Sinful [malexmale]

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

Fear surged through me like a massive tidal wave, the pressure of it crushing me down on my knees that were spread against the suddenly chilled marble floor. My breathing became sharp desperate gasps, as if I could already feel Julius's hands around my throat. I didn't even hear the clatter of my cell hitting the floor over the roar of blood rushing in my veins, heart pounding like a vicious drum in my ears, and the foreboding chant.

Julius is coming.

My hysteria was building higher and higher until I felt like I was drowning in it. I couldn't even tell if I was screaming or sobbing or caught somewhere in between. I just knew that my panic was reaching drastic levels and I was struggling to contain it.

My first thoughts were to hide. Grab supplies, lock myself away in the closet, and hide away forever in hopes that Julius would never find me. But in the end, I knew he would. He would find me and he would capture me and he would make me relive that entire year over and over and over again for the rest of eternity and this time, there would be no escape. I would be forever leashed to the monster who destroyed every part of me until I reduced to nothing, but a pitiful sobbing slave again. This time would be even worse now that I'd finally gotten a taste of freedom. I'd go insane. I'd break.

Ice cold terror swallowed me whole. I couldn't stop trembling, couldn't stop choking and gasping for air, feeling my lungs constrict with fear. Every bone in my body shuddered, every muscle was pulled so taut, I'm surprised I wasn't literally breaking into pieces. I hunched over on my hands and knees, breathing hard and reaching at my throat, checking just to make sure Julius hadn't already gotten to me and wasn't strangling me.

And suddenly, through the blinding horror of it all, Hannibal's voice came to my mind as clear as daylight pouring through the dark stormy clouds of my mind.

"You won't be able to take him down if you're hiding in a closet your entire life."

"You can't run from Julius. Don't try to... Make it your goal to rip open his throat and bathe in his blood."

"You're not a whore. You're a soldier."

"I am not a whore," I managed between painful gasps, "I'm a soldier." I focused on the chant in my head, letting it echo and burn a hot trail through the ice that had settled in my veins. It slowly began to melt as my blood boiled. My breathing was ragged, but not with hysteria... White hot rage that boiled my blood... like lava.

"Anger is the lava that boils inside you. Imagine a volcano. Imagine the hot ashy smoke, the sputters of magma. That is fighting. The final blow, the explosion that devastates the land around you, that one is the one you will use to kill Julius."

I soaked in every bit of it, clenching my fists before slamming them down so hard on the marble floor that a vicious crack growled as it shot across the floor to the balcony. I let the pain of it settle me as I rose to my feet slowly, sucking in deep gulps of salty sea air that billowed in through the balcony window.

I was doing it again. I was doing exactly what Julius wanted me to do. That was why he called me. He wanted me to scream and cry and go insane. He wanted me to scramble like a chicken with its head cut off. He wanted me to panic. He wanted me to hide in my closet and patiently wait for him to show up so he could take me back to an eternity of torture and misery.

"Not this time." I breathed at last, clenching my fists tightly, my gloves creaking. I was tired of being his dutiful puppet. He didn't own me, and he never did. He'd only given the illusion that he had. He wanted me to crawl back into submission and wait for him to show up?