!

Lauren
, I just like to take all the chances I get to profess my undying love for you. Love you, boo. Thank you
Heather Roberts
for being amazing while dealing with me and all my neuroticism throughout the writing process—and just life. #TodaysSermon.
Ang,
I love you so hard. You are the sweetest person!
Lucy
, oh, Lucy. Thank you for being my kindred animal spirit even if you live all the way in Middle Earth.
Amy
, my dear Panda 1, thank you for being the bamboo that holds our shoots together.
Jen
, I adore you and am so thankful for our friendship.
Kathy Henley
, thank you for being you. You always encourage me and I truly appreciate that.
Cara,
thank you for just being amazing and helpful and wonderful.
Patti
, thank you for always reading my twisted stuff and telling me how warped I am (in a good way
). Leah
, thanks for always supporting me.

I’m lucky enough to have some amazing friends that I love with all my heart, and whether they realize it or not, they each help keep me sane in their own special way:
Stephanie, Steph, Taylor, Meg, Simone, Jonathan, SJ, and MJ
.

And to my dear
Max
: I’m still waiting on you to save me…