Page 88 of Wicked Vile King
But she didn't die. She tried to kill me instead.Twice.
I repeat the words over and over in my head, rolling them around and trying to make sense of them. I can't though because it feels like everything I thought was true and all the things I thought I believed have evaporated. They're lost and gone to the savage heat the girl created when she burned through my life.
I amnothis pet.
I am just one pet in a line of others.
When he thought she died, he moved on, but she didn't, obviously. She's alive and obsessed with him. I thought I was special, but I'm not special at all. I'm replaceable, just like she was, just like who knows how many before.
Stop crying, Willow. You are strong. Fucking act like it!
The more I think though, the faster I breathe until I start to hyperventilate and the collar pricks at my throat, threatening to cut off my oxygen. I raise my hands and tear the damned thing off of me as fast as I can, undoing the buckles at the back. Blood seeps from my shoulder at the movement, and I think I'm going to hit the floor from the pain, but I can't keep it on anymore.
Get it off!!!
I can'texistwith it on me. The thing I'd learned to associate with Saint and safety is gone too, destroyed by the fire set by the girl. When the buckles are undone, I fling the damned thing from my neck, and it sails, falling to skid across the floor. I stare at it, laying there on the stamped concrete, a piece of meaningless, discarded leather.
Stop crying, goddammit!
I can't stop staring at it. If the collar really was so meaningless, then why do I feel the urge to run to it and snatch it from the floor? What is wrong with me that I only feel safe when it's choking me?
The door opens with a creak, and Saint steps back inside.
"Alice won't be a problem anymore," he says.
I don't reply. I'm too busy playing who-blinks-first with the collar. He walks over to it, finds it on the floor, scoops it up, and brings it over to me.
"Pet," he says, his eyes on my bleeding shoulder, "are you okay?"
"Don't call me that," I hiss.
"Are you jealous, Willow?" he asks, tilting his head at me like a confused dog. "Jealous because there were others before you?"
"No," I lie as he dusts off the collar and moves to put it back around my throat.
"Don't," I tell him.But you want him to, right? You want him and that godforsaken collar to make it all better.
"Shh," he murmurs, his tone soft and placating as he latches it back into place. I want to slap him, but it hurts too much.Everythinghurts too much. I want to scream, but I am so damned tired, adrenaline withdrawals seeping the last of my energy from my bones.
A moment later, he reaches behind me, dropping a tanning hide attached to the wall. It falls to the ground, folding on top of itself like a big, deflated balloon. He grabs the chain that held it in place and locks it around the metal ring of my collar.
"What are you doing?" I ask him.
"Giving you what you need. I'll always give you what you need, Willow. I pushed you to conquer your fear of the dark, and you overcame it, pretty girl. You learned to associate it with me. You're upset. Now, let me make you feel whole again."
I hate the truth in his words as much as I hate him.
He leans forward, smelling of cigarettes and patchouli, the scent slapping me in the face and reminding me of him next to me, on me,insideme. I close my eyes, trying to quell the treacherous tears as he examines the wound on my shoulder. "She didn't get all the way through—you'd be screaming if she did—but we need to clean it."
He leaves me to search the small room until he opens a closet and finds a first aid kit. He opens the red-and-white box and removes a small bottle of rubbing alcohol.
It hurts when he moves my shirt down my arm, but it stings like the devil itself when he pours it over the wound and rubs it in to clean it. It hurts even more when he slowly and carefully starts to bind my shoulder, wrapping it in long, thin bandages pilfered from the first-aid kit. He cinches them tight on the last knot, and it makes me grit my teeth, before, finally, the pain begins to subside a little.
He reaches into a bin at my side, where pieces of cloth and rope lay in a bucket, part of the reenactment, I guess, and he starts to wrap them around my middle this time.
"What are you doing?" I ask again.
"Giving you what you need," he responds once more.
