39. 39

39

Ember

I thought being without Ethan was hell, that having pushed him into such extreme action, purely by being a selfish asshole, was the most unbearable thing I’d been through. Worse than what they’d done to me at school, because I’d survived that, hadn’t I? I’d come out the other side of it, okay, scarred, and fucking broken, but I made it.

Knowing I’d destroyed Ethan had been eating at me, because even though I’d wanted to break him down, and force him to want me, I hadn’t wanted to almost kill him. I wasn’t like my dads and my brother, and killing wasn’t something I thought I could actually do. I knew I’d threatened Ethan’s neighbour with it, but I’d hoped the fear would do what I wanted, so it never came to that.

Ethan left me on the bed after he finally pulled his fingers out of me, and he was gone for what seemed like hours, although as it turns out, it was longer. I’d clearly dozed off, but when I woke up, something was wrong, different… there was a smell in the air that was oddly familiar, but to my dazed senses, it wasn’t registering.

I felt groggy, almost drunk, and I was starting to wonder if I’d had some kind of medical emergency, except that I was still tied to the damn bed, only something was wrapped around my head.

“Eth… Ethan?”

He was sitting on the bed beside me, wearing just sweatpants, and looking delicious with his scruffy dark hair, scruffy dark beard, and intense dark eyes. His chest was still toned, and dusted with a little more of that dark hair, and his abdomen was still sporting the x-rated artwork I’d painted on it, albeit without some finishing touches I’d wanted to add.

His grin though, that was starting to worry me. I mean, I wasn’t honestly sure what more he could do to me, that he hadn’t already done, but he was up to something, and I wasn’t going to like it.

“Did we sleep well, little saboteur? Did we have sweet dreams of being fucked good and hard? Did you dream of me? Did you dream of being mine, because you are, you know. All fucking mine now.”

I tried shaking my head, but whatever was wrapped around it was preventing my movement, making me feel even more groggy and confused.

“What’s… what’s happening?” He lounged back onto one elbow, beside my hip, while he stared at me with that grin still in place. He looked calm, relaxed, and wickedly amused. Did I do something in my sleep? Did he do something?

“What’s going on?”

He leaned over me with his other arm, stroking his fingers up my stomach, his light touch tickling my flesh.

“Oh, well, you’ve been out now for a while, so I had to amuse myself.”

Why did his words make me feel like I was missing something important? Why did I start to worry about exactly what he’d done to me while I was… wait …

“Did you drug me?” Was that why I felt so groggy?

Ethan chuckled, tickling my stomach with his fingertips.

“Isn’t that how we do things in this family, baby?”

Oh god. He’d drugged me!

“Yeah, see, I let myself in here days ago, searched it from top to bottom, found that hidey hole in the floor stuffed with clothes, drugs, and rope, and stuff. You lot are pervy as fuck, but it works out well for me. I’ve had time to prepare what I need to keep you here, but those drugs… yeah, I had to let you see how that feels. How it feels to lose the ability to remain conscious, how it feels to know that you’ve been out, unconscious for hours, and you have no idea what happened to you. Does it make you feel helpless, Ember? Does it make you wonder what sickening things I did to your unconscious body? I didn’t tattoo you, of course, because I can’t draw for shit, but I did do other things.”

“You had sex with me?” He leaned closer, licking his way up my stomach, grazing my skin with his teeth.

“Obviously. Who wouldn’t? Old Ethan wouldn’t have, of course, but he’s dead, remember?” Oh god. He had sex with me while I was drugged. I was starting to realise that was only part of what he’d done though, and I had a feeling the other stuff was worse.

“What else did you do?”

He inhaled deeply, chuckling softly.

“What can you smell, Ember?” What? Oh god, that smell had been bugging me, hadn’t it. It was sharp, chemical, almost like industrial cleaning products or… or bleach.

“Is that bleach, Ethan? What did you do?”

He laughed, sitting up and reaching for my head, dragging what I now realised was a towel away from my hair. Strands of my hair fell back against my face, but they weren’t dark like they’d been for so long. No. They were light. Blonde. Pale.

“WHAT? You bleached my hair?! You twisted fucker! How dare you? How dare you fuck with my appearance like that!”

Ethan

I HADN'T DONE THE best job, admittedly, because there’s a reason you pay people to do this shit. They know what they’re doing, and someone like me hasn’t got a fucking clue. I watched some videos online, and it looked fairly simple, but plenty of those videos showed what could go wrong too.

There were dark patches where the bleach hadn’t been applied as evenly as I wanted, and I’d left it on only as long as it said to, so I wouldn’t make her hair fall out. That part wasn’t for her, but I figured she’d be less easy on the eye, if I made her hair drop out from over-bleaching.

“Now I’m seeing the real Ember. The woman who was once a little blonde girl who had such innocence.” She was in floods of tears now, worse than she’d been over anything else I’d done, as bad as she’d been when she’d had that flashback. Was that a tiny prick of conscience stabbing at the remains of my soul? Had I gone too far?

Her hair had been part of her identity, just like the goth makeup, and just like the tattoos. I couldn’t remove the tattoos, and I wouldn’t want to. They made her a treat for the eyes, in so many ways, but she hadn’t gone back to wearing the dark makeup after what happened with us, and honestly, I just wanted to see her the way she should have been.

The loss of her identity would also help to break her, wouldn’t it? Break her like she broke me? She took away everything that made me the man I was, until all that was left was to give up, and let him die.

I wasn’t going to risk her trying anything like that. No, when she died, it would be by my hand, and not hers.

“I hate you,” she sobbed, defeat evident in the slackness of her limbs as she gave in to her despair. Fuck. Maybe I did go too far. Maybe I’d pushed her over the edge into madness already.

“Ember, calm down, seriously, I could have done so much worse to you.” Nope. That didn’t calm her down at all. It was worth a try though, wasn’t it?

“EMBER. Calm the fuck down, and breathe. You pass out, and god only knows what I’ll do to you then.”

Honestly, fucking her while she was unconscious was actually pretty dull. It wasn’t that I wanted her to fight, but at least looking in her eyes and knowing she was aware of it made all the difference.

Her laying there silently as a corpse just wasn’t as hot as I’d imagined. Sure, her body had taken my cock willingly, because she wasn’t mentally able to resist, but yeah, sex with a non-responsive woman just wasn’t my bag. I bet her fucked up dads or brother would be into it though. Psychos .

She wasn’t calming down, and honestly, I considered drugging her again, to see if she’d be calmer when she next awoke, but that seemed like a risk after having just used that shit on her.

“How often can I use that stuff on you, Ember?”

She suddenly froze, her tears still dripping from her eyes as she focused on me again.

“Why? Wasn’t this enough for you, Ethan? Is there more of me you want to destroy?”

I ran my fingers over her warm skin, teasing her navel, and dragging my fingers up towards her breasts.

“Well, you used it on me twice, didn’t you? If it was so dangerous, you wouldn’t have risked that, now would you?”

Her eyes widened, still tear-filled and tortured, and then she squeezed them closed, sending those tears down her cheeks too.

“I… I don’t know.”

“So you just risked it, having no idea if it was safe to do? Because it was so important to you, to mark my skin with this permanent pornographic image of you? Baby, you only had to ask. But see… now I’m thinking I should use it on you again, and see if you can handle it too.”

I moved closer, sliding my hand over her throat and squeezing lightly, her breath catching at the sudden threat to her air supply.

“I mean, maybe that’s what pushed me into trying to end my life. Maybe that was some chemical fucking reaction, and I wouldn’t have tried it if you hadn’t been so fucking reckless with my health!” I was yelling by the last few words, and she was flinching at every single fucking one.

“What if you’d killed me, Ember? Were you just going to shrug it off, and find some other poor sap to fuck with? This is what your family does, right? You drag innocent people into your fucked up world of depraved fucking psychos, and you destroy them.”

“Ethan-”

“Don’t make me choke you to shut you up, Ember. See, I’m not done talking yet. Listen to your teacher, Ember, because I will always know best.” That said, though, I was kinda done talking.

I leaned down again, biting the side of her breast, and feeling my soul settle a little at her pained gasp. Yeah, that was a sound I needed to hear again. And again. And again.