Tabula Rasa(32)

And now, that one safety had been ripped away because Shannon was the worst possible man for me to want or fall for. He might be a much more sexual being than I initially thought, but whatever kernel of an emotion the cat made him feel or I made him feel... I knew it was continents away from love. It was the barest glowing ember, ready to die at any moment. And what happened when the ember smoldered out? All bets were off, right? Then what would keep him from disposing of me when I became too inconvenient? What kept him from it now?

“I’ve tried to keep you at a distance,” he said, echoing my own thoughts back to me. “You make me feel normal. Like a real person. When I saw you in the castle, I felt this warmth I didn’t know was possible. I felt something like that but with less intensity with the cat. But never before with another person. I have these idiots around me who think they’re my friends who can’t see behind the mask. But it’s all surface shit with them. They don’t notice because they’re just that shallow. I can’t give you what you probably deserve, but for my own self-preservation, I can’t let you go, either. I thought if I thought of you like another pet in the house it would be fine, I could keep you compartmentalized. And now... I can’t anymore.”

This was the most Shannon had talked to me in the weeks I’d been living here. Normally it was a perfunctory robot sentence here or there, nothing of much depth or value. I tried to determine if he was being honest or just belatedly turning on some sociopathic charm to chase his own selfish impulses. But that stupid gorilla mask was still between us.

“Please take the mask off.”

He ripped it off and tossed it on the floor, then his hands went back to pressing against the wall, framing either side of me.

“W-what are you going to do with me now?” It must be a special talent of mine to always ask the most wrong questions—things I didn’t really want the answers to.

“Everything.”

From the way he looked at me and the way his gaze shifted to the sex furniture, it was clear what everything meant. Whatever had allowed him to treat me like his roommate or kid sister had vacated the building. In its place was something wild and hungry that might devour us both if given half a chance.

“Why can’t we just go back to how things were? I’m sorry I left my room. I’ll pretend I never saw any of this.”

His hand started in my hair, then trailed down my face and along all my contours. A tremor ran through me, chasing his hand down the length of me as if each cell in my body stood in line, waiting its turn to show appropriate fear of him.

“Elodie, what was it like living in that theme park?”

I didn’t like to think about any of that. It was a testament to how awful it had been that this set-up with Shannon occasionally made me forget I was technically still somebody’s prisoner. On a visceral level, I still thought I’d been saved instead of just captured again.

“Hopeless. Awful. Boring. Dead.”

“Did he light you up?”

“No.” Trevor had been mostly nice enough once I’d figured out which buttons tripped what, but I’d only ever gotten to the point where I could cope with it. I’d thought of f*cking him as my wifely duty—some comfort I owed him. A transaction to pay for the food and shelter he provided me. I’d felt too guilty to take away the last shred of his wife from him. And the whole time he’d been taking from me. Everything. But somehow Shannon’s everything and Trevor’s were solar systems apart.

“Do I light you up?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t do this again.” I can’t f*ck another monster who holds my life in his hands.

Shannon’s mouth found the pulse point of my throat. He sucked gently on the skin—enough to make me gasp, not enough to mark me.

“What if I made you? Would you cry? Would you fight me?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

He pulled back and stared at me for a full minute before he answered. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about your pain yet.”

Yet.

He was so bizarrely honest. But that didn’t help anything. It didn’t make Shannon more feasible. Given my limited experiences with men on this side of the wasteland that was my lost memory, it was easy to assume all men were monsters. I’d yet to have an experience to contradict that notion—even though I felt like I knew in the vague way I knew about ATMs and pirates that not every man was this way. Somewhere out there was someone who was kind and considerate and smart. Someone who would let me be a part of a world where I wasn’t the freak show or... that poor girl. Someone who would love me in a way that was safe and in a way I didn’t have to work myself up to wanting.

If only I didn’t want Shannon so much.

“You’re going to play all my games, Elodie. And you’re going to love every minute of it. I’m tired of you being a toy I can’t play with. I’m ready to take you out of the box.”

“What if I’m not ready?” I desperately sought to turn this into another veiled threat like Trevor’s. As if the idea of being in Shannon’s bed could distress me half as much.

His hand dipped between my legs. He smirked as he raised a finger to his mouth and licked off my juices. “Oh, you’re ready.”

I thought he was going to throw me down and f*ck me in the basement—now filthy from other people’s trysts—but instead, he scooped me up and carried me up the stairs. On the main level, he set me on my feet.