Safe in Clua

THIRTY-NINE

Laia

Even from behind, the lean lines of his body are unmistakable. He turns like he has every right to be here, his lips tipping into a casual smile.

Damon. In my house. In my kitchen. Eating my pie.

It’s been over a year since I’ve been in a room with him, but it might as well have been just yesterday. Fear crackles down the back of my neck and I’m thrust back to being that weak, scared, trapped girl. My mouth goes dry, my hands tremble, my cell slips from my fingers and clatters to the floor.

In khaki shorts and a white polo shirt, he looks like he’s stepped from the pages of a Ralph Lauren advert. Clean cut and wholesome.

Only I know better. I know the viciousness that hides beneath that golden tan and white-blond hair.

His chestnut eyes narrow, his gaze slithering down my body. “I always did like your pie.”

I fold my arms and back up a step. “What do you want?” A ridiculous question. I know exactly what he wants—me. I swallow down the acidic taste in my mouth and force myself to stay calm. I’m done running. It’s time to face this. “How did you find me?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” His head cocks to the side, irritation tightening his features as he stabs his fork into the middle of the pie. “A sofa and a dress? I hope they were worth it.”

My mind stutters, the blood seeping from my face. My inheritance account. He had access to it. “How?”

His flat, smug gaze pins me, his lips curling into a sneer. “You, Laia. You signed the paper that gave me access. So lost and stupid after mummy and daddy died, you bumbled around like a fool. You should thank me, I could have taken it all, I should have left you with nothing after what you did to me.”

Mouth dry, memories from the days after my dad died so close after my mom clambering over themselves, foggy and grief-riddled—useless. I can’t … I don’t remember signing anything, but I must have. How though? How could I have been so stupid?

His loafer creaks on the floor as he takes a step. Towards me. Prowling. Predatory. Vicious.

I step back, my mind snapping back to the present. “Felix will be here any minute.” I blurt out, backing up some more until I’m almost to the arch that leads to the front door. “He was right behind me…”

“You never could lie.” Damon takes a step from the counter, his top lip twitching like it wants to curl again, his gaze locked on mine. Steady. Calculating.

I almost hate this bit more than the physical stuff. The faux-calm before the shit storm.

“You’re coming home with me.”

“You’re insane if you think I’m going anywhere with you.” My voice shakes, but I square my shoulders, pressing my lips together to stop my chin from giving away the tears on the verge of escaping.

He closes the distance between us in a couple of long strides.

My body reacts on instinct. I bolt.

I don’t make it.

He has me against the wall before I even get under the arch. His hot breath skids over my cheeks, his fingers digging into my shoulders, forcing me back. “Did you show him the photos?”

“You’re sick.” I jerk against his hold, twisting my face from his, the cloying sweetness of his aftershave turning my stomach.

“I asked you if you showed him the photos, Laia?” A hand on either side of my face, he forces me to look at him. His stare is hard, cold, filled with a familiar detachment. “Because they’re the closest he’s gonna get to fucking you again.”

I shrink back at his crude words, humiliated anew by the knowledge that he’s been watching us. Watching everything. “You shouldn’t have come here.” I try to duck under his arm, the key in my pocket digging into my thigh. If I can just get to the door.

With an impatient sigh, I’m slammed back against the wall, his fingers wrapping my throat. “Always making things hard. It’s like you enjoy making me do this shit.”

I claw at his hands, sucking in panicked breaths against the pressure around my windpipe, my vision swirling, my legs flailing uselessly. The key in my pocket digs me again. I reach for it desperately.

“How did you think this would end, Laia?” He thrusts his thigh between my legs and presses his face against mine. “Did you really think I’d just let you leave me?”

“Damon, please,” I croak out and kick out a foot, connecting with his shin. He doesn’t even flinch. Panic thickens in my veins, threatening to immobilize me. If I give up now, that’s it—my life in Clua is over. Determination sparks and keeps on sparking. I need to fight. I need to end this. Pushing the key between my fingers, I slip it from my pocket and stab it into his shoulder with everything I have.

He grunts, but his grip doesn’t ease, he just leans back and cracks me across the cheekbone with the back of his other hand. It’s a familiar move. It shocks me still, pain radiating from the point of impact across the side of my face, unlocking the trapdoor in my mind I’ve managed to, mostly, keep closed since I left him. The one that holds the memories of what I’ve been through, of what he put me through. All of it. Every break, every bruise, every split lip, and black eye.

I can’t go back. I won’t.

His fingers tighten and my vision blurs, my mind swimming, the terrifying oblivion of unconsciousness pulling me under. Stay awake. Fight.

They loosen a second before the blackness takes over.

“No you don’t.” He shakes me roughly, banging my head against the wall.

I wheeze and cough and gulp down air, my lungs burning, my head pounding. “I won’t go back with—”

“You will.” His mouth is on mine before I finish, his tongue forcing its way between my lips. I writhe back against the wall, tearing my mouth from his. He pushes harder, both hands on my face, holding me still, biting my lips, crushing his solid body against mine. It’s not a kiss. It’s painful and vicious and punishing. Meant to cow me. Meant to remind me who’s in charge.

It doesn’t work. Not anymore?.

I bite back—hard, sink my teeth into his tongue when it thrusts into my mouth.

“Bitch.” He jerks away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You want to play rough?” His mouth twists into a sneer and he grabs my chin and squeezes, crushing my cheeks between my teeth before licking his tongue past my lips.

My whole body heaves, rejecting the taste of him. The feel of him. Everything about him.

I should have stayed with Felix. Why didn’t I just stay with Felix?

Damon’s laugh is cold and hard and exactly the way I remember it, and, just like that I’m weighed down by the memories, dragged back into helplessness, into being nothing more than a victim, a sad statistic.

Until he gropes me through my bra.

Something inside me splinters, roars from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. I buck and kick and go for his face, nails raking down his cheek.

His hand, now fisted in my hair, yanks hard, dragging my neck into a painfully awkward angle.

I watch him press his fingers to the thick red welts, spanning from his eyes to the corner of his mouth. When he pulls them away, blood speckles them and his eyes bulge. I snort-laugh. It’s a little insane and a lot hysterical, but it’s not crying, and going by the furious glare he fires my way, it’s hitting a nerve. So, I keep doing it.

It’s short-lived, though. His fist slams into my stomach. The air, and my laugh, abandon me in a whoosh. I want to double over. Want to curl in a ball and wait for it to be over. His grip on my hair keeps me on my feet. Keeps me upright and far too present. I close my eyes and wait for the next blow.

“Get your hands off her.” Felix’s roared warning cuts through the ringing in my ears and I’m instantly released.

Relief, love, terror, panic—they all rush in as I slide down the wall.

He’s here.

Surreal and almost in slow motion, Felix pins Damon to the worktop and lands one punch, then another, then another, all connecting with sickening cracks to the middle of his face. His body was limp after the first strike.

Pain shoots in every direction, but I drag myself to my feet, one hand splayed on the wall, the other wrapped around my middle. “Felix.” My voice is hoarse, sore, barely loud enough to hear. “Felix, stop. You’ll kill him.” I lean my back to the wall and touch my lip gingerly, wincing when I find the split.

He freezes, one fist in the air the other wrapped in Damon’s blood-spattered shirt, his shoulders heaving, his big body practically vibrating.

Cramping pain in my abdomen steals my breath and almost my balance. I hiss out, I’m not sure what.

Felix is on his knees in front of me before I open my eyes again, his hands on my cheeks, my neck, skimming my arms, hovering where I’m holding my tummy, like he’s scared to touch me, scared to do more damage. “Laia,” he whispers, desperate, worried, scared. “What did he do to you?”

Even swallowing hurts. I grind my teeth and straighten, lean my weight back against the wall. “It’s okay, I’m okay.” I attempt a smile, then cover my stinging lip with my fingers. The cramping starts up again. “Ah. No. Not okay.”

He shoots to his feet, cups my cheeks, scanning my face. “Did he—”

“No! No.” I grip his forearms. “I just—I think I might need a doctor.” I scrunch my sore face and drop my head into Felix’s chest.

What happens next, happens so fast it leaves me breathless. One minute Felix is holding me, his big arms wrapped around my shoulders, his hands rubbing my back. The next, he’s out cold by my feet.

I blink dumbly at Damon, his busted nose, the blood on his shirt, the broken fruit bowl in his hand. “The fucker broke my nose.” He drops the bowl then presses both hands to his bloody nose. “I’m done fucking about, Laia. We’re going home.”

Running on nothing more than adrenaline and a whole lot of hate, I lunge for him, smack him in the face, screaming like a she-devil, the pain in my body numbed by the need to finish this. The need to see him bleeding on the floor.

He fists my hair again and drags me off him, my arms flail and scratch, and punch, my legs blindly kicking any part of his body I can reach. A flow of curse words I don’t think I’ve ever used spit from my lips.

I’m slammed against the wall. But I keep fighting. Keep screaming. My scalp is on fire from his grip on my hair until he finally throws me to the floor and climbs on top of me, holding my flailing arms to my sides, straddling my waist, grunting with effort. “One way or another, you’re coming with me.”

“I’d rather die,” I spit and struggle against him, knee him in the back and smash my head off his chin.

His face twists with rage and his fist connects with my cheek hard enough to rattle my brain and shoot stars behind my eyelids.

I blink. Try to focus. Try to get my brain to work again. Something moves behind him. I think. I blink again, my mind skirting consciousness.

“I warned you.”

My eyes snap open. Felix.

The smirk falls from Damon’s face, but before he can react, Felix’s arm snakes around his neck and drags him backwards off me.

His face turns red, then purple, his arms and legs jerking in a desperate attempt to free himself from Felix’s hold.

Still flat out on the floor, I lift my head and watch the fight leave him. Hold the stare of his bulging eyes.

I should stop this. I can’t. I don’t want to.

The crash of the front door being thrown open vaguely registers, then Jackson is on them, prying Felix’s arms from Damon’s neck.

“He’s not worth it. Felix—let him go, man. He’s not worth it.”

Time slows, their shouts muffled. Felix finally releases him and stumbles back a step, head bleeding, fists clenched, chest heaving.

I drag myself to my feet. Ignoring where Damon is moaning on the floor. Jackson’s already pulling out his handcuffs.

He can break his neck, garrote him, throw him off a bloody bridge for all I care. The only person I’m interested in is swaying and bloody, and staring at me, looking as shell-shocked by what just happened as I am.