Page 70 of Save Me
How reassuring!
“Good to know if there’s a fire,” I mutter but this only makes him smirk at me while stroking my hair with his weird brand of affection.
Moments later, he turns without another word, leaving me in my room for the night as he heads toward the door. Before he leaves, he turns back and waves goodnight with a small wink just for added creepiness. When the door closes with the sound of the lock, I flop onto the bed, sigh, then reach for my phone.
“Mum?” I say with a voice threatening to break, “It’s me.”
“Beth? Oh my God, where are you? I expected you to be home by now!” she gasps, sounding as though she’s absolutely frantic. “Xander is going out of his mind!”
“He’s locked me in the bedroom; I can’t go home until morning,” I tell her, wincing over the ensuing reaction.
“What the ever-living fuck, Beth?!” Xander’s raging voice barks down the phone. “I want you home right now!” Jeez, I’m so over fucking guys barking orders at me tonight. “And why the hell do you sound the way you do? What has that asshole done to you now?”
“Please, Xander, I’m exhausted and drained. I am sleeping alone and I’m alive. Please let me explain in the morning. I’m so tired, baby!” I try to soften his rage in the hopes it might dissipate.
“Fine!” he replies coldly before it sounds like he passes the phone back to Mum, who then begins shouting after him. I hear a door slam, causing me to flinch.
“Oh, baby girl, what are we going to do?” she says to me with a softness I so desperately need to hear.
“I don’t know, Mum, I really don’t know!” Her sad voice now has me sobbing quietly down the phone. I know I would do anything to crawl into bed with her right now; for her to tell me it’s all going to be ok and for me to believe her.
I’m not sure if it’s morning or not when I wake, but something has stirred me enough to come to. However, I’m also half wondering if I’m still dreaming. Wherever I am in my consciousness, it’s dark outside, disorientating, and totally alien to me. I’m lying silently still, trying to understand what is going on, when someone’s hand falls upon my waist. Their body wraps themselves further around me until I am pulled up against a warm chest. My heart begins to thump more rapidly, as if trying to beat itself right out of my ribcage. I emit a strangled gasp before flipping around to face whatever horror is now lying beside me.
His eyes open as soon as I face his half-naked body, making me acutely aware that I am only wearing my old t-shirt and a skimpy pair of panties. It becomes apparent that it was an epically stupid idea not to have worn my jeans to bed, but, rather naively, I believed him when he had said I would be sleeping alone. As if coming to the same realization over our lack of clothing, Oliver lifts the corners of his mouth into a soft smile, then reaches out to cup my face.
“I just wanted to lie with my fiancé,” he whispers as if sensing how terrified I feel, “nothing sexual, just comfort from the woman I am giving my heart to.” He pulls my wrist gently toward him so that we end up lying side by side, facing one another.
“You don’t love me, Oliver,” I reply to his declaration of warped love, “you can’t love someone you hurt.”
For a moment he surprises me by looking both conflicted and guilty, for my body is so obviously marked by his own hands, he cannot deny it.
“I’m sorry,” he eventually says, though sounding too formal, given both the current situation and our state of undress. “You just mean an awful lot to me, and it can make me a little hot-headed when I feel there is a risk of me not having you all to myself.”
“But that’s not love, Oliver, it can’t be!” I swallow hard, trying to explain, stupidly allowing myself to believe that there may reside some hint of rationality inside of him. “I think you love what I represent to you and what I can do for your terrifying organization.”
“Terrifying?!” he gasps, then laughs softly as he moves his grip from my wrist to my hand, where he begins to rub circles over the backs of my knuckles. “We need not fear anyone, my precious girl, we are at the top of the food chain; I will adore you for the rest of your life!”
“So long as I do as I’m told, right?” I argue. “Fall into line and never question what you want from me.”
My question has him pausing for thought with the same look of confliction that he had before, so much so, I begin to hope I might be getting through to him. Moments later, however, he smiles with his usual air of arrogance. He strokes my hair and shuffles dangerously close, now eyeing me like I’m a misinformed and uneducated orphan who needs looking after, as well as training under his care.
“As your fiancé and husband, I know what is best for you,” he finally replies, trying to reassure me. “I will always know what is best for you, so you need never question what I expect or ask from you.”
And there’s the brainwashing right there. There is no way to talk him out of this, to argue my case. He’s obviously been so fucked up by his weird Mayfield upbringing, he can no longer see the difference between right and wrong; love and obsession; consent and force. I sigh quietly, dying on the inside while deciding to give up. I know that I am only likely to anger him if I keep pushing.
Xander
The coast is clear when I turn up at Beth’s house at the butt-crack of dawn, looking a little sheepish before her mother after having lost my shit last night. She smiles at me like I’m her own son who is looking sorry for themselves, shaking her head in a ‘don’t worry about it’ kind of way. I’m then offered cups of tea and coffee while I’m held up inside of her husband’s office, getting more and more agitated as the hours pass by with still no sign of Beth. After what feels like days have passed by, I ask her mother if she has anything stronger because I can no longer stomach any more caffeine. She pats my shoulder sympathetically before sighing heavily, then leaves to go and sit by the window while she too, worries about her daughter’s non-arrival.
The moment I hear the door bang shut and a gasp of emotion between mother and daughter, my heart begins to beat again, I am elated that she’s finally home but also terrified of what might have happened to her. Her mother begins firing out dozens of questions all at once, riling herself up over the man who’s planning on becoming her son-in-law in the very near future. When Beth answers, she sounds exhausted, completely spent.
Minutes later, Beth opens the door looking guilty, obviously bracing herself for my furious reaction to last night; I hate myself for it. I can admit I was an ass last night, taking my anger out on the wrong person, but what does she expect? Here I am waiting for her to get back from a sleepover with her ‘fiancé’, who beats and touches her without any kind of permission. However, now that she’s here, hovering by the door and chewing on her thumbnail, her nervous tick, all I can think of doing is holding my arms out wide, offering them for her to fall into.
“Get over here, beautiful,” I tell her. The look of relief on her face is almost too much to bear. She runs over and lunges into my arms with a cry already escaping from her mouth, just before she really lets herself begin to sob against my chest. I hold her as tight as I can, whispering how sorry I am for losing it with her yesterday.
She stays hidden inside of me for so long, I half wonder if she’s fallen asleep. However, a small sniff followed by her pulling away from me soon lets me know she’s fully conscious, even if she does look like death warmed up. At first, I only notice the swollen nose with a red mark across her cheek. But then I notice fingerprint bruising around her neck, and I literally growl with a rage that seems to only rear its ugly head whenever I see what that animal has done to my beautiful girl. The thought of that motherfucker putting his filthy hands anywhere near her delicate skin has me shaking with pent-up energy. I have nowhere for it to go, so begin to run my hands through my hair while I pace up and down, pulling at my hair follicles to induce a delicious sting.
“How do you expect me to accept all of this and do nothing, Beth?” I grit through clenched teeth, my anger only rising the more I walk around. “To not go and kick his face in right now? Please tell me he didn’t touch you… in other ways?!”