But I’m scared of the repercussions. I’m scared he’ll go crazy and kill someone. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. His fiery temper. I saw how easily he could have killed somebody when they put their hands on me. That was small compared to this secret.
And I’m scared he’ll be thrown back into prison. It’ll be my fault if the bars close around him again. I can’t risk him sinking back into the darkness. I can’t do that to him.
I need more time to think.
Or . . . is this an excuse I’m giving myself to not face the monster in the dark?
He brings his hands to rest on the table on either side of my chair, trapping me. Then he isn’t just breathing hard. He is panting against my neck.
‘Amy, baby, did you come here because you want me to fuck you?’
‘If you want to,’ I whisper.
‘If I want to? If I want to? I watch you go in and out of my building, with my cock so hard it feels like I'm losing my mind. Go to your flat, knowing you can't even stand to be in the same room with me. Just so I can smell you, knowing how dangerous it is. Spend a lot of time thinking about what I'm going to do to you once I lose control. Thinking about how sweet it's going to be when I break that flimsy little promise.
‘How one of these days I'm gonna show up at your room and fuck you hard and fast. But I gotta say, this is much better than anything I was imagining. How you're here on your own, needing me.’
His lips brush against my neck. One hand comes to rest on my knee and snakes up my thigh. When I stand up, I’m already in his grasp. One hand clasps the back of my neck, and the other presses hard between my thighs as he kisses my throat.
I disgust myself. Knowing what happened to my sister, and to the other girls . . . and I’m what? Keeping quiet and setting my body on fire from the sensations of his touch? I make my own flesh crawl.
But I can’t leave, knowing what he’ll do if I stay.
My knees feel weak, because he terrifies me, always has done. And because his hand between my legs arouses me. Has he finally trained me to like it? Have I learnt to enjoy feeling guilt and pleasure at the same time?
Why did I come here?
Because I love him. Because he wants me. Not in any sane, normal way, but he wants me.
Shepherd is like breathing. He makes me suffer, but I can’t imagine not needing him. And if I stop . . . it’ll feel like drowning.
I need Shepherd, I realise, as much as I need the air to breathe.
He pushes me against the edge of the table, rips open my dress and closes his mouth over my breast. A damp feeling sets in my panties.
He presses against me hard and groans into my neck. Just below my ear, he sinks his teeth into my neck, and then relents. ‘Say my nickname when you come. Okay?’
‘L —’ I intend to say it then, as a gesture of good faith, but it stalls in my throat. He is already devouring me.
He tosses me over his shoulder and carries me towards the bedroom, like a caveman. As he goes, he flicks off the light switch, throwing everything into darkness. I want to ask for the light, but there’s no time to ask once he puts me on the bed. In the darkness, he’s simply an enormous shape, pressing on me, pawing at me, biting me.
My monster.
‘Shepherd,’ I try to say, but he swallows the word out of my mouth. Swallows my breath, nearly swallows me whole. He grabs my hands and pins them down.
Tears well up in my eyes. I close them and squeeze my eyelids tight until I see white lights, hoping to push the tears back inside.
‘What’s wrong, baby girl?’
‘I’m not a very good person,’ I whisper.
‘Daisy wasn’t your fault, Amy.’
I shake my head. ‘It is my fault Elizabeth is damaged.’
‘Amy, that ain’t true. You’re the sweetest girl in the whole fucking universe,’ he says against my shoulder.
In this moment, I feel like I could confess. But Shepherd beats me to the finish line with his own sins.
‘That’s why I can’t lie to you anymore, Amy. I went to see your father. He tried to bribe me to stay clear of you but I threw the money back at him.’
I shiver. ‘You promised me, Shepherd.’
‘You don’t get the whole picture, Amy.’ He looks straight into my eyes as if we’re old friends again. ‘Figure while you’re pissed off with me in the now, it’s probably a good time as any to tell you I lied. I’m not a psychologist, Amy. Not even close. Hell, I need to go see a doctor.’
My whole world collapses underneath me.
I am.
A.
Joke.
I fell for it again.
When he pushes himself up, I try to run away from him, but he catches my arm. I strike at him futilely in the dark.
‘Amy, stop. Just stop for a second, baby.’
I bleed and he doesn’t.
‘You promised not to hurt me again and that — that — you do that? You lie about being a psychologist? Have I been one huge joke to you all this time?’
He catches my other arm, forces me back down on the bed. In the black lights his eyes shine. And I cry. Anger and fear burning hot in my chest. I can’t get away from him. In the dark I don’t know what he’s doing. He pins me
