Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
He unexpectedly came at me, and I instinctively went into survival mode, trying to put distance between us. Where was the nearest weapon?
Before I could run for the knife drawer, he had me pinned with the length of his body against the kitchen wall. There was an unfeeling coldness in his eyes, mixed with an anger I couldn’t understand.
I was about to beg him not to hurt me when his eyes locked on my lips.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Was he going to kiss me and make this a different kind of nightmare?
I balled my fist, preparing to hit him, but he grabbed my wrist. I was about to jerk away and knee him in the groin when my mind flooded with eerie images: dark clouds, pouring rain, and me strapped naked to a stone surface, facedown.
Draco stood over me, shirtless, gripping a flogger. He raised his arm in the air and then struck me between the shoulder blades.
I screamed, but not in agony. I loved it. My entire body lit up with sick pleasure. I wanted his cruelty. I was addicted to it.
“Again!” I yelled, as he grinned sadistically.
In the back of my mind, I knew this was the same man who came at me in the garden all those months ago. How had I forgotten it was Draco when I loved him so much? I would do anything for him. Anything.
His arm sliced through the air again, bringing the strips of knotted leather down on my back. My rain-slicked skin split open, and it made me come. The sweet hurt was a calming elixir to my darkest, sickest demons.
“Yes. More. Please more,” I begged.
He lowered his mouth to my ear, his dark hair dripping on my neck. “You are a greedy little thing.” He bit my earlobe and then stood up straight with a delighted gleam in his eyes. “I have given you enough attention for one day.” He turned to leave.
“No! Don’t go! Come back, Draco. I want more!” But I already knew he wasn’t going to stay, and with his absence, the demons would take hold again, showering me with memories of the dying, of the screaming children, and of the trees withering under blackened skies.
“Oh, God,” I whimpered. “Please come back.” Draco was the only one who could stop the noise. I didn’t care about the pain when he beat me. I’d take that a thousand times over reliving memories of the world, and everything in it, suffering in the most unimaginable ways. Draco had made me watch every moment. He’d said it was my job to remember.
“Why…” I sobbed. “Why are you doing this to me?” Hot tears poured from my eyes, mingling with the blood and rain pooling on the stone beneath me. “Kill me! End me.”
He wouldn’t, but I begged anyway, just as I had a hundred times before.
“Not until you remember!” he called out.
I blinked and was back in my kitchen, staring into those same pale eyes.
What the fuck had I just seen?
Before I could ask, my thoughts vanished like a wisp of steam.
I couldn’t remember, but I knew I had seen something terrible.
Draco
I was new to everything in the real world: the feeling of sunlight on my face, the actual taste of food—sugar, fat, salt—and the sensation of taking a shit in a real toilet.
In my dreams, I’d lived a life doing things normal people did, which was part of the potion’s features. But because I had been an infant when they locked me away, I lacked the experience to make my dreamworld truly authentic.
I dreamed of eating, but that food tasted like what had been described to me, and those descriptions meant nothing. I dreamed of fucking, but someone telling you, “It feels good, like floating on a cloud,” didn’t come close to actually coming. I comprehended what the modern world looked like, because my captors grew lazy years ago and would skip the Memory Book and instead turn on the TV, but the true colors of the trees and sky were a thousand times more brilliant than what I knew. My life and the world I grew up in had merely been plastic replicas of the real thing. And I was never meant to wake up.
But why do this to me?
I only knew my parents had been behind it, but unfortunately, the family who served them and held me prisoner—the Spiroses—were unable to provide further details. Mostly because they did not have any. They’d been compelled to watch over me, so they did just that.
How did I know?
One, I wasn’t like anyone out here in the real world, and I was not referring to being imprisoned in a dream my entire life. I could see into people’s heads and pull out their thoughts.
Two, I could make them do things. There were limits, but I surmised it was only a matter of time before I mastered this ability. In just a few short months, I’d already learned to use the tone of my voice to override a person’s apprehension.