Under Your Scars || Sebastian Sallow x MC

Chapter 61 - Paris

Fight – responding to threat with conflict

Flight – responding to threat with escape

Freeze – responding to threat with dissociation

Fawn - responding to threat with placation

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Juliette POV

It hurts.

It fucking hurts.

Every muscle, every nerve in my body ached with the residual sting of a thousand tiny cuts. My eyes were still closed, as I was unable to find the strength to open them.

I had no memory of how I got there, other than the pain. The inescapable, unmistakable pain of the Cruciatus Curse. I had clearly spent too long under the curse, if parts of my memory were cracking.

Since last Christmas, I trained relentlessly to be able to defend myself against the Imperius Curse. I trained with and without a wand, never knowing when I might be caught without it again. But the Cruciatus was its own beast, with no real way to defend myself against it once the pain was realized.

I finally opened my eyes, which took great effort as they felt sealed shut. It was as though I had been asleep for days.

It took a while for my vision to focus in the dimly lit room, but eventually I could make out a four-poster bed, draped with heavy, black bed curtains.

Perhaps I am dead and this is hell, because there is no way I am here again.

I attempted to move, though I could not yet feel my arms or legs. I was met with some pressure where my wrists should be. I rolled my eyes upward and found my hands bound to the posts with black ties.

Putain.

My eyes then fell on a sleeping shape, slumped in an armchair in the corner. The only feature I could make out was a messy mop of dark hair.

"Seb?" I croaked, my throat burning with the dryness of the desert.

He stirred, rising from his seat and strolling toward the bed to which I was tied.

"You would like that, wouldn't you?" his icy voice affirmed that I was, in-fact, in hell.

"Ren?" I rasped. 

"Back to nicknames already? I'm tickled," he chuckled dryly. "Speaking of nicknames, that pet teacher of yours, Sebastian, I thought his name sounded familiar. Could that have the Seb you were writing to? Were you and your schoolteacher starting some secret relationship behind my back, sweetheart?"

Sebastian's pet name for me sounded like poison on Renatus's lips. With what strength I could muster, I shook my head, desperate that he would believe me. And I hated myself for it.

Why did I feel the need to quell his rage, even now?

"Don't you worry, you left your precious Sebastian a note so he wouldn't come after you. And you've resigned from your post at Gringotts so they won't be missing you either."

I shook my head again, this time in disbelief. I would never write such a thing.

Unless...

"A wondrous thing, the Imperius Curse. Unfortunately for you, you are extremely difficult to control. The Cruciatus worked just as well, it was the only thing that made you weak enough to finally come with me."