Page 50 of The Sound of Him

All that matters is that I have to fix this.

“Master, please, I didn't mean-” but it's too late. He has a hand fisted in my hair, shoving me face down.

My nose and lips are pressed to the peanut-chocolate glob beside his shoe. I keep my mouth tightly sealed, trying to figure out if it's worth the risk of opening my mouth to explain myself.

No one knows.

I never thought to tell anyone. Not Nolan, or Bryce, or anyone. They can't speak up for me because they don’t know they need to. They can't help.

No one knows that I need help.

“Eat. It,” he growls.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Please,” I say, moving my lips as little as possible. I can feel the chocolate move with them. “I'm aller- aah!”

He drags me back up by my hair, everything hot and stinging. I can feel chocolate on my lips. On my chin.

My tongue is heavy.

Is it swelling? Or is my panic playing tricks on me?

The world is on fire, oxygen setting my lungs ablaze, my vision filling with the blurring glow of party lights.

And then there’s a gun to my head.

Everything narrows down to the pinprick point of life or death. There’s no more wondering if my tongue is swelling, if my throat is closing, if my lungs are going to stop working - the only thing that matters is the gun and the man holding it.

“You will eat the chocolate,” he says in a deceptively calm voice as he drags the gun down the slope of my nose and to my mouth. He pushes, forcing it past my lips until the barrel of it is resting on my tongue. It’s cold and heavy and tastes like blood and oil. I have just long enough to think,my tongue must not be swelling if this fits inside my mouth,before he finishes his sentence with, “Or you’ll eat a bullet.”

He pushes the gun deeper, until I’m choking. It hurts. Everything in my mouth, in my throat, in my chest hurts.

Then he pulls it back, tracing the lines of my face with the saliva-slick barrel. “Your choice. What’ll it be?”

One only has a chance of killing me. The other absolutely will.

It's not much of a choice at all.

“I'll eat the chocolate, Master. I'm sorry. I-” and the idiot in me, that idiot that hasn’t been defeated yet, who still feels hope, stupidly adds, “I’m allergic.”

Master Mica’s eyes narrow.

I try to focus on him. I try to focus on the cold, wet metal still digging into my skin. I try to - to - to - but my tongue is definitely swelling. It’s not my imagination. I can feel it pressing up against the roof of my mouth, against the inside of my lips. Everything is starting to tingle, teetering between numbness and pain.

“Oh, look at you. You’re shaking so pretty. Is it getting hard to breathe?”

I want to answer, but when I try to adjust my tongue to make the Y sound, I can’t do it. There isn’t room.

There isn’t room, there isn’t room, there isn’t room.

A tear slips down my cheek. He leans forward and licks it off, chuckling when it makes me shudder.

“You’re allergic?” He asks, not like he doesn’t believe it, but like he doesn’t believe I could find the fact worthy of even saying out loud. He digs his gun harder into my skin. “You’re ungrateful, is what you are. Do you know what happens to sluts who are ungrateful?”

I try to think of a response. A proper apology. A way to get out of this somehow. To get away from the party and do anything I can to stop this reaction from getting worse. A way to save my life. A way to survive one more night.

But it’s really hard to breathe, air feeling like sandpaper every time I suck it into my lungs, and my brain is starting to feel as swollen as my tongue.

It doesn’t matter - he tells me the right answer.