Darling I sighed when the door suddenly closed. Surprised that the sound had managed to penetrate the fog of fear and the pounding of my heart. I felt dizzy. Slowly I sat up. My body ached and I wasn’t sure if it was from my struggle with Growl or if it was terror manifesting in a more physical way.
I knew no more. My world had shattered and soon I would share the same fate. Growl was gone, spared me for now, but he would return.
He would come back.
I turned my head very slowly and looked down at my torn shirt, at my bare shoulder. I remembered his touch there. My fingertips grazed the skin and I shivered, then traced my throat and the spot below my ear. His touch was still there, like an imprint. I closed my eyes, let out a sharp breath. My heartbeat did not slow down. My heart was racing, as if it was eager to beat its way out of my chest, far, far away from my body.
I wished it was so easy, to leave your body, to drift away to better places and times. But it was a foolish thought.
There would be no miracle that would take me out of that place, out of Growl’s reach. For most of my life I had lived in a bubble, away from the reality that so many people faced. I could no longer afford that luxury. If I was going to escape my fate, I was going to have to save myself. No one would come to my rescue, not my bodyguards who now served Falcone, probably had always done so. Not my traitorous boyfriend . Not my father, who had probably already been abandoned in a place where no one could find him, or given to Falcone’s attack dogs as a snack. My chest tightened, but I fought against the emotion. There was no point in pitying the dead.
They had nothing left to lose. But I, my mother , T alia.
I let out a trembling sob and quickly pressed my palm to my lips. I didn’t want Growl to hear me, lest he get excited and change his mind about saving me for that night. I crawled to the edge of the bed and put one foot on the hardwood floor, then waited for my muscles to stop shaking before I dared to get back on my feet. My legs were unsteady. Everything else was.
I looked around. This room was even more bare than the previous one. The walls were blank. The wooden floorboards were completely scratched.
The blood stains were ruining my shirt. It was ruined. I could not bear to wear it one second longer. I tore it off and wrapped my arms around myself. There were no clothes in the one shabby closet. Everything I owned was still in my house. There was no door other than the one Growl had come out of, so I had no bathroom to myself.
There was nothing but shabby furniture. I let myself fall back onto the mattress. Maybe I could have tried sneaking out of the house after dark. I draped the blanket over my shoulders, covering myself. If Growl came back, I didn’t want to wear anything but a bra. As if that would stop him .
I heard sniffing and then scratching at the door. My body stiffened in fear as I crawled toward the door. It sounded like there were dogs. When I got to the door, a deep barking sounded and I jumped back. The dog looked big, dangerous. Hadn’t my father once said that Falcone raised fighting dogs for fun?
My head was spinning. It was all too much. I stepped back and let myself fall back onto the bed. What if the dogs had found a way in? They probably would have torn me to pieces.
That was what they had been bred and trained for. Falcone was rumored to have made millions from betting on dog fights.
My heart sank. I would never be able to leave the house without the dogs noticing. Even if I had managed to get past Growl, and even that seemed unlikely considering his vigilance, the dogs were an insurmountable obstacle.
I curled up tightly on the bed and buried my face in the pillow. It smelled stale, unused.
Growl probably didn’t have many overnight guests. The idea almost made me laugh. I wrapped my arms around my legs and closed my eyes. Outside a couple was screaming obscenities at each other, cars were passing by with tires squealing and doors being slammed.
I wasn’t sure how long I had been lying there in that state, but night fell around me and with it came a chilling silence. I wanted the screams, the banging and the screeching of the wheels to return . That absolute silence made me feel as if I were already dead.
I listened more carefully to the sounds and then regretted not having done so because suddenly I heard scratching, creaking and rustling. I wasn’t sure what my mind had conjured up and what was reality. I was tired, thirsty and hungry. Maybe I would die of thirst or starvation. Maybe Growl would simply forget about me. Starving couldn’t have been so bad compared to what might happen to me in the future if I had stayed alive, could it?
Stop.
I had to stop these crazy thoughts. Going crazy was not going to get me out of there. I had to keep calm , I had to come up with a plan. An image of my mother and T alia flashed behind my closed eyelids, as vivid as if they were right in front of me. Happiness and deep sadness overwhelmed me at that image. Would this memory be the only thing left of them? Would I ever see them again?
Tears filled my eyes and I did not stop them, I let them pass under my eyelids and slide down my cheeks. I felt good, a relief after pretending to be strong. I wasn’t, not really, but maybe I could have learned. My family, what was left of them , I could be strong for them. If not for me, at least for them, I could have gathered what little courage I possessed and fought Growl. Again. And again, until one day, maybe I would escape from my prison.
Growl hated feeling emotions. He hated their sharpness and intensity. He hated being reminded that he was still human in that sense. He needed to be the monster everyone expected him to be, he wanted to be that monster.
He had fought so hard to be something, anything, more than the bastard and the scar around his throat, more than the son of a bitch, more. More and more.
He pressed hard on the accelerator. Maybe he should have run. He needed to get rid of that excess energy, that dangerous grip that surrounded his chest. But where he needed to go was too far. He could not wait that long. He needed to get rid of some tension now. He needed to get rid of that feeling in his body. He needed to be himself again. He needed to remind himself.
In the past he had had to do this almost every day. Convince himself of his worth, of who he was, but lately he had felt like he had arrived, and now that girl so far out of his league was ruining everything.
He pulled up in front of the Baton Rouge in the no parking zone, ignoring the car behind him that had honked its horn. He opened the door wide and got out of the car. The bouncer did not say a word about the risky way Growl had parked, just stepped back as Growl walked past him without a word of greeting. Growl was almost sad that the asshole hadn’t told him to stop. He wanted to break bones, he wanted to maim and kill.
The inside of the brothel was filled with prostitutes and their clients. There was fake laughter and an overly sweet smell. There was sweat, sex and smoke in the air.
There was a tension so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Some of the tension in Growl’s chest eased.
It was familiar. It was what he needed. A few prostitutes cast him a glance, then quickly walked away, hoping he would choose someone else. Their rejection didn’t matter. He had never cared about their opinion. He had had them all, and most of them were not worth his time. They could not give him what he wanted, what he needed.
But there was someone who could, who liked to scratch and bite, who liked to be hard and ruthless.
Lola had turned away from her potential suitor, a fat jerk in a dark suit. Growl didn’t know the man, so it didn’t matter. Growl knew everyone who mattered in this town, everyone you weren’t supposed to get in his way, and most of them were smart enough not to get in his way anyway.
Fatguy clasped a meaty hand on Lola’s thigh , but she shook him off and opened her legs for Growl.
Her dress wiggled, revealing a shaved pussy, a piercing that glistened in the dim ceiling light. Fatguy looked at her grimly, then followed Lola’s gaze to Growl. Her expression fell. She quickly slid off the stool and disappeared from view, looking perhaps for another prostitute.
Growl didn’t give a shit. He walked past the bar toward the back before entering the second room on the right. It was empty, but the smell of sex, disinfectant, and rubber hovered heavy in the air. He headed toward the bed and seconds later the door closed behind him.
“Tough day,” Lola said in a rough voice. No questions, a statement . He knew better than to ask questions. He knew she was close when the smell of stale, fresh smoke enveloped him. When he didn’t have a drink or a cock in his mouth, he was smoking.
He turned around. Her lips were covered with red lipstick, and they looked glossy and fake. Everything about her was. Her black hair, dyed too many times, fell straight down her back. Held down with hairspray and whatever else women used to make their hair do things it was not meant to do. Her lips curved into a flirtatious smile, her eyes, edged with too much makeup, flickered with impatience. Oh yes, she liked him.
He was not out of her league.
He grabbed her arms and turned her around, then threw her on the bed. His hand tangled in her hair, pulling hard as his other hand opened her flap, then lifted her skirt and thrust into her in one hard, merciless stroke . She cried out, in pain or lust, he didn’t know, he didn’t care . She twisted her arms back, ran her long nails over his thighs, making him bleed . He hissed and fucked her harder, and harder until the image of porcelain skin left his mind, until he became again who he was meant to be.
A monster, no less.