32. 32

32

Ember

D ad helped me kick things up a notch. I mean, sure, he wasn’t necessarily excited about me wanting to seduce my teacher, but he enjoys creating mischief and manipulating people, so that led to him showing me somewhere to hide things, so that I can bend Ethan to my will.

There’s a hidey-hole in the floor of one of the bedrooms, apparently it was where a safe could be kept if needed. I tucked all the clothes in there, making sure to take everything but literally what Ethan was wearing. I hadn’t planned on him trying to share what he was wearing with me, but maybe I should have.

Dad also showed me where some supplies were kept in case of, well, he called them ‘circumstances where a person might need to be kept asleep for a while’. Basically drugs to knock a person out.

Now, he made it clear that that’s all the drugs do, and that using them on myself would basically just knock me out, and then make Ethan aware of them, so I had to be careful. If dad Dory or mum had overheard our conversation, they’d have gone mad at him, but I could plan more effectively with these.

I grudgingly put the t-shirt on, but you can be sure that it wouldn’t reappear after I’d been left alone with it for a while.

“We’re getting something to eat, and then we’re going to our separate rooms, and you’ll behave.”

I loved how Ethan thought his dictated rules were worth a damn, because I planned to ignore every last one of them.

In fact… when we returned to the kitchen, the first thing I did was spill cooking oil down the t-shirt, so I had to remove it.

“For fuck’s sake!” Ethan roared at me, trying to wash it under the tap, but you know, oil; it makes a real mess of clothes.

“Get out of the damn kitchen, and leave this to me.” Half an hour later, we were tucking into a dinner he’d prepared, using packet pasta and a jar of sauce. It was fine, and I was hungry enough that I devoured it, but it wasn’t necessarily the best we could have managed. Still, I wasn’t looking to eat gourmet food right now. I wanted something else from him.

“Ethan?”

“Eat your food, Em. I’m not in the mood for talking right now.” Tough shit, because I am.

“What subject do you want me to draw tomorrow?”

He ran a hand through his hair, shoving his empty plate aside, and looking like he didn’t even give a shit right now.

“Who cares? You’ll do what you want anyway, right?” I stared at his chest, with its dusting of dark hair, and the distinct lack of ink.

“Ever thought of getting a tattoo?”

Ethan gathered up our empty plates and took them to the kitchen, without bothering to answer me.

I followed him, pointing to some of my ink, so I could explain them.

“This one was because I love-”

“Em?”

I paused, my finger still trailing over the lacy pattern inside the heart on my hip.

“I’m not interested in looking at your body. I don’t care about your tattoos. I want you to fuck off to your room now, and leave me in peace. Tomorrow, we’ll come up with a new game plan, but let me make myself perfectly fucking clear. This isn’t happening. Me and you? Anything remotely intimate or sexual? No.”

“What about piercings?” I asked, following him as he switched lights off, and headed for the stairs.

“You’re not going to bait me, Em. Just go to bed please. I’m through with trying to be gentle about this. I don’t want you, and I don’t want to fuck you, so please just go away.”

Ouch. His words were like knives, cutting their way into my chest, and carving away at the last shards of my heart that were left from his last tirade. Did he really think hurting me over and over would make me leave him alone? Didn’t he realise who he was locked away with? The more he pushed me away, the more I wanted him, and the more I knew he had to break to want me. He would. He’d break.

I waited until he was fast asleep in his room, and that’s when I crept in there, and jabbed him with a syringe of that stuff to make him sleep. He flinched, and his hand slapped awkwardly at his neck, like he thought something stung him, and then his arm dropped back on the mattress and he stayed silent.

For long panicked seconds, I was afraid I’d killed him. Dad had explained exactly how to use the stuff he’d shown me, and I’d waited until Ethan had had a good few hours after drinking, and he’d put food in his body to soak up the alcohol, but what if he was allergic to the stuff I’d given him?

I leaned close, listening to his even breathing, and rested a palm gently against his chest, feeling his heart thudding calmly and regularly. He didn’t move when I touched him, and when I tried shaking him awake, and calling his name, he didn’t react at all. He was out cold.

Perfect . While he was like this, I could do anything to him, couldn’t I? He was vulnerable, just like I’d been back then, just like I’d been the night he took what I wanted to give him, even after I’d chickened out.

I hurried back to the hiding spot, to pick up the other thing that had been hidden there with the syringes. Rope.

Ethan

I SLEPT LIKE A fucking baby, although I woke up feeling more hungover than I expected to, after so little alcohol. Turning over in bed, I winced as pain blazed across my abdomen, and lay on my stomach, breathing deeply against the burning pain. It wasn’t going away, in fact, it felt like my skin was raw and sensitive.

I rolled back over and rested a hand on it. What the fuck. It felt wrong. My skin doesn’t feel like that. I stared down at my stomach, and blinked slowly, confusion freezing me in place, while I tried to figure out what the actual fuck was happening to me.

Why the hell was there an image tattooed on my fucking stomach? When the hell did I get a tattoo? How? How was I fucking tattooed? I licked a finger and rubbed it over one edge, and yeah, that ink wasn’t going anywhere, but the edge of the design was a little raised, and it burned again when I rubbed it.

“EMBER!” I lunged up from the bed and stormed to her room, to find her sleepily staring at me from her bed, pushing her dark hair back.

“Huh?”

“You fucking little bitch. You did this to me!”

Of course she did, because we were locked in together, but also I recognised her fucking art, didn’t I? It wasn’t elaborate, because I guess that takes time, but it was a fairly detailed line drawing of her, naked, legs open, and spread out across my stomach, mostly on the right side.

“How the fuck did you do this?”

She smiled widely as she sat up, making a big deal of stretching her arms and yawning.

“I’m talented, that’s how. Do you like it?”

“Do I like it? Do I fucking like it?! How the hell did this not wake me up? What did you do to me?”

She giggled, throwing back the covers and approaching me, like I wasn’t about to wring her fucking neck for this.

“It’s looking good this morning, the red’s settling down now.”

“FUCK that! HOW, Ember?”

“Guess you drank more than you thought, Mr E. What lesson were you teaching me by drinking all the alcohol you could find? I’m curious.”

“This is fucking assault; do you hear me? You don’t just… you don’t just fucking tattoo a person against their will! Nobody does this crazy shit, do you understand?”

She reached out to touch it and I slapped her hand away, fury rising in me at her ‘don’t give a shit’ attitude. She fucking permanently scarred me without my consent.

“How dare you? How dare you mark me like this without… without-”

“Consent? Yeah, see that word means nothing in this world, don’t you realise that? I learned it the hard way, and you reinforced that lesson recently, didn’t you?”

WHAT? “That wasn’t… that isn’t… dammit, Em! This is insanity. I’m calling your dads, right fucking now. I want out of here, and I’m done. Do you hear me? I’m done.”

I turned to storm out of the room, and I heard her running up behind me. I wasn’t going to let her unnerve me, because she couldn’t overpower me, could she? She only managed this because I was deeply asleep. I had to have been.

I’d just reached my room when something stabbed the back of my arm, and I turned to slap her away. There was a syringe in her hand. An empty one.

“What the fuck did you just… what the hell…” A wave of dizziness made me stagger, and I took several unsteady steps to the bed, dropping onto it on my side as heaviness started to overtake me. Darkness started pressing in.

“You… bitch…”