The Billionaire Darkness

Chapter Seventy-Nine

He'd hit me again, and not just once this time, or the time before, or the time before that, and I don't think it had been just once the time before that even. But who was I supposed to tell? We were told that abuse happened, and whenever it did we never thought that it would happen to us. It appeared on shows, and movies, in books, and on the news, as a cause for a murder. I just never thought it would be happening to anyone I knew.

Let alone me.

The water from the shower was at the highest temperature as I stared blankly at the tiles on the other side of the shower while I rocked slowly, my arms wrapped around my legs as I watched the droplets that had splattered around me roll slowly towards the drain, gathering with the streams down my skin washing away his touch.

My breathing was heavy looking at myself. Down at the places he'd hit, all where no one could see but he and I, always where I would feel it, and be called horrible things if I showed anyone because I'd be exposing myself more than I wanted, and he must know that because I couldn't go anywhere without being covered in at least two or three layers from the lack of eating and wanting to hide what I was going through. I didn't want anyone to know but I also didn't want to be stuck feeling trapped every day while I lived through a cycle I didn't know how to be free of.

The first traitorous tear rolled down my face and fell cold against my leg alongside the marks that I'd put bright and irritated against my skin. Red burns I could explain as being from water, or candle wax, the other marks I might be able to excuse as accidents, because if anyone suspected Demetri of anything I didn't actually know what he would do, and that only made me cry harder.

"Someone save me from this hell," I exhale, sobbing as I shifted to grip my hair, supporting my head between my knees as the sobs wracked my body, making me feel unstable, and panicky.

My mom can't know about this.

She can't know.

I was repeating my thoughts to myself, the words swirling in my head as I looked up and hoped for just a moment that someone would step through the door of my bedroom and take me in their arms and keep me away from all of this—protect me from all of this.

I stayed seated on the floor of the shower until the water had turned cold, and I had no more tears to cry before reaching up to turn off the water, waiting as chills coiled across my skin like a vice grip, reminding me any comfort or warmth was only temporary, and possibly not returning.

When I eventually forced myself off of the floor to dry off, I stared at myself in the mirror, taking in my face which had thinned, and my skin which had gone from olive to a neutral shade from lack of nutrients, something that I was struggling with more recently.

I was a hundred and twelve pounds at this point.

I hadn't been this thin in my entire life, even if I had always been on the smaller side. I was just tall, and it did nothing to hide the fact I had lost a considerable amount of weight in the last few months.

Wrapping a towel around myself I dried off with a second towel and met my eyes which had become dull, the rims still red and puffy before I stepped out of the bathroom into my room to find clothing worth wearing at night, it was early December at this point and a thin blanket of snow had fallen over everything in sight.

Finding the warmest clothing I could find I picked a coat that my mom had given me for my birthday before wrapping it around me and taking the pocket knife I had bought but never seemed to take anywhere unless I was going out at night.

I really should take it with me more.

Slipping it into my pocket along with my house keys, I made my way downstairs as quietly as I could before lowering myself onto the entry rug to put on my boots, wincing as I pulled them on with the low heels emitting a thud when they relented. Stepping out of the house, I then locked the door and set off through the snowy streets, my steps crunching softly under me as I took in the amber lights above me and the lit up clusters of snowflakes falling gracelessly through the air towards the ground.