Raising a Psychopath

SIXTEENTH

As consciousness returned to me, the first sensation I noticed was a gentle touch. Roman's hand caressed my cheek lightly, his familiar pale features slowly coming into focus as my eyes fluttered open.
The familiar confines of my living room wrapped around me, grounding me back into reality.
Realizing I was awake, Roman withdrew his touch and stepped away, distancing himself as if to give me space to process.

I sat up slowly, each movement deliberate, as I gathered my strength and tried to piece together the events. My gaze fixed on Roman, who was methodically wiping a knife, the blade streaked with a sinister shade of red. My heart raced, and the question burst from me before I could fully grasp the implications.

"Did..." My voice faltered, thick with anxiety. I swallowed hard, gathering the courage to confront the possibility of what he might have done. "Did you kill him?" That question, so crucial yet so terrifying, hung between us, overshadowing the prior events of the evening.

Roman's shake of the head brought a brief sense of relief, punctured quickly by his next words. "He kept putting his fingers out of that damn hole," he explained, setting the knife aside on the kitchen counter, his movements dismissive as he discarded the stained tissues. "I didn't like that."
I blinked several times, processing, my eyes drifting around the room in a futile attempt to escape the vivid images his words conjured. My hand instinctively rose to trace the line from my neck down to my shoulder, a silent acknowledgment of the night's earlier events.

When my eyes found Roman again, he had anchored himself against the kitchen counter, deliberately avoiding my gaze. "I didn't want you to hear him. You wouldn't have liked it. So, I..." His voice trailed off, laden with an unspoken justification.
Silence hung between us for a tense moment. Was this his idea of protection? "So you decided to choke me?" My voice was steady, more out of disbelief than composure.
"I wanted to put you through the same test as Avery," he shot back, his frustration evident as he turned to face me fully. His foot tapped against the floor, "you passed," he scoffed sarcastically before turning away to open the fridge.

I took a cautious step closer to the kitchen, still enveloped in a haze of confusion and disbelief, trying to make sense of Roman's twisted form of care.

Roman snagged a fresh bottle of Serenity wine from the fridge, twisted off the cap, and took a hefty swig. At this moment, the issue of his underage drinking seemed trivial, unworthy of mention amidst the chaos. "What's going to happen?" I asked, steering clear of pressing him further about the choking incident. Discussing it seemed both peculiar and potentially perilous, yet I refrained from probing deeper.

After placing the bottle back, he wiped his mouth and sighed. "He's not going to last much longer," he confessed, clearing his throat as if the wine had awakened some dormant feeling. "I want to get this over with." Only then did I tune in to the faint noise that I had been subconsciously tuning out—the sound of the shower still running in the background.

"I realized he was sitting at the edge of the shower. Not as much water gets to him as I'd like," Roman explained while opening one of the kitchen cupboards. He pulled out the largest knives I owned, handing them to me with a stern look. "I left the cold water on for a while. Get him used to the cold," he instructed, his voice chillingly calm as he arranged the rest of the knives.

Before heading upstairs, Roman paused, perhaps noticing the shift in my demeanour as my attempt to grasp the situation deepened.
"Do you have anything you want to say to me?" The question was almost rhetorical, yet I felt compelled to hear some form of apology, however insincere or superficial.
A faint, sardonic smile flickered across his face. "Sorry for your water bill," he quipped, the levity of his comment starkly contrasting with the gravity of our predicament. With that, he turned and ascended the stairs, leaving me in the dim kitchen, the echo of his words mingling with the distant sound of running water.

Roman abruptly stopped the shower, then gestured for me to set down the knives we carried. He did the same, allowing them to clatter loudly to the floor—a deliberate act to ensure Avery could hear each echo through his cramped, makeshift prison.