we were one once book 2: "A Dark Romance" (7 page)

18

“You’ll do well to think twice about deliberately angering me again.” He smugly smiles while the pops of light recede from the fringe of my tunneled sight. My throat burns with each gasp, but my eyes try to convey the hatred that I’m now too choked to speak. For the moment anyway.

The hand clutching my stomach, helping me to hold down the liquor I drank earlier with Simon, is also reminding me to swallow my anger. To hide it, hold it, bury it. I’ll find a way to regurgitate the fury in my heart someday. It’s a vow I make to myself.

I double over in my seat, a cramp clutching my stomach, tears threatening my eyes. I refuse to cry for him. That was a vow I made four years ago, when he made it clear that he didn’t love
me
. I won’t show him that he can hurt me like that. Not ever again.

But the memory comes flooding back to me, a will of its own. A punishment for having trapped memories. I can’t
not
remember something that happened to me in full sensory detail. The sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and, most of all, the touches of every memory are always with me. Even the memories of the others that I’ve shared won’t go away. I remember everything as if it happened only moments before.

But the memory of Miles four years ago…I can’t lie to myself…It’s one of
my
hardest memories to shrug off. As hard as the memory of that locked cell. As hard as the memory of Miles hurting Grace. It’s a different kind of pain that I’m not immune to. Not a cut to my flesh, but a slash into my heart.

Everything changed so quickly after Mother died. After Martin was no longer with us too. Miles didn’t waste any time taking complete control after their deaths.

In truth, he’d already taken control the year before when he joined Mother in her sadistic pleasures. But that had just been a warm up for what was to come. Grace and I would both be devastated by him that last year living under his control. Her for his cruel treatment of her body; me for his cruel treatment of my heart.

“Gillian?” I smile up at Miles’ stern face and take the hand he has held out for me. Uncrossing my legs, I rise from the library rug and follow his lead in silence to my bedroom. In the long walk, I rack my brain for anything that I might have done to anger him today, but I can’t think of anything. Maybe he’s had a hard day at the office and wishes to unwind with his whip…

He silently closes the door behind us and I walk to my usual spot to await his mood, halfway between the door and my bed. Since he became my guardian last week, he hasn’t punished me once. He’s hardly touched me. Even Grace has not received much of his affection or wrath.

He turns around slowly and an unfamiliar cold wash of fear splashes over me. His look is intense, as I’ve seen before. But his features are still refined, the slopes and angles of his strong bone structure aren’t marred by any scrunching or frowning. He doesn’t appear angry or ready to unleash his suppressed desires. But he’s not smiling either, just staring at me.

Uncertain, I reach to pull my shorts down and he finally breaks the silence, “No. That’s not why I brought you in here.” He comes to stand in front of me, taking my hands into his. “I brought you here to inform you of certain changes.” The same cold wash, but this time it settles as a weight in my chest.

I risk speaking out of turn, “So much has already changed,” adding a smile to show him my gratitude.

His lips only return my smile slightly, “Perhaps this would be a better conversation to have with…with a different you…"

I’m hurt that he would ask me to leave, that he’d ask for Grace, but I smile more, wanting to please him, “All right, if that’s what you want, Miles.” I retreat onto the stage, but stay close.

His smile brightens for Grace. So annoying! Why doesn’t he see that she’s just…boring?!

“There will be doctors coming to the house today.” I push for Grace to ask him why, but as usual, she just waits for him to continue. She’s so damnably docile! What does he see in her?!

His beautiful lips smile again, always so easily pleased by her submissive nature, “They’re going to help you.” He brings his hand up to brush the side of Grace’s head and good pet that she is, she leans into it. She’s practically purring when she should be asking him what the hell he’s talking about. We’re not sick.

Lilly and Jill come closer to me, feeling the tension filling the stage.

“They’re going to help you to stay just as you are now.” I shrug in reply when Lilly asks me what that means.

Grace finally succumbs to our united clamoring for an answer. “As I am now?” Her voice echoes onto the stage, the fear a palpable thrum echoing louder.

“They’re going to help you to be rid of your…er…personality issues.” He lets go of Grace’s hands and pulls her into a hug. The scent of cologne on his neck envelopes us. “You’re going to listen and do everything the doctors tell you to. And then you’ll be healed, my love. You’ll be able to stay my sweet Gillian then.”

I can see the look of shock on Lilly and Jill and know that they can see the same on me. Grace only buries her face into Miles more, her response meek and whispered, “What if I can’t do that?”

He pulls her back to look into her eyes, not seeing that she’s already retreated back towards us. “Of course you can. And you will. To please me.”

I take advantage of her weak hold on the stage and push my way out. “What if we don’t want to be “healed” as you put it?!”

His lips twist into his cruelest smile as his hands grip my arms, “You don’t have a choice. You will be whole and healed. And my sweet Gillian from now on. The doctors have assured me that it can be done.”

I block the view of the stage without thinking, the noise from within too much over the hammer of my heart. I lean into his chest, lifting my face to be inches from him, breathing in his warm fragrance, lowering my voice as I know he likes, “Miles, we don’t need a doctor…” His fingers pinch into the soft flesh of my arms harder.

“This is for your own good, Gillian. For us.”

I know I’m a fool for arguing when he’s clearly holding back his anger. “Us? You mean you and…her?”

“Yes.”

My hands are on his chest, shoving him away so quickly that he’s caught off guard and actually lets go of my arms with a step back. “And what about me, Miles? What about my love? You just want that to go away? You just want me to go away?” My voice rises with each question until I’m yelling at him in the end.

“Love? What love?” A slap would’ve hurt less. His words lash out though instead of his hands. I understand now why he hasn’t touched us for the last week. Doctors will be examining us soon. “You debase yourself with a sick love of pain and you think that’ll make me love you?” He laughs and it’s a kick I feel to my stomach, but unlike the real kicks I’ve received before from him, this one hurts. “I love to punish you, to keep you in line. It’s what you need, Gillian. But watching you writhe around in ecstasy while I do it is not my idea of love. You’re sick. And the doctors will make you well again.”

I feel tears springing to my eyes, but cover my face with my hands to hide them from him. He grabs my wrists and forces my arms down, bringing his face close to mine. “I won’t accept anything less than 100 percent of you, Gillian. You will be exactly what I demand. And that means you will behave and follow the doctors’ orders. And you will be whole again.”

I remember the feel of my wrists tingling from his touch; I remember the sound of the key turning in the doorknob as he locked me in; I remember the taste of salt as my tears rolled down to my mouth. And I remember the vow I made to myself to never let him see the rip in my heart.

When the doctors came, Miles informed them that I wasn’t the “real” Gillian. I kept my tears to myself at that, but I refused to leave that first time. Three men and one woman were my judges, jurors and executioners. Maggots serve more purpose and are more pleasant than those four. I was poked and prodded, mentally and physically for hours. I don’t think Grace could’ve handled any of it. I know the others couldn’t have. Miles stayed for the whole thing, a cold, impartial mask on his face the whole time. I at least was able to contain myself and resist the urge to beg for a reprieve.

My hatred for him grew with every poke, every prod though. But I was still never able to completely rid myself of the love I had for him. Maybe my memory is to blame for that as well. The doctors said that having such a strong recollection of all my senses from every experience contributed to my condition. Part of the reason for the splintering of my mind. I didn’t stop laughing when they said that. My mind may not be like everyone else’s, but who the fuck would want that anyway?!

My resolve to stand against their interrogations didn’t last long. Miles locked me in the bedroom and cut off all power and water for almost three days. I had no choice but to give in and pretend to cooperate.

But I learned my lesson too. Just as soon as I could, I made a copy of the key to the door off of one I took from an unsuspecting maid. It was my salvation a year later when I had to escape.

I may not have ever been able to divorce myself from my feelings, or rather memory of my feelings, for him, but I won’t let him see that. I won’t ever show weakness to him again.

I was only happy that he locked us in our bedroom, not the cell. His mistake was our salvation. But it doesn’t matter now. He won’t make the same mistake twice, I’m sure.

I sit up more in the cool leather seat, finally able to breathe without coughing. The smile hasn’t left his lips and I allow my own to rise up the same way. My voice is more a hoarse whisper, but it’s strong and that keeps me smiling.

“You know
she
doesn’t like to play rough like that.” A tilted brow is his sole reply. “And yet you ask me why we left?”

“
She
didn’t leave me. You did.” I give him the same cryptic brow lift. His left cheek tics upward, a betrayal against the anger he holds in check with a tight grip. I’m barely able to stop a shudder that wants to bend my back with reminders of times when his anger wasn’t kept bound. Hopefully, the plane hides my discomfort now.

My rebuttal catches in my throat. It would only serve to put Grace at more risk. We’re better off if he thinks I’m the only reason we stayed away. “Do you blame me? You threw me away, Miles.”

“I only did what was necessary. What your Mother and those specialists I hired were all unable to do. I helped you,
Gillian
.” And I can see that he still believes this. The three years apart have done nothing to change his mind. If anything, he looks more convinced than ever by his own arrogance.

I counter my argumentative words with a softer voice, “You tried to force her to be what she never could. Not even for you. And you forced me out the door to protect her.” His sneer strikes a nerve of fear in my stomach, but does nothing to detract from his handsome face. How am I still thinking he’s handsome?!

“She doesn’t need to be protected from anyone except herself. And I’m going to do just that.” He leans forward and I follow the lines of his elegant fingers to my knee. The movement puts traces of his cologne on the bottled air and I find myself leaning in too. I can’t help but remember the first time I was wrapped in his scent and felt his warmth against me. I was so young and naïve then to think that he could be my savior. Our savior.

His fingers remain still and gentle, but his voice takes on the harsher tone I know well. “I won’t be making this
request
again. You…this side of her…all of her other sides…will go away. Starting now.” I lift my chin, but feel it starting to shake, whether in anger or fear or some combination I can’t decide. “Or I will be forced to make good on my promise.” He tilts his head, obviously enjoying my struggle to maintain control. “You do remember my promise, don’t you?”

I take a deep, steadying breath. This
is
what I expected, but the finality of everything is still a hard blow to take. “Of course I do. We do.” It was the promise of the locked cell that kept Grace in place through his brutal beating three years ago. It was being in the actual room that would be our prison if she didn’t stay that gave her the strength to obey him. It was the threat of never seeing the light of day again, locked in that tiny closet of a room, no window, no escape, only the promise of a bowl of water and piece of bread each day that made her bear his abuse that night.

We never doubted Miles in his willingness to see his threats through. It was Grace’s bravery in the face of our choiceless option that made me follow through on my plans for escape. She protected us that night by giving him what he wanted. And I protected us the next day by running away with it. But we both failed. And we’re right back where we started. Only worse. Three years is a long time for a man to contemplate his obsession.

“Good. Because I still have that room ready for you. I’ve added a few…security measures as well. There will be no escaping this time.” His lips part for a glowing smile, monstrous in its unbridled delight with himself. “Now, off you go.” His head dismisses me with a nod into the air, like I’m a figment that can be displaced so easily with a wisp of wind. How did I ever fool myself into thinking that he loved me?! That he loved Grace even?!

I may very well have been a fool, but I was also an angry and hurt sixteen year old girl when I made my plans for escape after he broke my heart four years ago. I had no idea then the lengths he would go to get what he wanted. But I waited one whole year before making good on my plan. I waited until Grace finally understood that we had no choice but to run. I waited until he made his threat. I waited until he hurt her. I waited until she was as broken of her love for him as I was.