Afraid to Feel

Chapter 18: Seeds of strength

Ville wasn't next to her when she woke up.

Waking up had never been simple for Elina in the Mansion. She was always consumed by exhaustion. Her eyes opened in pain, her body felt like it hadn't rested, and willpower everyday started at zero. Whether it was her depression, her adventures running away from Mr. Stalker, or Ville's kinky all-nighters, she absolutely never found it easy getting out of bed.

But she always somehow managed it, and as her feet landed on the soft carpet floor, Elina decided it was time to exit her room. It wasn't going to be easy, to re-enter Mansion social life, and have to face all the judging faces, however she needed to. Like it or not, she was a part of the Mansion, and until Ville casted her aside, she had to play a role. And she was certain that role would help her with her plans to sweet up Ville.

Anyway, she was hungry and had to try to get out for her sanity's sake. She'd been trapped inside her room for more than a week and it had already started to seem like an eternity. Manna and Mr. Stalker had been brining her food to her daily, but only the woman stayed to talk to her. No other person visited her. On her eternal week it was mostly her and solitude or her and Ville. And Ville Valo was impossible to deal with.

Elina's nature wasn't as broken as he might have intended, so most of their moments together were filled with violence, appalling sex and putrid silences. It was not the right ambience for Elina to start trying to make her plan work. She found it extremely impossible to try having a normal conversation with a man that not only had kidnapped her and raped her and killed her fiancée, but that had also scared her in ways she had never imagined she could be scared. Being a rebel, Elina had seemed fucked up shit in her life, but Ville took the cake with his Rockstar Ritual. The carnage and the gruesomeness she remembered never ceased to send a shiver down her spine. Every time she looked at her husband, she would remember how he had turned to her, eyes filled with darkness and hands wet in crimson. Whenever she tried to use Manna's advice, that image would pop into her mind, killing most words she tried to utter.

Ville wasn't making it very easy, neither. He was impossible. In a way Elina couldn't understand, he had shut her out. Before, somehow, regardless of the horrible acts he had committed against her, he had always been cheerful in the time he forced Elina to spend with him. She had hated the way he would smile to her without a care of his previous actions; she hated how he was so comfortable around her when she expelled from her body only the most negative vibes. Now, it was different.

He would sit next to her without talking, without acknowledging that she was there, and he would immerse himself, and the atmosphere in the most rotten silence that it made her suffocate. She could deal with the normal Ville. The one she met after being forced to witness the Rockstar Ritual, she could not even begin to comprehend. Ville had scared her before, but now he was downright frightening.

Especially every night, when he would crawl next to her in bed, and pull her close.

Ville ravaged her; he lacked even the tiniest bit of mercy. He took her without a word, without a caress that would seem more accurate to his normal nature. He was beastly and unfeeling, and the constants rapings would sometimes make her forget who she was. While Ville pounded for his pleasure, Elina would regret and hold on to her tears. But most importantly, she would feed her anger, biting her time until the right moment arrived.

Ignoring her desire of looking over her body and the marks it was sporting, Elina put on a skirt Manna had brought to her. It was simple, compared to the crazy things she had been forced to wear before, and it had her feel a bit better. Putting Ville aside, she had to be strong.

With all the trouble she had caused in the Mansion up until that moment, she knew the people of the community to be very judgmental. Most people, there took their time in the house as a vacation from their normal lives. It was a place where they could hang out and live to the extent of their pleasures without having social Medias shadowing their movements. In a way it was like a hotel. So, on the other times Elina had rattled their caged, they had punished her with their contempt, glares and snide comments. It was easy for her to ignore them long enough for them to get tired. Their negativity tended to last only a few days, but this time, her sin was worst.