After blowtorching my heart, Ivan put me down, his face flushed red with emotion as he slammed the bathroom door. I stood against the wall where he left me, the last traces of sparks swiftly dying away leaving me cold and lonely. It wasn’t meant to go this way. If he wants me to leave without giving him a second thought…well he is getting there now. All my frustration, anxiety and passion boiled over as I shouted at the bathroom door, “to hell with you then!” I took myself off to bed, hoping I would fall into a blissful sleep, maybe Halo take me somewhere more pleasant. Instead I tossed and turned relentlessly, Ivan did not even enter the bedroom. It was his turn to be the mouse within the towels. I would have tried to sneak a look had I not been furious with him. I could hardly imagine his huge frame sleeping in the miniscule bathroom. If his plan comes together we have maybe just over twenty-four hours together and he has declared I am a mere fling. I spent the night replay

I must be a glutton for punishment asking to hear all about his mate, the woman who truly has his heart. It's not a topic he’s ever truly elaborated on but I know it’s why he is here. Right down to the way he is holding me, close and fast to his body, sitting on his lap feels like the most natural thing in the world. He wriggles backwards, so his back is against the wooden frame of the bed. With a tug he drags the blanket down from the bed, enclosing us both in a warm, snug little cocoon. “I can’t live in towels like you Mousey,” he smirked, kissing me on the top of my head. When he called me darling a few minutes ago my heart fluttered. Am I scared of admitting I have fallen irrevocably in love with someone I will never get a real chance to be with? Whichever one of us lives, the other's death is soon to follow. It hurts me to even think of Ivan fighting in the Cage again, his body has been through enough. “What do you want to know?” he whispered into the top of my head. “Why are

I numbly stepped into the shower, reluctantly washing that enticingly fresh smell of apples from my skin. Perhaps if I stayed under the water and pretended I had heard nothing…no, there was no way to erase what I had just witnessed. Ivan to allow Denton to kill him in exchange for my freedom? The first deal was atrocious, this one was just sickeningly pointless. I heard the door creak as Ivan slowly stepped into the bathroom. He slid his shorts down and silently stepped into the large tiled shower space. He simply wrapped his arms around me, pulling my chest to his torso, his hands around my lower back. I followed, my arms naturally finding their place up on his huge shoulders, my hands tangling his coppery mane. The hot water rained down on both of our bodies as he softly stroked my spine up and down. “Cherish…I know you don’t want this but I would rather you had a chance at getting out of here. I’m dead anyway.” “Don’t say that,” I whispered, looking down as my tears mixed int

My victory was all but assured as Denton lay on the floor, his hands trying to cover the gaping, bleeding wounds of his smashed ribcage I looked once more towards the box where Vincent and Kingsley sat. Kingsley had a victorious little smirk on his face, as though he was already planning his tortures for Cherish. Instead I ran to the ladder where hundreds of men were gathered waiting to congratulate me on my win. Instead of climbing I used every last bit of strength and wrenched it from the wall. Aware of the thousands of eyes on me, I was relieved when it came away with a large metal plate attached. The crowd gasped and muttered. Was I planning to decapitate Denton, put his head on a spike like a barbarian? Or maybe something even grislier? “He hated him, he’s going to make him suffer, go on Ivan!” they shouted, loving the idea of an even gorier death than they had seen before. They watched as I ripped the backing plate from the ladders struts, giving me a long piece of metal. More

I mentioned feeling as though I was on a tightrope when she first taunted me in the dark as she slowly headed around the bed a few weeks ago. So this was what it felt like to fall. That first knock on the door, getting nothing but silence, hit me like a sledgehammer. The plummet was sickening. Looking around the corridor, debris and carnage everywhere I started cursing myself for not getting back sooner. Out of desperation I tried that second knock, hearing her familiar scuffle and squeal sent me skyrocketing. My heart soared as though a trapeze artist had grabbed me mid-air. I know we don’t have time for this, we need to be on the move while it’s dark, whilst the crowd is still here causing chaos but fuck, the instant I see those blue eyes I cannot put her down. Her smile, the pure illuminated joy on her face is now etched into my memories. My goal in life is to never put her through such worry again. /Or yourself/ Kohl added, /we cannot let her go again./ We need to get out