Page 29 of Promise of Destruction

“Okay,” She breathes it softly, like she can’t believe she’s agreeing to this. “I accept your terms.”

I don’t bother trying to hide the smirk when I meet her eyes and hold out a hand for her to shake. Soren looks at it with unveiled resignation before slipping her hand into mine and giving it a dainty shake.

“So, you’re a whore after all.”

twenty

Soren

Idon’tstopshakingthe whole way home. I tremble as I pull the salad container from the fridge, as I shove a few bites in my mouth and chase it with a glass of wine. I’m still trembling thirty minutes later when I step under the stream of water and let it pour over my face, the hot water burning my flesh.

I’m too distraught to be bothered by that. The heat feels good, so I rotate myself under the water, letting it spray my back and run between my shoulder blades, warming me from the outside in.

I’m not sure I can ever warm up on the inside after today. I’m too anxious, and it feels like my insides have been hollowed out only to be replaced with dry ice. Insubstantial, weightless, but brutal.

My choice wasn’t easy, but the simple acceptance was. Getting the offer felt like it should require me to sign my name in my own blood or sacrifice a baby on an altar. It doesn’t seem possible that a choice with so many ramifications would be as simple to come by as saying “I’ll take it”.

Once he was finished making me feel like the whore he thinks I am, he told me there would be a contract on my desk in the morning.

Maybethat’swhat I’ll have to sign in blood.

In theory I have time to back out. Until I sign a contract, I technically haven’t sold my soul to the devil or gotten myself into boiling hot water that I’ll likely drown in. Until I put pen to paper, I technically haven’t given him anything other than my surrender. I can take it back.

But I won’t.

I can’t. It would be too pathetic.

Not to mention, I can’t walk away from the offer he made me. I can’t walk away from an opportunity to have my life changed.

Not changed.

Wrecked.

Nothing good will come from Declan Evers. If he is serious about his offer and I take him up on it, I am sure that he will make every moment of my life miserable until I can’t take it anymore. I thought I could exact revenge against a psychopath by tarnishing his good name, and it’s bitten me in the ass hard.

Nobody has looked twice at him, the police still don’t believe me, and now he’s infiltrated my life.

Fuck.

Ireallymessed this up.

The frustration surges in me, swelling until I feel my chest will collapse with it. There’s so much pressure inside of my ribcage that I’m pretty sure every beat of my heart will be the one that propels it across the bathroom floor.

I suck in a breath to try and steady myself, but it does the opposite of help; it hurts.

It hurts too much.

I suck in another breath and press my hands against my ears, trying to block out the rest of the world.

And then I scream.

I scream until the water runs cold.

I scream until all the frustration seeps out of me, leaving me tired and finally too exhausted to tremble.

I scream until the world darkens at the corners of my vision.

It rips from my throat like it’s being parted under force, leaving it raw and sore.