Page 27 of Scarred in Silence (The Twisted Trilogy #2)

Astra

My jaw radiates pain. I know he said it would be sore for a while, but it feels unbearable. I’ve always craved pain, but not this kind of pain. This hurts like a bitch.

I lay in Lucien’s bed, wrapped in my feather down blanket. He got it from my house, along with all of my other belongings. He completely moved me in. When? I don’t have a fucking clue, but I am grateful.

I’m grateful he saved me. He accepts me for who I am. He doesn’t want me to change. He just wants me to be loyal.

I want to clear the air about everything that happened. I know Lucien doesn’t actually forgive me yet. He just wanted to fuck me. He told me to come out whenever I was ready. That was probably two hours ago. I don’t have the will to get up. Not yet.

It’s the first sleep I’ve had in a comfortable bed since the night I woke up in New Mexico in the stranger’s house. I needed a restful sleep. It helps that Dr. Marlowe gave me some painkillers to help.

Lucien has them, though. He won’t let me tak e them myself, which tells me he doesn’t trust me yet.

I sit up, and the room feels as if it’s spinning. I steady myself on the edge of the bed, letting the dizziness subside before I try to stand up completely.

I slowly stand and carry myself into the bathroom. When I look in the mirror, I startle. I can’t get used to my hair like this. I hate it.

I need to see if we can change it back.

The tub calls my name. I know I shouldn’t, considering I have a fresh brand mark on my thigh, but I can’t help it. I need to float.

I start the tub, making the water lukewarm, not adding anything else to keep the wound from burning.

I slip off my t-shirt and thong. Then I bend down, slowly peeling off he bandage from my leg. The skin pulls from the adhesive.

The skin is raised and blistering. It fucking hurts. The wet-looking marking looks angry.

I step into the water, slowly sinking. When I get to my thigh, I double over in pain. The sting pulses through my leg, making me want to jump out of the water, but I don’t.

I don’t want to look at it. The reminder of what I did to Lucien weighs heavily on my conscience.

Footsteps come closer as I submerge myself into the tub.

“What the Hell are you doing?”

Lucien rushes over to me, scooping me out of the tub.

“You’re going to get an infection.”

He grabs a towel and dries me. The gesture is so simple, but it means the world to me even though I didn’t get my bath.

He carefully dries the wound, and I look away. He applies fresh cream and a new bandage. He places a tender kiss over the ba ndage when he finishes.

“We need to talk,” I say softly, my voice cracking, and my jaw aches.

“I know.”

* * *

I sit curled up next to Lucien on his brown leather couch. He sits back with his arm wrapped around me.

“So,” he says.

“I’m sorry…”

He nods.

“Apology accepted.”

I stare at him, wondering if he feels sorry for anything. Probably not. He’s never sorry.

“Tell me what happened,” his tone low and cold.

I clear my throat before I begin.

“The whole thing or just the important parts?”

“The important parts. I’ll tell you if I need you to elaborate.”

I take a deep breath.

“I was at Varek’s. I only slept there one night, and he tried to come onto me, and I rejected him. Then he didn’t give me dinner. After that, Nicolette came in and three men. They held me down and took me to a cell.”

“Why did she do that? Any reason?” He asks.

“She wanted to get back at me because I am Evelyn’s best friend. Evelyn killed Lacey.”

“Got it. Continue.”

“Once I was in the other cell, Varek chased me, I tried to escape them, I passed out and woke up in a new room, strapped to a bed. Instead of Varek, Miles was there. He rap ed me while I was tied down to a bed. He also told me that he was in Club Muse and gave Evelyn a card. He said he helped burn down Evelyn’s mother’s house…

Then I ended up in a different room where Nicolette cut and colored my hair.

After that, she took me to the Club Muse in Utah to be sold into sex trafficking.

They held an auction, and Nicolette threatened me that if I didn’t go, she would make sure Miles won me. ”

My jaw throbs as I try to tell him everything I remember.

“After I was sold—”

“How much did he pay for you?”

“Ninety thousand.”

He nods.

“Continue,” he says dryly.

“Then I was at Victor’s. He was being nice to me, and I was planning to run, but—”

“But what?” He shifts in his seat to standing. Crossing his arms as he looks down at me.

“But he reminded me of you…”

Lucien’s face morphs into disgust.

“You think that sleazy prick is anything like me? HUH. DO YOU?” He screams.

My ears ring.

“No… He proved me wrong…”

“Yeah, I bet he did…. Continue.”

“I laid down on the table…”

“Why?”

My stomach twists into knots admitting this to him, but I know he wants to know the truth.

“He was going to show me what his tastes involved…”

“You fucking…. You fucking whore…”

He turns, pacing the living room.

“Fucking go on. Finish it already,” he demands.

“I tried to run when I realized I made a mistake, but… but…,” I choke on my tears as they spill over my lashes.

“But he stopped me. He drugged me, and then I woke up with my jaw wired shut. Then I called you…”

I sob into my knees on the couch. He stands, looking amused by my actions.

“So let me get this straight. I was gone for five days, and you let two men fuck you?”

His accusatory statement makes bile rise into my throat.

“No… They raped me,” I choke out.

“Were you wet for them?”

“Lucien, stop!” I cry out.

“WERE YOU?” He screams. His veins are pulsing visibly in his neck.

“YOU FUCKING WERE!”

He is irate. I’m fucking scared. My body trembles, and my sobs grow louder.

“Don’t fucking cry. You let Nicolette dictate what you did with your own fucking body. You had a choice. You chose wrong.” He storms out of the room and outside.

I hear his bike start, and he is gone. He didn’t have to do that. I was just being honest. I thought we were past this.

I cry to myself.

Why does everything always have to end badly for me? Now Lucien doesn’t even want me. The one person who always loved me.

What the fuck am I supposed to do now?

* * *

I sit in the bedroom, staring at the mirror on the ceiling above the bed. He was gone all night. I don’t know where he went. All I know is he is mad at me.

I didn’t do anything. He is the one who brought me to his sleazy cousin’s house. How is any of this my fault?

I wish I had a fucking phone. I need to see Evelyn. I fucking miss her. She would know what to say right now.

Then, I have a thought. Lucien brought all of my belongings here, which means I have a fucking phone. I walk into the closet and start rummaging through everything. I throw everything on the ground, searching for it.

I knock a box off the shelf, and a bunch of notes and photos fall onto the ground. I pause, looking at the hundreds of photos surrounding me.

I lift up the first picture. It’s of Lucien and me at a haunted house. We both look so happy. The next is a photo of me while I’m sleeping. He wrote a date on the back. It’s from when I was 19 years old.

I pick up one of the notes. It reads:

You were never supposed to matter this much.

I told myself you were a means to an end—a loose thread I needed to cut, a voice I needed to silence. But you never fucking shut up, did you? Even when you weren’t speaking, you were still in my head. Screaming. Laughing. Crying,. Taunting me.

You haunt everything. Your eyes haunt me with every glance.

I should hate you. I should end you. But instead, I crave new ways to keep you. To own you. To ruin you so no one else will ever want what’s mine.

They think I’m obsessed. Maybe I am. But obsession is just a symptom of possession—and I fucking possess you. Whether you want i t or not.

You’ll never be free of me, little Siren. Not because I trap you… But because deep down, I think you want me to.

—L

A tear rolls down my cheek. He wrote this for me and never gave it to me. I pick up another one, feeling a rush of warmth in my chest. This one reads:

She is a contradiction. Soft voice with a sharp tongue. Fragile body with a destructive core. A liability disguised as longing.

I’ve studied her long enough to understand the patterns—she doesn’t crave love. She craves chaos. Attention. Pain. She’ll ruin anyone who tries to save her, and maybe that’s why I keep trying. I don’t fear the ruin. I welcome it.

She mistakes my presence for devotion. It isn’t. It’s control. I don’t need her. I simply refuse to let her belong to anyone else.

There’s a difference.

She thinks I see her. I don’t. I see the version I created. And that’s the only one I’ll keep.

—L

These aren’t for me… These are journal entries. My stomach knots at the words he wrote. My curiosity gets the best of me, and I read another one:

She moaned my name like it meant something. Like I hadn’t just branded her hours earlier. Like I hadn’t broken her in every way a person can be broken.

I expected shame in her eyes. Regret. Maybe even fear. But she looked at me like I was her goddamn savior .

She’s mine now. Fully. Completely. Irrevocably.

The fucked-up part? I felt something. Not softness—not love. Just the thrill of having her so far gone she doesn’t even realize she’s drowning.

She offered herself to me like a sacrifice and smiled through the slaughter. And I took it. Every last piece of her. I branded her with a piece of another man, and she accepted it.

She’s not healed. She’s converted. And that’s better.

—I don’t write this for her. I write this so I remember what I’ve done. And how easily I’d do it again.

—L

Tears of sadness roll down my cheeks. He doesn’t love me?

My heart aches in my chest. It’s not true.

He tells me all the time. Before he branded me, he told me to remember that he loves me.

He must not have been thinking clearly when he wrote this.

I toss the note to the side and pick up more pictures.

We looked so happy. What happened? I know what happened. Drugs.

I started using more and more to fill the void. The void that is my soul. I can’t get enough. I never will.

I stand up and head into the bathroom, rummaging through his medicine cabinet. Fucking nothing. He took everything.

A sob racks through my body, and I slam the mirrored door shut. I stare at my reflection in the mirror and see nothing but shame.

I pick up a candle and throw it into the glass, shattering my reflection. I look into the shattered mirror and see fragments of myself. I see myself as Elliana once did. Fragmented. No one will love all of me, only parts. Why did I ever think that someon e could love all of me? I’m defective.

That’s why my parents never loved me.

I go into the garage and get a golf club. I walk back into the house and destroy every mirror. The mirrors all lie. I’m not the person I see in the mirror. I’m not sad, broken, or full of shame.

I am strong, powerful. Like water.

He even said I have a haunting stare— that’s because I could kill someone if I really wanted to, but I don’t. I just want to be free.

I stare down at all the shards of glass glistening on the floor, and a trail of blood leaves the sole of my foot like a signature painted in crimson. It doesn’t hurt. Nothing could hurt me anymore.

I wonder what it would be like to be water?