Filed To Story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
“Well, I’m glad that helps you sleep at night.”
“You don’t know anything about me or how I sleep at night.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t,” I tell him, slamming the door as I exit the vehicle.
I walk ahead of him up the staircase to the main floor of the house that isn’t a home and then to the bedroom that isn’t mine, closing the door behind me. I slip out of the red lace dress and boots and into one of those generic labelless black tops, turn off the light, and crawl into bed with my knife in my hand.
I was cared for. I do know what it’s like to be touched in a loving way, and it does make all of this a lot harder for me.
Shortly after, the doorknob turns, and footsteps approach the bed.
“What do you want? I don’t want to have sex with you,” I say without turning to face him.
Bone Saw climbs into the bed behind me. “I thought I’d stay with you until you fell asleep again. Do you want me to?”
“ Yes.”
He wraps an arm around my waist, slipping his hand inside the front of my t-shirt, and I feel itno glove, just bare skin against mine. I close my eyes as he runs his knuckles up and down my stomacha small concession, a tiny scrap of affection that, while soothing, also reminds me just how starved for it I am.
He says I’ll forget about itthat I won’t need it anymore, and I hope he’s right. I’m so tired of how much it all hurts.
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When I wake up, I’m alone. It feels like hours have passed, but I know it can’t have been that long. It was after three in the morning when we got back, and through the open door, I can still see it’s dark in the main room.
“How did you get this number?”
Bone Saw’s voicehis unmuffled voicecarries into the room. Or, at least, I assume it’s him. There’s something vaguely familiar about it, but I can’t quite place it.
“Yeah, well plans change.”
Who is he talking to?
Slowly, I climb out of bed and move through the room with my knife clutched tightly in my hands just in case. I stop in the kitchen, just out of view, maybe eight or ten feet away from where he leans against the bookshelf with his back toward me, talking on a satellite phone. He’s still wearing a hood, but the mask must be raised.
“I don’t answer to you. And it’s not my job to ask questions.”
Slowly, I step around the corner, holding my breath while I close the space between us.
“Yeah, well, she’s not a kittenshe’s a monster. And you can’t keep monsters as pets.”
My heart stops; I forget how to breathe, like I’m the one who’s been stabbed in the kidneys over and over again. Tears well in my eyes, falling of their own accord because I can’t even blink. I beg my body to moveto do somethingand what it finally does is speak in a tone that doesn’t even sound like my own.
“Is that Declan?” my high-pitched voice squeaks.
Bone Saw’s posture stiffens, and as he goes to adjust the mask, I slice his shoulder and grab the phone.
“Teagan!” he yells.
“Is it you?” I shout into the phone.
The person on the other end doesn’t answer, but I can hear him there, breathing. I backpedal until I hit a wall and hold my knife out in front of me.
“I know you’re there!” I cry. “I can hear you. You can pick up a fucking phone?”
I wait, but still, nothing. “Say something!”
Bone Saw stops in front of me, his arms crossed in front of his chest, but he doesn’t make a move to take it from me. I don’t think it’s because he’s worried about me and my knife.
“I hate you.” I choke on a sob. “You lied to me. You said you’d never leave me. You said you loved me and that we were the same and I would never be alone and then you left me. I have nothing, and I’m in pain all the time. They won’t leave me alone, and he’s hurting me. Do you even care at all?”
Nothing.
A few seconds later, the line cuts off. I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it for a minute before letting it fall to the ground.
Then, I slide down the wall and let myself fall to the ground, too.
“I’m sorry, Teagan,” Bone Saw says.
“No, you’re not.”
“But it’s good that you’re mad,” he adds. “You should be mad.”
“Fuck you.”
I peel myself off of the floor and head for the door.
“Teagan, there’s nowhere to go,” he calls after me.
“I don’t care. I can’t be hereI can’t be around you anymore.”
Just like last time, the garage opens on its own once I reach the bottom of the stairs. I try the door to the Aston Martin just in case, but, of course, it’s locked. I walk out into the night and start down the dirt road.
“What are you doing?” Bone Saw asks, not far behind me. “You’re in the middle of nowhere, you’re half-naked, and you don’t even have shoes on. Nothing good is going to happen out here like this. Stop pouting and come back to the house.”
“This is exactly why I can’t be around you! You don’t get it because you’re not human anymore! I’m not pouting, I’m fucking suffering, and the only bad thing that could possibly happen to me out here is you. I’m a monster, remember? What do I have to be afraid of?”
“That’s a compliment.”
Furious, I stop in my tracks and turn back toward him. “It is not a fucking compliment!” I scream. I pick up a rock and throw it at him, but he ducks before it hits him. “Telling someone they can’t exist anywherethat no one will ever want them and you wish you could kill them is not a fucking compliment! And you’re talking to him about me. You lied, and I am so fucking sick of liars! I wish I could kill you, too. Just leave me alone.”
I turn back down the path, but a sharp pain in the bottom of my foot knocks me off balance.
“Fuck!”
Just as quickly as I shift my weight onto my left foot, I slip and find myself tumbling down the side of the mountain with nothing to stop me. I know I should let go of the knife and try to find something to grab onto, but I can’t. I tighten my grip on the handle, squeeze my eyes shut, and just wait for it to be over.
It ends a few seconds later when I’m stopped hard by a tree, curling around it and gasping for air.
“Teagan?!” Bone Saw calls. Dirt shifts around me, and when I look up, he’s there, a few feet away. “Teagan!?” he screams again. “Where are you?”
Maybe if I don’t answer, he’ll go away. He’ll think I’m dead, and they’ll all leave me alone.
“Don’t fuck with me, Teagan!” he yells. “There is no running away, and you’re only going to piss me off! You better be fucking dead or unconscious, or I’m going to kill you!”
I hold my breath as he moves closer, afraid he’ll hear me.
“Teagan?” he says from directly above me. “You don’t look dead or unconscious.”
“I wish I was. Does that count?”
“No.”
“Well, go ahead and kill me then.”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.