Page 17 of Wraith

And, just before I slip the ballgag and blindfold back on him, he looks at me. Looks me openly in the eyes. In a way he’s never looked at me before.

“Thank you.”

Chapter Seven

Wraith

All I can do is listen.

With the blindfold on, gag in my mouth, shackles and cuffs on my body, all I can do is listen while she pops open another bottle of wine, mutters something about responsibility, takes a loud chug, and then gets back into bed.

It’s a long time before I hear her snore.

But snore she does.

She always snores when she’s drunk.

I used to alternate between loving and hating that noise. On the one hand, it’s almost cute hearing a noise so loud — like a souped-up chainsaw taking on a Redwood — coming from someone so small; on the other, it’s fucking impossible to sleep next to.

I wait until she’s been snoring for a while before I get to work. Then, slowly, I maneuver my hands and take out the small thing I took from a drawer in her bathroom: a bobby pin.

With my blindfold on, it takes minutes to bend and shape it right while working only by touch. Minutes more just to find the right positioning into the keyhole on my handcuffs.

All the while, I work at a snail’s pace while she snores, aware that any noise I make might wake her up and turn all my work into nothing.

An hour passes, maybe more, before my leftmost cuff comes off.

I sigh, smile — or try to; it’s hard with the damn ballgag in my mouth — and flex my wrist before I pull out the gag, take off the blindfold, and set to work on my right hand.

It doesn’t take as long to get that hand free.

And the shackles around my ankles and the rope holding me to the radiator?

That goes down quicker than a sweetbutt after a shot of tequila.

Still, by the time I get myself free and am standing, looking around the room, with blood and feeling flowing back into my limbs, sunlight is flooding through the window shades. Drunk or not, June will be up soon.

There’s not much time.

“You stubborn little…” I murmur as I walk to her bed. “Why the hell couldn’t you have just listened to me?”

She shifts. Snores. Then snores again.

I stand over her. Look down.

Was my note not clear enough? Do I need to give you instructions? A step-by-step guide to doing what I tell you to do, to take care of yourself because a fucking MC is hunting you for what you witnessed while you were their hostage?

This was always the problem you had. You never fucking listened.

If you’d just do what I told you, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

My fists clench. Ideas run through my head — dark ideas, satisfying ideas, ideas that would solve at least some of my problems; I could teach her a lesson, teach her to obey, put her in her own damn shackles until she’s satisfied me that she knows who’s in charge; I could tie her up and take her with me away from this place, keep her safe, keep her captive, until I’m sure she’s so broken that I can loosen her leash a little without having to worry about any of her typical June stubbornness.

Or, I could solve her permanently.

I look closer at her as her head rests against the pillow, mouth open, snores projecting.

I see lines. Lines that don’t come from laughter or smiling. And along her neck and the arm that dangles limp off the side of the bed, I see bruises. Reminders of everything she went through. Bruises that I’m responsible for, even if none of them came from my hands.