62. So Pretty

So Pretty

Luella

Tristan steps back. Forward. The room around us means nothing, is nothing. Instead I see the man who raped me and murdered me in every way that matters. I died more than once the night of our wedding, because he took the only thing that I loved, then.

Daisy.

And he’s done it all over again, taking the only thing I had dared to love, now.

Mia.

“Please, Tristan.” I bite my lip. “I’ll do whatever you want, be whatever you want. Just take me out of here.” I look around, widening my eyes, scrunching my nose. I’m afraid, I tell him with my body. I’m sorry, I beg with my eyes. “Please.”

I see his confusion in his furrowed brow, but something else is there, too. Eagerness. It’s in the way he leans in when I speak, the way he bites the inside of his cheek as he considers.

Moments of indecision, when life and death balance on the edge of a blade, seem to slow. The world around us has frozen and the air leaves my lungs in infinitesimal amounts, a single heartbeat lasts minutes, and the blood rushing in my ears slows to a static roar.

No one else sees this, the moment that will define my future. Tristan smiles, wicked. “All I ever wanted was to hear you say please, Rosebud.”

He comes behind me, releasing my chains from overhead, but not from my wrists. The numbness in my arms means the weight of the chains is unbearable, and I collapse. Tristan gathers the chains and begins to drag me from the room. The few who notice us make no move to stop him from taking ‘the sacrifice,’ too lost in their own pursuits. No one notices a woman running, or leaving, or being dragged. Not around here.

He pulls me out of the chamber and down a long hall. Fire races down my arms with each step as blood fights to return feeling to my limbs. It's agony and it’s bliss. It’s one step closer to why I am here.

At the end of the long hall is a staircase that we ascend in a clamor of chains and curses, me stumbling constantly and Tristan cursing me for it. Finally we are in halls I recognize, the Domus Aurea. He hauls me further until we come not to the dungeon he raped me in just a few days ago, but the room he raped me in over ten years ago.

His room.

The red and gold and white of it churn my stomach. So little has changed since my first wedding night. A large circular bed sits not against any wall, but in the center of the room. Its linens are white, of course, and the rug beneath it a deep burgundy. One to display his depravity, and the other to hide it. Replacing rugs is trickier than replacing linens, after all. There’s a small seating area off to the side, not a true study since that is through the connecting door, and a small table to take breakfast on the other. There is nothing inherently disturbing about the room, but I know the small table next to his bed holds much more than it ever did before. The floras tallied his chains, whips, and knives for me, and in his closet are more. Metal brands and acids to burn, and bars and clips to pinch and pry and open.

Anything he can use to make sure he hears the sounds he wants.

Each poster surrounding the bed has hooks at varying heights, which work in concert with his chains and bars and clips. He could hang my chains from the top as they displayed me in the dungeon, or down near the floor so I had to bend over, or any place in the middle.

He tethers my chains so my hands are at waist height. No need to stoop or to strain; a kindness really. Just as the thought forms, Tristan strikes me across the face. I whimper and he does it again, harder.

“Who are you?” he demands.

“Your wife.” It comes out a snarl, the way I wish I had spoken to him back then.

“My wife is dead.” He draws himself up, part indignation, part concern. Questioning himself that night.

“I was close to dead.” I nod. “As you can see, though, I live.”

“It’s not possible. You’re a witch. You’ve taken this form to haunt me.”

“Haunt you? I’m returning to you, husband. Didn't you miss me?” I know that I was his first. He had been hesitant. Ecstatic but unorganized, not sure what he was seeking. By the end of the night he’d known.

She just screams so pretty.

It’s like he hears where my thoughts have traveled because he unhooks one of my chains, stretching it out to one of the other posters on the bed. My arms are stretched wide but I’m facing the bed instead of Tristan. I won’t be able to see him, which means I won’t be able to read him, or draw him close enough.

“Can I see you?” I ask. I let it come out low, let my desperation leak into my words.

I hear the air whistle before the crack. The sound before the pain. The whip bites into my flesh with such excruciating accuracy that I know these years haven’t done anything to temper his appetites. They’ve honed them.

My scream pierces my own eardrums. “Tristan,” I moan, the pain overwhelming.

“Don’t.” He snaps the whip down again, and I cry out. “Call.” Crack. “Me.” Crack. “That.” His voice rises to match my screams.

Tears stream down my face. I missed my chance. I missed my chance and this time he really will kill me; I can feel it in his precision. He knows exactly how far he can take someone before death, which means I won’t die soon.

I’ll die after he’s given me a thousand little deaths.

I’ll die after I stop screaming so pretty.