Chapter Five

Lucia's POV 

When I opened my eyes, I knew that I was no longer in the room where I was naked and chained. I squeezed them shut for a moment and then opened them slowly, willing the blurry haze to disappear.

My head pounds and my entire body feels heavy.

Pushing myself up carefully, I hear the metallic rattling of something around me, making me freeze.

A cage. I was inside a cage.

Trembling, my fingers clutch at the cold iron bars as I look around me. 

Everything is dark crimson, perfectly polished, sterile even, except for a cage in the center of the room.

My cage

Bright white lights filled every single corner, leaving no shadow anywhere to hide in. I look down at myself, and my breath hitches in my throat.

I was no longer naked; someone had changed me into a red lace lingerie set that barely covered my body.

My eyes sting as a wave of pure embarrassment floods me.

“What...”

I whispered, but my words came out rough and stained.

My throat feels like it's been torn to shreds, each scream from the church stealing a part of me.

Every cry after Damien branded me, every single tear, everything he robbed me of: my voice.

I swallow and wince as the action sends a sharp ache through my throat.

I needed water and sleep. My shoulder protests the movement with a throbbing sensation from the bullet. It hasn't been cared for.

My skin is stretched and feverish.

My wrist and ankles bear the angry red marks from where the chains have rubbed. Every slight movement causes a spike of pain to lance through me. 

Then, the brand. I reach a hand automatically towards my abdomen and flinch.

A sharp pain shoots through my skin, and I gasp.

It burns- not the flesh alone, but my entire soul cries out as my fingers graze over the letters branded into my abdomen.

Damien's Property.

Silent tears run down my cheeks.

How?

How could my life have come to this?

Just earlier today, I was a bride, and now I am imprisoned in a cage like a dog.

A click echoes through the room, and the door swings open; my heart clenches in my chest.

Damien was in slowly, not saying a word.

His expensive black shoes echo against the gleaming marble floor.

Step. Step. Step.

Each step sends shivers down my spine. He hauls a chair across the room with a scraping sound and then sets it directly in front of the cage, before sitting down.

He stares at me, his eyes, God, his eyes.

I missed those eyes that filled me with so much love for me when I laughed; they would have softened with concern when I cried. When I looked at them, I knew, truly knew, I was loved, eight years ago.

But not now; they are empty now, so empty it frightens me. It's as if some cruel hand reached into his chest eight years ago and ripped out every trace and piece of the man I loved.

My tears begin to fall again, one after the other, until I am weeping uncontrollably, my chest heaving with each ragged breath.

Every inch of me aches. My shoulder. My skin. My throat. My bruises. My brand. My heart.

I pulled my arms around myself tightly, trying to make myself smaller, trying to disappear, trying to wake you and see that all this isn't real. It can't be.

Yesterday I was looking forward to picking out flowers for my wedding, my cousin teasing me and my aunt smiling about how I was about to become a wife.

I wondered why Adrian was so angry today, something I will never find out because everyone I loved is gone, and I watched it happen; I saw all of them die.

A choked sob escaped my throat, so strong my entire body shook with the force of it.

“No…” I whispered.

“No… No… No..”

I shook my head frantically; if I admit it, if I accept it, then it will become real.

“I don't understand,” I cried, my voice breaking.

I stared through the years at Damien, but he didn't flinch, didn't move or blink. There was no sign of empathy; he just watched me.

My finger clenched tighter around the iron bars, and my knuckles turned white as I pulled the cage, my whole body shaking with effort.

“I don't understand!” I scream, my voice cracking.

“What did I do?”

I slump to the floor, unable to keep myself up any longer.

I cry until my abdomen aches and my head pounds, each breath punctuated by a sob.

“I loved you...” I whisper, my voice barely audible.

“I waited for you”

“You left me.”

I lift my tear-filled eyes and search for him, looking desperately for the man who had once smiled at me. The man who had promised me he would never leave. 

The man who had told me he loved me more than anything in the world.

But he is gone; only a monster wearing Damien's face remains.

My voice trembles as it breaks on another sob.

“Why...”

I press my trembling hand to my chest, trying to somehow contain the ache that consumes it.

It's futile. “Why are you doing this to me?” I sob, the words tearing from my raw throat.

“What did I do to deserve this? What did I do that was so wrong?”

I collapsed in a heap, my shoulders shaking uncontrollably, and tears streamed endlessly down my face. 

I can't wipe them away; I don't have the strength to lift a finger. And then, in my last dying whisper, I look straight into his empty eyes and ask the question that is eating me alive.

“Why are you doing this to me, when you are the one who abandoned me?”

Damien let out a dark laugh as though everything I just said was a punchline.

He laughed, and laughed. He was too busy laughing to notice the tears in my eyes as they fell, and even if he did, I doubt he'd do anything.

The moment his eyes were back on mine, his laughter immediately stopped.

“Spare me that pathetic victim act,” he threw in another resentful laugh as if to punctuate his sentence.

“I abandoned you?”

He shook his head and then continued, “That knife that I used to protect you…” he said again, never breaking eye contact with me, “… is the same knife you held and stabbed deep into my heart.

His eyes darkened.

“Now, look at the monster you created, Lucia.”