Chapter 42 You’re Not Safe Out Here
Lara POV
When the water finally began to cool, Emmanuel stood and stepped out of the tub first. He didn’t wait for me to step out myself.
I started to rise on my own, but instead, he put his arms around my waist and lifted me out of the water again like I weighed nothing, putting me down on the padded bench again as though I was a doll.
Then he took a large, soft towel from the heated towel rack and wrapped it around me, drying me thoroughly and methodically.
"I can do that myself," I protested, trying to take the towel from him.
What strange sense of boundaries did this guy have? It was either throwing me out the second he got off, or bathing me like I was a five year old?
"Stay still," Emmanuel said, and for some unfathomable reason, I stopped moving.
The towel moved over my shoulders, down my arms, across my breasts and stomach, then lower. He was careful around the plug still seated deep inside me, but the pressure of the fabric against it still made my breath catch.
Only when he was satisfied did he wrap a thick, dark robe around me. It was far too big, the sleeves swallowing my hands, the hem brushing my ankles.
I protested again as he started tying the belt of the robe for me.
"You don’t need to—"
"This is not optional," Emmanuel said. "You’ll take what I give you, whatever it is. That is what it means to be mine."
"You don’t need to think," he said, voice dipping seductively as he brushed my damp hair over my shoulders. "I will tell you exactly what to do."
Some part of me bristled at the words. Another part of me, that part that so easily melted into surrender...thought that maybe it would be freeing.
Emmanuel carried me out of the bathroom and through his bedroom to the elevator lobby. He only put me down when the elevator arrived.
"Go straight to your room," he said. "Get into bed. Do not touch yourself. Do not take out the plug. I will give you further instructions in the morning."
The elevator doors opened. Emmanuel watched me carefully, as though suspicious that I might make another bid for escape the moment I was out of his sight.
The doors closed.
When I finally reached my room, I closed the door behind me and stood still for a moment in the relative darkness, processing all that had happened since I had last been here.
I could still feel his touch on me — the burning passion with which he had claimed me, the icy discipline of his control, the unquestioning warmth that he had wrapped around me.
The sheets were cool against my clean skin as I climbed into bed. I curled onto my side, careful of the plug still locked inside me, holding everything he had left behind.
I closed my eyes, and I expected the usual swirl of anxious thoughts to knock around my head, keeping me awake.
Instead, sleep pulled me under without any further thought at all.
—
I sat at the scratched kitchen table, pencil scratching across the page of my math workbook. The late afternoon light slanted through the narrow window, catching the dust that always floated in our small apartment. Outside, the street of East Windlem was its usual noisy self—kids shouting, a distant radio, the occasional bark of a dog.
Chloe was out there with her favorite doll, the one with the frayed yellow dress and one missing eye. I could hear her high, happy voice through the open window, talking to the doll like it was a real person.
Then the first gunshot cracked through the air.
My pencil froze. Another shot followed, then a rapid burst—sharp, echoing, unmistakable.
I shoved the chair back so hard it screeched across the linoleum and ran to the window.
Chloe stood in the middle of the cracked pavement, clutching the doll to her chest, eyes wide.
"Chloe!" I shouted. "Get inside! Now!"
She didn’t move at first. Another shot rang out, closer this time. I flew out the door, worn sneakers slapping against the warm concrete. I grabbed her arm and dragged her back toward the house, heart slamming against my ribs.
Chloe started crying the moment we were inside.
"My doll! Lara, my doll is still outside!"
She dropped the doll.
"We’ll get it later," I said, voice tight. I bolted the door and pulled her down behind the kitchen table, the way Mom had taught us. "Be quiet. Please."
But she wouldn’t stop. The sobs grew louder, hiccupping and desperate. "I want my doll! Please—Lara—"
Outside, the gunfire grew heavier. Voices shouted. Someone screamed.
I looked at my little sister’s wet, red face and felt that same sick twist of fear and responsibility I always did when Mom and Dad weren’t home.
I couldn’t let her keep crying...
"Stay here," I whispered. "Don’t open the door for anyone."
Before she could answer, I slipped back outside.
The street was chaos. Men in dark jackets moved between parked cars, guns raised. A body already lay motionless near the corner.
I ran towards our front fence and hid there, red pigtails bouncing over my shoulders in a blur. I scanned the street in the moment of quiet.
There—half under a rusted car bumper.
I darted forward before anyone could notice me, crouching low to the ground.
Just as my fingers reached for the doll, a heavy boot came down on it, crushing the doll’s soft middle.
I looked up.
A teenage boy stood over me—the most beautiful boy I had ever seen. Tall, lean, dark hair falling into his eyes. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen. A black pistol hung loosely in his right hand. Blood speckled the cuff of his sleeve.
I froze in terror, certain that my life was going to end.
He stared down at me with cold, piercing blue eyes as though he could not comprehend what a child was doing here.
I pointed shakily at the ground. He looked down, at last seeing the doll crushed under his boot.
The boy took a slow step back.
I snatched up the doll and smiled at him in relief. He must not be a bad man, then. He was just caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time, like me.
"Thank you," I whispered. "Do you want to hide in my house?"
The boy’s eyes widened incredulously.
Someone shot in our direction. Faster than I would have thought possible, the boy pushed me to the ground behind him and shot back.
I muffled a scream against the doll.
The boy looked down at me, irritated.
"Get out of here," he ordered.
"You’re not safe out here," I said.
The boy smiled, an expression that looked unsettlingly manic on his beautiful face.
"They are not safe from me," he said. "Go!"
I hugged the ragged doll tight, scrambled to my feet, and ran. I didn’t look back until I had slammed the kitchen door behind me and thrown the lock.
Chloe was still crying, but quieter now. I pressed the doll into her arms and pulled her close, holding onto each other tightly as the gunfire continue outside.
—
When I woke up, I was so startled by the man looming over me in the darkness that I forgot what I had been dreaming about.