Page 15 of Peak Cruelty

Marlowe

I wake to absence. The ache is the only thing that tells me I’m not dead yet. There’s a soreness where there wasn’t one before—quiet, rooted, impossible to explain away.

My first instinct is panic. My second is inventory.

The catheter has been removed.

The door opens. He walks in like it’s routine.

I don’t look at him. I’m still trying to breathe through the vertigo.

“Feeling better, I see,” he says as he raises the blackout shades and opens the window. Light pours in, too clean to feel natural.

“Helplessness reveals things you’d never confess out loud.”

I think I’m going to be sick and I tell him as much.

“It’s important you know what it’s like,” he says. “To be bedridden. Helpless. Like Ava.”

I hate her name in his mouth.

“And not because you’re sick—but then neither is she. It’s just the kind of woman you are.”

When I refuse him the reaction he is after, mostly because the room is spinning, he stands there like he always does—silent, calculating, mouth a little too still.

“Get up,” he says.

I can’t but I try to sit up anyway.

Too fast.

My muscles don't enjoy it. My core doesn’t fire. It’s like trying to rise out of wet concrete.

He watches. Says nothing. Just takes a seat and waits.

“How sad,” he says finally. “Bedridden. Helpless. That’s what your niece lives with every day, right?”

“You don’t know anything about her.”

“I know enough. Enough to wonder what kind of woman lets that happen and calls it love.”

My hands curl into the blanket.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. And in any case, I’m not her mother.”

“No,” he says. “You’re worse. You sat by and watched.”

He stands. Walks to the window. Looks out.

Then—quietly, as though it’s not even a question—”I said get up.”

I don’t move.

Not right away.

“You need to eat.”

He’s not wrong for once. I’m starving.

He leaves and returns with a plate. “This should help your blood sugar.”

The toast smells like a bribe. Or a test. I’m too hungry to care which. And I want out of this room. I want out of these sheets.

Out of the stale air and the quiet that’s starting to feel as though it might actually drive me insane.

So I eat the toast and when I’m less shaky, I follow him out of the room and down the hall even though it feels like the part in a horror movie where someone smiles right before the worst thing happens.

He leads me to the dining room.

Light spills in. It’s too bright.

The room is all windows. High and wide. On the table are two plates of food. It’s too hot to have been waiting long.

“Sit,” he says.

I do. Faster than I mean to.

He doesn’t take a seat. Just stands there and watches as I salivate over the food on the table.

“Better,” he says, almost to himself.

“Is it?”

He shrugs like it’s obvious. “You can’t understand someone you’ve only seen in one position.”

My stomach knots.

He’s not wrong.

He studies me as though I’m a reflection of something he’s trying to remember.

“The first time I saw you,” he says, “you looked like someone who’d already decided to die.”

I don’t answer. I’m not sure he’s expecting me to.

He sits across from me, finally.

Not that it matters. I can’t take my eyes off the food. Eggs. Toast. Bacon .

I don’t touch it, even though I’m dying to. Even though it wouldn’t matter if he killed me for doing it. I don’t touch it because I have years of experience stuffing down the things I want.

“You knew I made a mistake,” he says.

I study his face. I don’t know where he’s going with this—only that men like him rarely admit fault. And when they do, it’s never without an angle.

“But you let me keep making it.”

My hands stay in my lap. Steady. Flat. Neutral.

“You shoved a needle in my neck and stuffed me in your car. You can hardly argue what I know or don’t.”

“You know enough.”

There’s nothing to say to that. So I look away—toward the windows. Ocean, endless and clean, like the horizon might erase everything if you stare long enough.

“Did it feel good?” he asks. “Watching me act like I had it right?”

“No.”

His tone shifts—tight, clipped. “Look at me.”

I don’t.

The chair creaks as he leans forward. “I said look at me.”

I turn my head. Slowly. My eyes meet his.

“I asked you a question. And I expect a proper answer.”

“No. It didn’t feel good,” I say, which is the truth. “It felt irrelevant. Because I’m still here. And it’s not like you’re going to just let me walk out.”

His expression doesn’t change.

I watch him—his hands, his shoulders, the confusion on his face.

“You think if I’d known your name sooner, I wouldn’t have brought you here?”

I don’t answer.

Because I don’t believe that.

Because I know better.

He leans in.

“I don’t care who you are,” he says. “Only what you’ve done.”

“And what have I done?”

He lets the question hang. Not because he has the answer—but because he doesn’t.

Because he’s still trying to mold me into something that justifies this.

He pushes back from the table.

“We’re done here,” he says. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

I don’t move.

“You got what you wanted. A confession. Now either let me eat or kill me and get it over with—because honestly, death sounds a whole lot more refreshing than spending another day here with you.”

He turns. Eyes flat.

“This is a very nice house,” he says. “You’ve only seen two rooms.”

He doesn’t wait for a response. “And that wasn’t a confession.”

“Maybe not. But it’s the closest you’ll get.”

We stare at each other across the space. Across the table. Across the line he still thinks I’m going to cross.

And when he reaches for me, I don’t stop him. I lean back, tense—but not from fear. Not only.

I let him touch me.

He thinks I’m giving in.

It’s too bad, really.

He’ll bleed for that.