“Fuck you,” I spat. I struggled against his hold, but the only thing I succeeded at was rubbing my naked ass all over the front of his pants. “You’re a sick motherfucker! You can’t just keep me here like this.”
With what appeared to be very little effort, Eddie picked me up and carried me back to his room with long, fast strides. I hardly had time to process what was happening. As we crossed the threshold to his room again, I did everything within my strength to try to break free. My arms and legs flayed, I butted my head back and forth, I growled with every aggressive move I made.
I had truly become a beast.
A beast trying to survive.
Eddie tossed me to the floor and then took hold of my hair with one of his large fists. Forcing my head back so that I looked up into his face of fury, he hissed, “I’m done playing nice.”
I remember once when I was really young, I had watched a huge storm brewing from the west. The dark clouds swirled around and came at me faster than I could take shelter. I had run as quickly as I could while the wind howled around me, slapping at my face. Rain, lightning, hail. A torrential downpour of chaos all around. I remember that storm clearly and the fear that I had felt.
It was nothing compared to the storm standing before me.
My bravado had disintegrated completely.
“You think you can try to kill me and get away with it?” he bellowed out.
“You can’t expect me to hear Dylan cry out and not do a thing,” I stammered, terrified at the fury I saw in Eddie’s eyes. I hated myself for it, but my words came out as a sob as the tears followed. I didn’t want him to see my weakness. It made me hate him even more.
He reached out, grabbing a handful of my hair, pulling me to within mere inches from his face. “Do you think tears will work? Should I have mercy on you now? Now that you show fear in your eyes and remorse in the quiver of your voice?”
“I’m sorry,” I squeaked. The sting from my hair being yanked by the man caused tears to well in my eyes even more. “What do you expect from me? When I heard him scream…”
He tugged my hair harder, forcing my head to go back so I had to stare into his demon eyes. My throat stretched—so exposed. I wondered if he would bite down and suck from my blood like an ancient monster that tales were told of.
“I was fucking kind to you this morning, and you repay me by trying to throw me off the edge of my walkway in my own house? Are you nothing but a weak weasel like your friend Mr. Bush?”
“Fuck you.” The words shot past my lips like a bullet before I had time to think them through. Before I had time to really ponder the consequences that would come from such a defiant utterance.
Eddie’s eyes darkened. Fury was visible. Wrath was inevitable. “Right now. You’ll remember right now forever,” he growled.
I wanted to apologize. I wanted to plead for compassion. I wanted to reach into the depths of his evil and pull out even an ounce of humanity. And yet, I wanted to kill. I wanted to decimate. To destroy. To rip his flesh from his bones with my teeth. Beg or kill. Plead or destroy. Fuck him. The powerful woman in me won this battle. The courageous queen in me took full control.
I spat in his face, smiling when I could see the shock caused by my rebellion twinkle in his eye.
“Fuck you,” I said again.
“Right now,” he repeated. “Right now you will remember for the rest of your life.”
Without wasting another second, Eddie took hold of my body and lifted me off the floor.
I tried to fight him off, even though I knew it was pointless. He was bigger. Stronger. Eddie would win this battle regardless of how hard I struggled.
But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try.
“Don’t you dare fucking touch me!” I screamed as I tried to scratch out his eyes.
Gripping my hands above my head, he flung me back hard against the bed, only giving me a second to remember I was completely nude and another moment to realize that I was not only naked, I was on a bed… with a man raging above me.
“I will do more than touch you,” he growled. Gripping both my wrists with one of his beefy hands, he paused long enough to stare into my eyes. I could feel his breath against my face. His cologne wafted in my nose and nearly seduced me with its poisonous fragrance. My body reacted to the close proximity no matter how much I internally cursed it for doing so.