The Blood Debt

Chapter 7

Ayla

I wake up in complete darkness.

I'm in a bed, and just for a few seconds I think I'm in my room at Lexington Avenue. It's the house where I grew up, but I can't figure out why the room is so completely dark. It makes me panic and turn toward the nightstand, but I can't find the lamp and my movements become more frantic; that's when I wake him.

"Vengeance," he says, sounding irritated by my movement.

His voice makes me flinch.

He's sleeping beside me.

I roll out of the bed with a feeling of panic. I've never moved so fast in my life.

"What's the matter Princess, you afraid of me or the dark?" he asks.

I haven't slept with the lights off since I've been here. It's a new habit that has me leaving the bathroom light on when I go to sleep each night.  It helps manage the suffocating claustrophobia that I've developed.

I make my way to the bathroom, fumbling my way through the dark before I find the light switch.

I take moment to calm my racing heart, closing my eyes as l lean against the bathroom wall a safe distance away from Roman. I'm still in the dress I wore last night.

I look like a mess. My hair's managed to stay up and I wonder how on earth I fell asleep like that. Then I remember that I didn't fall asleep, I fainted. I remember right before everything went dark, I saw Roman take a hurried step toward me mumbling 'oh fuck.'

I begin pulling the pins out of my hair until a small heap piles up by the sink, and eventually my hair falls over my shoulders.

I need to shower, but I've never done that with him in the apartment before. He's never spent the night and I hesitate as I look back toward the bedroom, wondering if it's a good idea. It's quiet inside making me think he's gone back to sleep. I'm reassured by the fact that he's not interested in me in that way, so I turn on the faucet, waiting a few minutes before I peel my dress off.

When I get out of the shower, he's asleep and only then do I realise that he went to bed wearing a pair of sweatpants and nothing more. I leave the light on in the bathroom as I tiptoe to the kitchen for a glass of water.

I'm about to grab my pillow and curl up on the couch when I see he's left his watch by his bedside.  After not knowing if it's day or night for so long, the temptation proves too much, and the urge to know the time, if for nothing more than just wanting to know it is something I can't control.

I edge toward him on my tip toes, admiring how flawless he looks; he's muscular but it's a more naturally enhanced definition - not the kind that's built with steroids.

With the exception of the double headed eagle on his neck (that's looking back at me as though he's telling me what I'm about to do is a really bad idea) he has no other tattoos.

Just when I'm thinking how peaceful he looks in sleep, out of nowhere his large veined hand wraps around my wrist and tugs until I almost topple over of him.

"What the fuck are you doin', creeping up on me like that?" he says, before his dark eyes land on the watch in my hands.

"I.. I just wanted... to check the time."

"Why? You got some place to be?" he asks sarcastically.

I feel stupid when he puts it like that. I know that it's 3 A.M. now, but the only thing that awareness has achieved is Roman's wrath.

"I didn't mean to wake you. I'm sorry," I say as he lets go of my arm and I place the watch back where I found it.

I grab my pillow and move to the couch.

"Switch the light off," he says, but when I turn to ask him if it can stay on, he's already closed his eyes and I take that as my cue to be quiet.

I wake the next morning to the sound of Roman's voice. He's talking to a man that looks like a repairman.

It took me forever to fall asleep last night and I get the impression from the activity in the apartment that I must have slept in.

I creep off quietly to the bathroom before either one of them can notice me.

When I come out a little while later, Roman is standing by the window with a cup of coffee in daylight. The boards, that have deprived me of light for so long, are being taken away by the security guard from last night.

I stare at him stunned, not quite sure what to say. It's almost as if my mind has slowed in the months I've been here, and I'm not always sure what the appropriate response to things are anymore.

I decide to keep it simple.

"Thank you," I say quietly as I pour myself a cup of coffee.

He's wearing jeans today. Something I haven't seen him wear before and it makes me wonder if it's the weekend. His long-sleeve polo shirt stretches across his biceps as he folds his arms across his impressive chest while looks at me.

"It's not for you. I'm moving back in," he tells me.

It's not a total surprise to me that this might happen. It had occurred to me that he must have lived here before me. I'd found his clothes in the wardrobe the first day I'd arrived. I'm not sure what this means for me and I'm too afraid to ask, so I just nod.

"Go get changed," he says, putting his mug in the dishwasher. "I'm taking you to meet my mom."

Never have so few words scared me so much and I don't actually move until he calls out a second time, bobbing his head to catch my eyes.

"Hey! Did you hear what I said? C'mon, I don't have all day," he says impatiently.

"Wh.. Why?" I stutter.

"Cause I was thinking of asking you to marry me," he says deadpan, as I look at him with fear in my eyes.

Roman's mother is the one woman I never want to have to meet.

He must think I've taken him seriously because he feels the need to explain.

"Why do you think? She wants to meet you."

Whatever he says about my father, true or not, he believes it to be true. According to Roman, my father hired someone to kill his brother, and succeeded. The idea of meeting the mother of the man my father had murdered makes me want to be physically ill, and I'm not above begging so I don't have to.

"No. I don't want to go. Please," is all I can manage.

"Yeah neither would I if I were you, but she wants to meet you and from where I'm standing you and your family owe her at least that much."

I promise myself that I won't cry. I won't give him the satisfaction.

"You either get changed or I'll drag you out of here as you are."

He knows he's won the argument from the way my shoulders slump, but I can't bring myself to move.

I'm ready fifteen minutes later. I wear my capris and one of the warmer tops in the wardrobe. With the boards down now I can see that we're well and truly into fall; the top covers my chest but crosses over at the back, leaving my tattoo on display. He's waiting by the open door when I come out of the bathroom.

He takes me downstairs to a waiting car and a few seconds later I realise where we are. The awareness of it feels like being punched in the gut. The club's located in Hell's Kitchen, on 9th Avenue. It's a twenty minute drive home - ten mins to the Columbia campus. All this time I've been twenty minutes from home, yet no one's come to collect me, no one's reported me missing, no one's come to enquire after me. Instead I've been left unprotected, forced to fend for myself against a monster, while everyone else has gone about their lives like mine meant nothing. I look up to stop the tears pooling in my eyes, but they're flooding my heart.