Chapter 86

I try digging my nails into his wrist to try and stop him, but he’s got me held and gagged like he intended, and I can’t get him off no matter how much I thrash, twist and turn. I can barely breathe or open my mouth to attempt biting, as the floods of tears hit me, through the veiled mist of panic.

He’s stronger, more powerful and my slight body is no match. Alexi fucks me for only seconds, until I am in the throes of emotional hysteria so great my legs give out, and I end up being held up completely by him before he stops. The point of his effort was not his sexual gratification—it was a plain and simple lesson in my defiance. A tool to hurt me for standing up to him again and it was never about sex at all.

My eyes are blurry with tears and my nose pouring from the instant sodden mess I have become. My heart is destroyed, my soul torn in two and I can’t see from the blind panic of being unable to get free. Pain wracking through me from the distress of what he has done.

Despite trying to hide this from him, he ripped it to the surface in the same way he forced me to endure one of my biggest fears. Letting me go, gracelessly dumped, I fall in a heap on the floor sobbing and clawing desperately at my arms and legs to curl up, even though he no longer has a hold of me. He just stands and glares while he buttons up his trousers and calmly rights himself as though he’s doing nothing wrong.

I feel violated and dirty, destroyed in every way as dark shadows and men fly at me through the dark shadows of being caught between reality and traumatic memory.

‘’I warned you … don’t fuck with me.’’ It’s low, cold and devoid of remorse. The evil in the darkness and he’s no different to any of the millions of men who treated me like worthless rubbish. I am distraught, gasping, aching and shaking so violently I cannot compose myself. Unable to get off the floor or move from where I feel. Like a worthless rag on the floor. He didn’t physically hurt me much, he didn’t force anything on me, but he knew how to get to me on the worst kind of level, and as I pull my legs into myself as tightly as I can, curling up to shield my body from more abuse, I sob like a broken child. I physically cannot hate him anymore than I do right now. This was more than humiliating, it was soul-destroying. ‘‘Why … would … you?’’ I can’t get the words out through gasping breaths and hazy vision, broken inside and lost in memory and fear. Places I spent years locking out, and ever since him, they have been unravelling inside of me like a spew of bad dreams, suddenly resurfacing after years of being locked in a box.

‘’I told you once … I am not your hero or your lover. I told you that there would be consequences if you got on the wrong side of me.’’ Alexi sounds strange even for him, and I bury my face in my hands and just start to unravel completely, trying to stifle my heart broken gasps, but I am just too far gone down that road of emotional despair. Shuddering with the effort to breathe, wiping my nose and face as it drips onto my naked chest. Hating and cursing him, yet so lost in my own misery that I don’t care if he sees me broken.

I don’t care if it’s what he wants—he has broken me. I wrap my arms around my legs and pull myself taught and small, tucking my head down into the ball I make with my body, like I used to when I was little in a bid to keep the bad men out and find a safe little place where no one could find me. Make myself invisible, so they might leave me alone for just one day, one hour, one minute, even just one second to have no one wanting to hurt me.

Almost without even realising I start humming that song I used to sing in my head, over and over to try to block it out. To self soothe and find that inner peace which stopped me from losing my mind a million times in my past, and to try to keep what they were doing out of my focus. Humming a stupid lullaby, I don’t even know where I heard it but it’s always there ready to centre me and bring me back to a safer place in my head. Finding that little haven of unreality where my mind can detach from my body and nothing can touch me anymore.

I jump when a warm touch on my arm breaks my internal bubble, crashing back to the still darkness of my prison, and I lash out ferociously.

‘‘Don’t touch me! … None of you will ever touch me again.’’ I cry out, fighting shadows and cruel hands with so much pain and anguish in my voice as I fail to really grasp where I am anymore.