I’ve fought so, so hard to get here, and if I can make it here, I can make it anywhere.

Then, instead of feeling the sharp sting of my legs hitting the ground, I’m enveloped in steel-like arms.

The sense of failure seeps straight under my ribcage and squeezes my heart.

My breathing hitches as I meet Jonathan’s raging grey eyes. “Fascinating, Aurora. Fascinating indeed.”

7

Aurora

For the first time in my life, my escape plan fails before it even starts.

As I stare at the fury emanating off Jonathan’s features, I know, I just know that there’s no way in hell I’ll ever be able to escape.

I’ll end up like Alicia.

Roaming the halls. Hallucinating. Poisoned.

Dead.

A rush of life shoots through my bubbling veins and I push at his chest with my bloodied palms, my limbs flailing about. I’m acting straight out of irrational anger and the need to stay alive. Gone is my logical, strategic side — it was killed when I didn’t hit the ground and fell back into Jonathan’s cage. “Let me go!”

My fight is futile. It’s like he doesn’t feel my fists against his shirt or my scratches against the skin of his collarbone. It’s almost as if he’s waiting for my fit of anger to subside and for me to go slack.

I don’t.

I squirm and wiggle and push and punch. I use every trick under the sun to get away from his merciless grip.

The silent treatment greets me as he walks me back to the house.

No, no…

My energy heightens and I kick my feet in the air in an attempt to make him loosen his hold.

All I get is a harsh squeeze on my outer thigh. Ouch.

We pass the statue of the Virgin Mary carrying the little angel as they both cry, and a scary sense of foreboding goes through me.

A realisation, too.

That statue represented Alicia’s life in the King mansion. She was crying and no one saw her. She suffered and no one helped her.

If anything, her husband and life companion poisoned her. He killed her.

He killed my sister.

Angry tears fill my eyes as I elbow and claw at his side. I know it won’t get me anywhere with his strength, but as long as I can breathe, I’ll fight.

I’m a fighter. A survivor. I’ve come this far, and I won’t allow Jonathan to dictate my end.

It doesn’t matter that my palms keep bleeding. The sting and the burn will eventually go away once I’m out of here.

Margot appears at the entrance, wearing a long nightgown. She must’ve gotten out of bed due to the commotion.

“Help me, Margot! Help!” I scream at the top of my lungs.

She opens her mouth, then closes it while she watches the scene like it’s out of a freak show. I’m struggling in Jonathan’s hold while his face is stone-cold as if it’s made of fucking granite.

“Sir…?” she asks, almost uncertain.

“Go back to sleep, Margot,” he tells her in a firm tone that accepts no negotiations, his attention focused ahead.

“No!” I squirm. “Nooo!”

I stare behind me at Margot, hoping against all hope that she’ll follow and somehow help me out of the tyrant’s clutches.

She’s not there.

No one is.

It’s only me and him.

By the time we reach my room, my energy has waned, but that doesn’t make me stop. I can’t stop. If I do, that means I’m admitting defeat, and I would never do that.

I hate how easily Jonathan overpowers me with a squeeze of his big hand around my thigh or arm. I hate that I’m so small in comparison to his frame.

I hate him.

I hate him so much, not only because of what happened to Alicia, but because I was about to instil my trust in him.

I was fucking falling for him, and for what? For this betrayal. For this…desolation.

It’s like my feelings are trapped in a state of hyperawareness and it’s almost impossible to sort through them.

All I know is that I need to leave. Now.

“Are you done?” he asks in that closed-off tone of his. His features are blank and the lack of reaction, the fact that I can’t read past his façade, is more frightening than if he’d lashed out at me.

Jonathan isn’t a man to be taken lightly, and to be caught under his thumb means danger. However, that doesn’t stop my innate need to run.

“I’ll never be done. Lock me up again and I’ll try to escape until I finally do it.” I punch him one more time for good measure.

He places me on the bed and I scramble away like an injured animal.

In fact, I am.

The bandages covering my palms are soaked in blood. My knees and lip sting, and the back of my head throbs.

However, that’s nothing compared to being stabbed, crawling out of the grave, and suturing myself.

If I could endure that, then I can endure this.

Jonathan stands in front of the bed, both hands in his pockets, appearing like a warlord sampling his prisoner of war. There are a few scratch marks on his neck and collarbone, and blood stains on his light blue shirt.

I try to hold on to my hate for him, but I don’t like inflicting pain on others. That’s so similar to my dad, and I promised myself to never be like Dad.

No.

I’m only defending myself like any injured animal trying to escape. It’s only natural that I’d scratch, bite, and claw.

Jonathan stares down his arrogant nose at me. The storm brewing in his grey gaze is a force not to be reckoned with. “Measures are already in place, so you will not be able to escape, and even if you do, I’ll find you in no time, Aurora. Now, why don’t you stop fucking around and tell me what’s with the show you’re putting on.”

I lift my chin, refusing to answer.

“You won’t talk? Is that it?” Jonathan lowers his knees to the bed, dipping the mattress.

I hold my ground, meeting his unfeeling eyes with all the bitterness and hate in mine.

His knees are on either side of my legs as he cages me in and lifts my chin with two lean fingers, trapping me with his savage eyes.

At a naïve moment, I imagined that I was seeing myself in those eyes. That’s far from accurate.

There’s no way I’d be able to. His gaze is bland, lifeless, and only filled with the purpose to hurt or to be obeyed.

Or both.

His philosophy is that he’ll hurt whoever doesn’t obey him. That he’ll make them disappear as if they never existed.

Is that what happened to Alicia?

Despite my attempts to regulate my breathing, it’s chopped off and I’m straight out panting as if I’ve just returned from a hike.

“What was that stunt all about, Aurora?”

“I want to go out,” I blurt.

“Go out where?”

“I want to go to visit Layla.”

“At three in the morning dressed like that?”

I stare down at myself and realise I’m only wearing a thin nightgown that outlines my breasts and stops above my knees. I hadn’t thought about that earlier, but now, I’m starting to feel self-conscious. It takes all I have to speak in a semi-neutral tone, “She’s a night owl. She wouldn’t mind.”

“Try again.”