Present day
The tears, I can’t stop them. They run freely down my cheeks, dripping from my chin into the water beneath me. The bubbles incessantly pop at my ears, the sugary scent of the bubble bath both a balm, and a burn on my soul.
I lied.
I lied when I told him I had allowed myself to take a bath, allowed myself to use any form of bubble bath. I had only taken showers, and the fact that he remembered something from five years ago, something I had almost forgotten I’d told him… I didn’t know how to react only that it made something inside me break.
I felt that crack form the moment I realized what he had done, and I remembered what I had told him all those years ago, those long ago dreams when freedom seemed impossible and the only thing that had kept me sane was imagining my life away from that place.
And how I had dreamed.
I’d dreamt of my life out of that cell, first when Hunter was nothing more than a stranger and then even more when I met him. I dreamt of the life we could have had, one with a nice big house by the river, a garden big enough for children to play, in a neighborhood away from the chaos of city life. A quiet, dignified life where I was happy, I was normal. Where I wasn’t this.
I suck in a sharp breath, the pain crippling and I wrap my arms around my knees, bringing them to my chest as if I could hold in all my fractured pieces.
All of it was a hopeless dream.
Nothing came to be, not even the dreams I had before he came along. He stole them and any chance of normality after that.
People took mundane for granted, they wished for more, begged for adventure and chaos without realizing they had their perfect lives. There were no shadows chasing them, no monster lurking in the dark. They didn’t have a broken heart and a soul long turned pitch black.
He had done that to me. He made me this way.
I furiously wipe at the tears as if the anger I feel will somehow wash away the pain. It doesn’t. It’s as fresh now as it was then.
It only eased when he was near.
And that scared me.
The water is hot against my skin, it soothes the aches and pains in my muscles, loosens the tension and calms the irritation around my wrists and ankles.
I hear Hunter somewhere in the house, but I don’t let my mind linger on him too much. I’ve allowed him to do far too much to me already, especially since my goal, regardless of anything, is to end his life.
And I would. I would hold his heart in the palm of my hand, and I would squeeze it, I’d let his blood flow through my fingers. I’d give him a taste of what he had given me.
This time when I wipe away the tears they stay gone and I let my mind go gloriously blank. This had been the only thing keeping me alive since I got out of that place three years ago, this goal, this mission, it was the only thing I cared about.
And it was no longer an if it killed me, it was when. Because when I kill Hunter, I knew I’d kill myself too. Maybe not in the physical sense though I’m sure that would be kinder.
I wash my body using the soap that smelled like him, a spicy, woodsy scent that’s so Hunter it hurts and then wash my hair with the shampoo and conditioner he’d clearly picked up for me, just like the clothes he had been collecting for me. I wondered what else he had picked up in preparation for my inevitable arrival.
Twenty minutes later I pull the plug and climb from the tub, wrapping my body in one of his fluffy grey towels and using another to wrap my hair. Slowly I open the door, peering out into the hall. There is no sign of Hunter, no more noise coming from deep within the home to tell me where he is either.
I tip-toe back towards the bedroom, leaving wet prints on the floor only to find extra blankets on the bed, and a tray holding food with a steaming cup of tea on the bedside table. There’s also a book but no sign of Hunter. I go to the drawers and pull out some linen sleep trousers and a cami, quickly changing before plaiting my hair and heading over to the tray.
It’s another serving of that pasta I’d thrown all over Hunter, but the book is what draws my attention.
Snow White.
I throw it across the room, getting a deep satisfaction when I hear it hit the wall and then thud onto the floor. My stomach growls and I dig into the food, shoveling it into my mouth. When that’s finished, I lean back in the bed and sip the tea.
It was strange, becoming a captive once more. It was a different kind of imprisonment to when the Syndicate had me. The things they did, what they had me do, I’d fought with myself over the years to bury the memories, but they haunted me, far too often for my liking.
The mug of tea warms my hands and I fight my mind, willing the surge of memories to disappear back down into the deep pit at the back. I needed something stiffer than the tea I was drinking. Hunter still hadn’t reappeared to chain me back up and I’d be stupid not to use that to my advantage.
I wasn’t stupid enough to believe I could simply walk out the front door, Hunter would have seen to it that he, and only he, could let me out. He was smarter and more cunning than I cared to admit though I’d never doubted the lethality.
Placing the tea back on the nightstand, I climb up from the bed, heading for the door. There were no creaky floorboards I noted, and no squeaky doors. It was silent. One could move through the house without being heard and that was not done by mistake. Hunter, after all was exactly as his name suggested. A literal hunter, he was known as the Ghost, a killer born from shadows who could strike before anyone even realized he was there. He was the greatest assassin in the business, a highly sought-after asset to any crew and he was under the Syndicate’s thumb.
Bile rises to my tongue, but I push that down, refusing to think about them right this minute.
I head back down the hall the way I came, bypassing the bathroom to find the stairs. Glancing down I see it lit by a dull glow but again, no sound comes from the lower floor. I keep my eyes open, scanning every open space I see, expecting Hunter to step out from the shadows at any minute, only he doesn’t and I’m starting to believe he may have left me here alone again.
The front door lays ahead of me, a black box that flashes red sitting next to the keyhole. The security panel, accompanied by a fingerprint scanner to complete the look. There was another likely at the back door and the fact that I’d gotten in without issue just confirms he had always been waiting for me.
I don’t bother with it, I wouldn’t be getting out, instead I head towards the source of light and find myself in the kitchen. He’s left the undercounter lights on, illuminating the space in a white light and right there in front of me, is a single wine glass and a bottle of red wine, uncorked.
A note has been placed just beneath the bottle.
Snow.
I knew your curiosity would get the better of you.
This wine is for you.
Enjoy.
Forever yours,
Hunter
I scrunch the note up and toss it in the bin before pouring myself a generous glass of the wine and taking a healthy sip. It’s like syrup on my tongue.
My finger taps against the glass as I look around the space. Clean, organized. There’re no random pieces of paper lying around, no unopened mail or dirty dishes in the sink. A bowl of fresh fruit lays in the middle of the kitchen island and searching through the cupboards shows nothing of worth. I laugh to myself when I note the missing knives, though there are still forks and he should know by now I could turn anything into a weapon. I pocket one of the forks.
Leaving with my glass in hand, I head through to the living space. It was clean like the rest of the house, a little simple but then Hunter wasn’t a man that needed much, I’d already known that. There was no TV, only more books to what he already had in his dining room. The sofa sat before a large open fireplace, fresh logs sat waiting to be burned but no tools to stoke the fire. It appeared he had taken away all the sharp objects. I smile a little to myself knowing at least he felt a tiny bit threatened by me.
The rest of the house was in much the same way, nearly bare rooms holding nothing much of value and a few locked doors that had those security panels that I would never be able to break.
Feeling disappointed with my lack of findings, I grab the bottle of wine and head back up to my room. Hunter was nowhere in the house to be found unless he was behind one of those locked doors, and I wasn’t about to sit around and wait for him to show up.
When I’m back in the room, I place down the wine and hide the fork beneath the pillows on the bed. The wine goes down far too easily, and I continue drinking until the entire bottle is empty. Hunter still hasn’t returned as far as I can tell and the wine has made me lucid, languid, enough for me to curl under the sheets and rest my head on the pillow, hand automatically slipping underneath to grip the fork.
A woman could easily get creative with their weapons, something blunt or sharp, it didn’t matter if you had a good aim and enough anger behind it. And if there was anything I did have, it was anger.
Anger at him. At the world and at the Syndicate.
My hand tightens on the fork, only a quick flash back of me sinking it into his shoulder earlier tonight makes my fingers uncurl so quick it was as if they were never even touching it.
I’d felt a sick sense of satisfaction at the way his flesh yielded under those sharp prongs, saw how his blood flowed over his tanned skin. The memory brings a surge of heat to my lower stomach, muscles tensing with phantom whispers of his tongue against my pussy, of his hard length rubbing against me, making me ache, throb with the need to be completely dominated by him.
It was the heat of the moment, I tell myself as sleep starts to claw at my consciousness, it means nothing.
But then images of his hard cock in his hand filter in, the noises he made as he worked himself into a frenzy, the way his dick twitched and jerked in his tight fist as he could no longer hold himself back and came all over me. I still felt the warm spurts of him hitting my skin, could memorize the way his neck muscles strained, and his eyes closed, face a mask of pure ecstasy.
And that’s how I fall asleep, with pictures of Hunter fucking himself filling my dreams.