He was absolutely motionless long after I confessed my fears. His eyes stopped shifting back and forth, turning still like the rest of him, like he didn’t even need a breath. His palms remained planted against the wall. He moved in closer, getting right in my face. “You insult me.” His palms dragged down the wall until his arms dropped by his sides. “Get out.” He turned away and walked back to the bed, his muscular back tightening and shifting with his movements.
I breathed hard as I remained in my spot. “Whatever…” I turned to the door and yanked it open.
“Improve your French.” He turned back around and stared me down with a smoldering look of hatred. “Because you suck at it.”
“Sit.” Fender pressed his hand into my shoulder, forcing me down onto the bench.
“No…please.” Tears ran down my cheeks as I watched the executioner drag Raven across the snow and to the noose that waited for her. I grabbed on to Fender’s jacket and tugged. “Please do this for me. Please spare her.”
He turned away and looked at the blood in the snow from the previous victim. “I can’t stop this.”
Raven dragged her feet and turned to me, tears down her cheeks. “Melanie, help me!”
I pushed against his hold and fell to the snow. “No!”
The executioner forced her onto the box and tightened the noose around her neck.
“I’m sorry!” Tears blurred my vision, so I could barely see. “I’m so sorry! Forgive me.”
The executioner tightened the rope and then kicked the box from underneath her.
She dropped and swung on the rope.
“No!” I sat in the snow, convulsing with sobs that cracked my chest.
The executioner readied the knife and stabbed her in the stomach.
She gave a grunt when the blade pierced her, her blood dripping to the snow.
I fell to the earth, buried my face in the snow. “All my fault…all my fault…no…”
I jumped up in bed, gasped for breath, and tugged at the sheets like they were piles of snow. Tears were hot on my cheeks. There was a fire in my fireplace, but there were no torches hanging on the wall. The room was chilly, but not stinging with cold. My palms dragged against the sheets to feel the silk instead of the powder. “A dream… It was a dream…not real.” The room started to infiltrate my vision, the shape of the bed, the windows covered with curtains.
My bedroom door opened, and he came inside, a dark silhouette.
I immediately jolted, spotting his dark outline and seeing the executioner.
He moved to the bed quickly. “Chérie, why are you screaming?” He sat at the edge of the bed and reached for me.
I jumped away, my heart racing so quickly I thought I’d have a heart attack. I clutched my chest as I hyperventilated.
Fender stilled and watched me, his dark eyes visible in the light of the fire. “It’s me, chérie… It’s me.”
I took in his features and felt my breath start to slow. But the tears didn’t stop.
He gently reached for me again, this time his hand moving to my shoulder. His fingertips squeezed me lightly, his thumb brushing across my skin in a soothing motion. “A dream…just a dream.”
My breathing slowed once the threat was gone, when I understood it wasn’t real. But the tears amplified, the regret constricting my throat like I’d swallowed a baseball bat. “I wish I were dead.” I cupped my mouth to stifle the sobs. “I did this…I fucking did this. I hate myself. I can’t even look in the mirror because I hate what I see.” I dropped my gaze to the sheets, imagining the snow that looked and felt so real. Her blood was staining the ground, her guttural noises loud as the knife pierced her intestines. My eyes closed as the image radiated across my mind, causing my breath to halt in agony.
His hand moved into my hair to stroke me gently, to try to calm me in silence.
His touch just made me feel worse because I enjoyed it. I shouldn’t enjoy it. I shouldn’t want him there. I pushed his hand away and left the bed altogether, moving into the living room. I took a seat on the couch with my arms crossed over my chest and stomach, just trying to get through this emotional agony that was as potent as physical pain. It attacked my brain, my heart, everything. It was like losing blood in the snow, like I was the one in the noose. I closed my eyes and just tried to get through it.
The cushion shifted as he sat directly beside me. His hand didn’t move into my hair again. He didn’t touch me at all, just the way he used to in the cabin. “Why can’t you look in the mirror?” His voice had been harsh in our fight earlier that evening, but now it was soft like raindrops on a rose petal. “Why do you hate what you see?” He waited for me to answer his question, and when that didn’t happen, he gently prodded again. “Talk to me, chérie.”