Page 44 of Ruin
“Baby Bird,” Charlie says breathlessly, his hands already wrapped around the bars on either side of my own, chin dipped, his emerald green eyes focused entirely on me.
Blinking hard, I don’t understand how he got to me so fast, unnoticed by me, so silent. He shuffles in closer, shifting on his knees until they’re flush with the cage. The tip of his nose brushing across mine. I keep my gaze on his, even though he’s so close, his features are blurred. But I don’t care about that, when he’s this near to me, his attentions only onme.
It’s like hewantsto be here.
With me.
Breathing him in, his lips parted, almost touching mine. A crease forms between my brows, lips curling into my mouth, I can’t remember the last time I used a toothbrush, and a flush of embarrassment finally warms me through. I drop my gaze, breathing in hard through my nose. It makes me squirm, head dipping, moving back, away from his. Hands slowly uncurling from the bars, to crawl backwards away from him.
But it’s as though he senses my intentions, anticipating my actions before I decide them, his big hands covering mine over the cold metal. My eyes snapping onto his, his thumbs smooth over my scarred hands, tension in his eyes, he keeps staring at me, and I feel uncomfortable, too exposed. My skin crawls, like insects are creeping beneath my skin, beetles and maggots wiggling through my veins. I want to claw it off, my skin, pull it from my rotting flesh and dissect myself into pieces and parts, if only to stop the creepy feeling.
“Ava,” he rasps, low, cracked, pained. “Ava, look at me.”
I shake my head, tears springing to my eyes, I blink them away, keeping my chin as close to my chest as possible, the thick metal shackle making it impossible to drop my head forward completely. I squirm back, but Charlie doesn’t release my hands, even as I struggle uselessly against him. Tugging and pulling, anticipating he’ll release me, all the while hoping he won’t.
It’s confusing and scary and I don’t like it. It feels overwhelming, his attention now. The way I’m the only thing in the room he’s focusing on. It feels too much, suffocating, when I realise with a sudden gasp, I can’t breathe.
My eyes snap up onto his in panic, his fingers tightening over mine.
“Take a deep breath in through your mouth, or I’ll have to find another way to kickstart your lungs, Baby Bird,” he murmurs and just like that, hearing his voice that he hardly ever uses with me, my lungs contract, expanding with a deep inhale, air burning my throat. “Good girl,” he hushes, making me shiver. “Why’d you pull away from me?” he whispers, knowing I won’t be able to answer him with words.
My cheeks flame at the thought of him trying to understand.
He couldn’t.
Lifting one of his hands through the bars, a finger curling a matted strand of hair behind my ear, hooking the rough clump back from my face. I can’t look away, his high cheekbones shadowing his hollow cheeks, his green eyes blown wide in the darkness of the gloomy room.
His finger traces down my cheek, stopping at my mouth, the calloused pad of his finger slowly sweeping across my bottom lip, catching on the bitten skin. He plucks at my lip, letting it slap against my bottom teeth, a hum vibrating the taut tendons in his neck. I swallow too hard, the shackle cutting into the underside of my chin, making the chain clang, the heavy metal links grating over my breasts.
Charlie easily pushes to his feet, his hands leaving me, numbness sinking into my flesh where his touch dissolves. I feel my breath come harder as he turns away, panic seizing me again, like a hand around my throat. I go deathly still, bar the soft rattle of my chain as my body trembles.
Confliction twists my belly into knots, a sinking feeling deep in my soul. I wanted him to be away from me because I’m disgusting, but I don’t want him to leave either. Breath pants through me, and it makes my eyes blot with dark spots, trying to suck in enough air to keep myself upright. My head spins and my throat tightens, and it feels like the floor is spinning as I try to focus on a small grated drain a few feet from my cage.
My eyes flutter closed, my body swaying, hands slipping from the bars, my temple hits the metal ground, and it feels good as the cold seeps into me, cooling my flushed cheek. My teeth stop chattering and my eyes get heavier, and just as my body feels like it’s sinking into the floor, lungs dragging in less and less air, a screeched yelp forces its way up my throat. Heavy lidded eyes dragging open, I look down the length of my body to the open gate.
Charlie squats at the end of my cage, something shiny glinting sinisterly beneath the red bulb, between his fingers, and my breathing gets shorter, quicker, harder. A choked, sputtering cry wrenches up my throat as his free hand encircles my ankle.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, my eyes wide. “Come,” he orders and my brain kicks inside my skull, demanding my legs work, drag me to him.
Nothing happens, even though I will it, my temples pounding with the lack of oxygen, and I claw helplessly at my throat. Panic is thick in my blood, expelling all sense of calm from me like an exorcism. Back of my skull knocking into the metal beneath me as I can’t keep it held up any longer. And then my body is dragging across the floor.
Hip thudding onto the cold concrete, lungs burning, working faster and faster. Black stars spark and burst beneath my closed lids. My temple smacks off the lip of my cage, cheek grazing over the rough surface, my fingers tearing at the collar around my throat. Breath rushes out of me, none flooding in, and a desperate animalistic sound tears its way through my teeth.
A sharp pain pricks my side, something sharp stabbing in the hollows between my ribs, and it feels like air seeps into the imaginary holes. My fingers curl up beneath my chin, my eyes closed. Fingers caress over my outer knee. Rough skin glides up my outer thigh, long fingers closing around the jut of my hip. The sharp pain jabs lower, towards the hand, sending a calming shiver through me.
I’m tugged lower, across the rough, damp ground. My head thumping in time with my heart. The sharp jab pinching as it pokes down my outer thigh, stopping at my knee, the pain evaporating, leaving a tingling feeling in my leg.
“Baby Bird,” Charlie rasps.
Fingers tightening on my hip, he skates his hand up the outside of my body, his fingers curling through mine where they tuck beneath my chin. Aggressively, he tugs my hands away from my throat.
Charlie coils the chain around his knuckles and yanks me up to sitting, my jelly legs flopping out in front of me as he positions me in the cradle of his parted thighs. Body side onto him, my shoulder bumping his chest.
“Keep those pretty eyes closed,” he whispers, and I preen inside, at my owner calling me pretty. “Focus on my touches,” he rasps in my ear, rough and demanding.
I shiver, the heavy chain slapping into my breastbone as he releases it, positioning his arm up the centre of my back instead, elbow resting at my coccyx. His long fingers threading into the back of my hair, cradling the base of my skull in his palm, fingertips holding firm.
The scarred knuckles of his other hand skate down my chest, one of my hands dropping to the floor, the other at my side, in the small, squashed space between our bodies.
