Page 44 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

forty-two

Soren

Declan left me with an ache I have no way of soothing and a need I can’t fulfill. Embarrassment twines with my anger at him. He’s made no qualms about his desire for me. He’s the one who said he wanted to fuck me. And then he just left me here, begging for him like the whore he thinks I am.

God dammit.

I hear his footsteps track away from my room and the sound of glass raining into a container somewhere. A few minutes later, my front door opens. I hear his car start, but the sound of him backing down the drive doesn’t immediately follow.

I imagine he sat there a moment, staring at my window, knowing he just made the stupidest decision he could have.

The ache inside of me needs soothed, but he never told me how he’s watching me. I’m not sure if he planned to back out on our deal from the start or if he just didn’t know how to circle back after I’d caught him in the garage snooping through my possessions. I hadn’t exactly asked.

The time on my phone says 5:15. The sky outside is lightening with the approaching sun, and I didn’t sleep.

I am so calling out. Maybe for the next week.

A cold shower doesn’t take away all of my frustration, but it helps.

I have no idea if Declan is sitting outside somewhere watching me or if he planted cameras in my bathroom when he went in to get the supplies to bandage up my feet, although it would be impressive considering he was in there for less than two minutes.

Don’t forget the time you were asleep while he had free reign of your house.

I fell asleep with him in my house. A murderer.

Or not…

Though I’m loathe to admit it, I suddenly think I believe him.

Something in the way he casually professed how his obsession with me began when he saw me the first time was hard not to fall for. And not only that, there was the matter of his touch…

The night Vin died, somebody hurt me. I know that the way that I knew I was pregnant that Christmas morning when I broke into tears at the present Vin gave me. I know that the way I know that I wasn’t pregnant anymore when I woke up in that bathtub covered in nothing but my own blood.

I was a suspect, not a victim in the eyes of the law.

They patched me up in the back of the ambulance with it’s lights off while my driveway filled with cop cars, the coroner’s van, nosy neighbors.

A young officer—younger than me—set up a perimeter of yellow crime scene tape around my yard.

I sat sticky and numb, still covered in blood, until they strapped me down to a gurney and dumped me at the hospital.

The doctors there wanted to run every test they could, to check on the baby, to check on me, but it was all useless. I knew it before they confirmed it.

The detectives came to the hospital room to ask more questions, and when I gave them everything I had, they left me alone. Marissa picked me up.

I just wanted a shower, so that’s what I did. And once all the blood had been rinsed down her shower drain, I dressed and curled into a ball because that’s the only thing that helped keep the pain at bay.

In my attempt to remember what had happened, I worked on recreating the scene.

It was an orphan idea to put my wedding dress on, something that came from nowhere.

And when I was looking at my reflection, another orphan idea told me to try and trace my steps.

That’s how I ended up in the bathtub again.

The difference was that that time, I cut my own wrists.

I still don’t know if I wanted to die. I don’t remember making the decision to open the stitches that had been sewn through my skin.

I just remember waking up on a psych hold as the result of Detective Fremont stopping by to ask some questions. They had a warrant; Finding me in the bathtub was as good as a confession in their eyes. Fortunately for me, his superiors disagreed, and I was never charged.

By the time I remembered feeling somebody’s hands on me, their breath on my neck, all evidence was long-gone, and I was told that was a convenient new detail I’d come up with. Convenient, seeing that all traces of evidence would be gone.

And as sure as I know someone took my body and bent it to their will that night, I know it wasn’t Declan. His touch was different, his breath on my neck didn’t make my stomach heave, and most importantly, every time he touches me, I crave more of him. I hate myself for it, but I do.

Declan didn’t kill Vin, which means whoever did is still out there.

And they need to pay for their sins.