Dark Desires by Candace Wondrak

Chapter Eleven – Juliet

The pajamas fit perfectly. They had long sleeves, buttons on the front, and an elastic waistband with a tie you could loosen or tighten however you wanted. They felt almost too new, for I’d grown used to having the same clothes year after year, but being in the Scott house, I’d been given an all-new wardrobe, minus my pajamas from home, which were gone now.

These, though, were a perfect replacement.

I was tempted to go to Markus and thank him for them, because I highly doubted Theo thought of it himself, but I didn’t. After getting ready for the night, I stood near the dresser in my room, staring at myself in the mirror.

My yellow hair fell over my shoulders, damp from my recent shower. I’d gone into the pool with Tori after Theo and I had gotten back; they were right. If you didn’t shower immediately after getting out of the pool, that chlorine smell stuck on your skin.

I didn’t look any different, minus the new pajamas. I mean, I guess a weird part of me thought I’d look different after being with a guy, but I didn’t. Just looking at me, you’d never know. If I got out of here, I could keep it a secret from Daddy. I didn’t have to tell him anything. If he could hide things from me, surely I could do the same? It was only fair.

In the mirror, a second presence appeared. Will stood a foot behind me, hazel eyes dropping to take in my pajamas. A grin spread on his lips, and I fought my urge to return the smile. “I see you got new pajamas,” he whispered.

“Yeah, I went out with Theo,” I spoke, slow to turn to face him. Will wasn’t super tall, but he was still taller than me. If I stepped toward him, I could easily lean my cheek on his upper chest. It was tempting, so very tempting.

“I heard,” he said. “An exciting day for you.”

I almost admitted it was, but then I realized he might be teasing me, so I gave him a squinted look as I set my hands on my hips. Probably didn’t look too intimidating, but that’s about all I could do. “Are you making fun of me?”

He put a hand on his chest, over his heart. “Me? Make fun of you? Never.” But even as his hand fell to his side, he continued to grin at me, as if he was doing just that. “I would never dream of it, Juliet.”

I kept giving him the same look. “Why don’t I believe you?”

The grin fell off his face, and he took a teeny, tiny step forward, whispering, “Because I’d never lie to you.” To say he was serious would not do justice to the expression he wore, nor to how grave his voice sounded as it fell upon my ears.

It struck me then just how utterly somber and earnest he was, and it caused me to say, “Can I ask why?” Why did Will sound so truthful when he told me he’d never lie to me? Why did it matter? Did he… did he have feelings for me, too?

“I know what it’s like to be lied to, and I know what it’s like to lie. You don’t deserve that.” Will’s head bent down. The door to my room was open, and yet that didn’t stop him from looking like he wanted to kiss me.

It’d been a while. I think I’d like to kiss him back.

“If I could give you the world,” Will murmured, “I would. I would do it in a heartbeat.”

Maybe I was an idiot, maybe I was nothing more than a fool being hoodwinked by these men and their dangerous, enigmatic selves, but I believed him. And I told him so: “I believe you, Will.”

The smile that spread on his face after was different than the grin from earlier. It made my heart skip a beat, maybe two, and those butterflies to act up in my stomach again. “You have no idea how happy that makes me.” He lifted a hand, brushing his fingers alongside my cheek, and the gesture felt more intimate than a kiss ever could. Like he thought I was out of reach, too good for him.

He shouldn’t think that. He shouldn’t. The longer I was here, the more I started to believe I wasn’t too good for any of this. Daddy had tried to raise me as a good girl, a girl whose virtues and innocence were intact, but how could you raise a virtuous child among nothing but lies? I should hate these men and what they did—and honestly, a part of me did, which was why I tried not to think about the basement or that man who’d lost his life because of me—but at the same time, how could I hate what drew me in?

How could I hate any of them when I wanted to be with them, sins and all?

The hand near my cheek fell to my shoulder, drawing down along my sleeve. The fuzzy fabric caught the warmth from his skin, and I wished I could feel his heat unbridled, unhindered. I… I wanted to know what Will felt like when he was above me, inside me.

My cheeks blushed at the thought, and I found myself turning away from him, giving him my back. The action caused Will’s hand to fall to his side, a look of sorrow crossing his face. I stared at my feet, for if I looked into the mirror and saw his disappointment, I feared I’d turn and throw my arms around his neck, pull his mouth to mine, and tell him to help me forget why I was here.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I’m just… I’m really tired.”

“Of course,” Will said, and I could tell he tried not to sound hurt that I’d turned away from him moments before. He stepped back, putting more distance between us, but his eyes did linger on my back. It was a few moments before he walked toward the door and reached for the light switch. “Sweet dreams, Juliet.”

He flicked the lights off and walked out, shutting the door behind him and leaving me to wonder what would’ve happened if I wouldn’t have turned. If I wouldn’t have gotten so lost in my own thoughts that I pushed him away without meaning to. I thought I was done being wishy washy, but maybe not.

Old habits died hard, I guess, and even though I wasn’t a virgin anymore, I still felt like the same girl that had been taken from my own bedroom. Unsure and meek, two things that did not survive in a place like this.

I heaved a sigh, moving to the bed. I crawled under the sheets, laying on my back, staring at the ceiling in the darkness. Though it was late and darkness covered the world outside, I didn’t feel like going to sleep. My mind raced too much, everything inside me a jumbled mess.

Jaxon… I thought about him a lot. I’d thought, probably stupidly, I’d see him more often after we were together. But I guess it made sense not to. If we suddenly started spending every waking moment together, Markus would catch on. And, anyway, I didn’t think it was fair to constantly have Will be our guard, not when I had feelings for him, too.

And not when he liked me back.

At least, I assumed he did. How could Will not? The things he said, how he looked at me… he didn’t seem like a bad guy, even though I knew he was. The scars on his body proved it. He was just as capable of spilling blood as the others; just because he was nice to me didn’t prove otherwise.

Why did Markus not want Will and me to spend any time together in the beginning? I often wondered that. Will acted the sanest out of everyone; he was definitely more mellow than Jaxon, who had his hot and cold moments. Certainly more stable than Bennet. Even Markus looked like he wanted to kill me sometimes, but Will? Will never looked like that.

If it was just some terrible act of his, I never wanted to wake up. It was a lie I wanted to believe, if it was false. I didn’t want to wake up to a world where Will didn’t like me, when our secret time together and stolen kisses meant nothing.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. I tried my hardest to turn my mind off. Minds… I never knew how strange they could be. The things they could hide. Naively, I used to believe everyone wore their heart on their sleeve, even Daddy.

Alas, that was not the case. It never had been.

I walked through the empty halls of the Scott residence, wearing a bright white dress. No shoes, no socks. My bare feet practically glided across the floor. I held my hands behind my back, humming as I went.

I felt, for the first time in a long time, free. Free and truly happy.

This was where I wanted to be. Nowhere else. Because there was nowhere else but here. When you found where you belonged, you had to fight for it, for your right to stay. When you found people who might make others turn away in disgust or fear but made you feel alive and wanted, you fought to keep them close.

I could not leave this house, because I’d leave them, and though my thoughts were a little fuzzy around the edges, I knew as much: I couldn’t leave them. I couldn’t leave any of them.

Maybe that’s why I skipped through the halls, searching. Whoever I’d find first, I’d tell them. I’d tell them with a big smile on my face.

I went down the stairs, closest to Markus’s office. I guess that’s where I’d go, though a mischievous part of me wanted Markus to wait, to be the last one. You know, make him squirm a little. Make him worry that I felt absolutely nothing for his cold, black heart.

Which I shouldn’t, but I’d learned when it came to having affection for someone, logic ceased to matter.

A smile grew on my face the moment I stood before Markus’s door. I thought about knocking, but I knew I’d ruffle his feathers just by walking in without notice, and doing that was always fun. So instead of knocking, I just strolled in, holding my head high. The white dress ended at my ankles, and I felt a breeze blow past me.

Weird, since we were in a house and all, but whatever.

I walked in, expecting to see Markus sitting where he always was, but it wasn’t Markus who I laid eyes on. No, in fact, the one person I didn’t want to see right now stood between me and the desk. His hair looked greyer than I remembered it being, his body smaller and less wide than I remembered, too.

“Daddy?” I spoke. I couldn’t see past him, couldn’t see Markus’s desk or his chair. “Daddy, what are you doing here?” Was he here to take me back? If so, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to go. Leaving this house, leaving the men inside it… I just couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t.

Daddy slowly turned to face me, and that’s when I saw his hands shook. They shook, and one also gripped a knife. That knife dripped in red, and instantly my heart fell from my chest. My heart, my stomach, every part of me dropped to the floor.

“Daddy…” I could hardly get the word out, and whatever else I would’ve said died in my throat when he stepped aside and revealed that Markus sat in his chair, his wide body slumped. A bright red gash sat on his thick neck, blood staining his suit, making the black fabric even darker with its wetness. “No!”

The devil himself was dead, and I wept for him, for what else could I do? Markus might’ve been the devil, but… but he was my devil, and Daddy had no right to take him from me.

I rushed around Daddy’s still frame, moving to stand beside Markus. His neck still bled, and I tried to stop the bleeding from the source, moving to touch his neck, wishing he would jerk back to life. But he didn’t. He didn’t move at all, and the only thing I succeeded in doing was getting my hands stained in bright red.

“You make me sick, you whore,” Daddy spat at me, turning around to watch my frantic weeping. “All these years I tried to protect you, and look at what you do the minute you get out of the house.” He lifted the bloody knife, aiming it at me, and I straightened, moving a step away from Markus’s still frame. “You spread your legs for these sinners! They took you and they used you up until there was nothing left of my little girl.”

What was he talking about? I was right here, still alive, still breathing. Wasn’t that all that mattered? My well-being, not my innocence. Not my virginity. Yes, I’d changed, but was that really such a horrible thing?

I knew how Daddy would answer.

“It doesn’t matter,” Daddy said as he shook his head. “Not anymore. You’re mine now, do you understand? You’re mine.”

Before I could argue with him, he stormed around the desk, grabbed my wrist with his free hand, and dragged me out of there, away from Markus’s body. I tossed one last look at his still, slumped figure as we went, before the door swung shut and closed me off from him forever.

Though I struggled to fight him, Daddy was stronger, and he led me out of Markus’s office and right into… our own kitchen? What? That didn’t make much sense, but my brain felt too addled to really pay much attention to it.

He drew me along, muttering something about how he would set things right, pulling me along through the kitchen, to the door that led to the basement—only, when we reached it, it opened into one of the rooms in the basement of the Scott residence.

The chair in the middle of the room sat empty, whispering for me, waiting for me. I could practically feel its hunger in the air, a chill crawling up my spine, an unwelcome addition to this horrific day. All around the chair, strewn across the floor, undoubtedly at the hands of Daddy, were the other men that had taken up residence in my heart and my mind.

Will. Jaxon. Theo. Their bodies lay around, limp, their white skin paler than ever. These men had died at the hands of Daddy, just as Markus did, only I couldn’t see any wounds on them.

Just as well. I think I might throw up if I saw more blood.

Daddy spun me, no longer holding onto the knife he’d used to kill Markus. Instead, both his hands were free, and he used those same hands to force me down, onto the chair. He restrained my wrists first, then my ankles. Lastly, he reached for the strip of leather that bolted around my head to keep me locked in place, hardly looking at me.

All of my struggling was for nothing. “Daddy,” I whimpered. “Please, let me go. Please. I didn’t do anything—”

He pulled away from me, a sharp glimmer in his eyes. “That’s a lie, though, isn’t it?” A hand whipped up, fingers digging into my cheeks as he spat, “Don’t you dare try lying to me, Juliet. I know everything you’ve done here. Thought I raised you better than that, but I see now I should’ve been sterner with you.” He let me go, and he began to step over the corpses of the men on the floor, heading towards the door.

What was he… he wasn’t going to lock me up in here, was he? Like my bedroom, only worse, because I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything—and I was surrounded by the bodies of the men I’d grown to care for.

“Daddy!” I called after him, my voice breaking. Daddy didn’t stop, didn’t even throw a glance over his shoulder to look at me. It was as if I had ceased to matter to him the moment I’d lost my innocence to these men. Like I’d stopped being his daughter and was now a stranger, a whore, to use his words. Someone undeserving of his attention and his forgiveness.

Like I was nothing. Like I was absolutely nothing to him, and that thought made tears form in the corners of my eyes. I didn’t want to be nothing to Daddy. Daddy was the only family I had left. I couldn’t even remember Mom anymore…

Daddy didn’t stop. He stepped out into the hall, and with a quick jerk of his arm, the door slid shut, locking me in. Almost simultaneously, the lights shut off of their own accord; both the lights in the room I was in and the lights in the hall. The last thing I remembered seeing was Daddy’s face in the glass as he walked by.

“Daddy, please,” I cried, wetness falling down my cheeks. My face still hurt where he’d touched me, and no matter how I tried to move my body, I could not break free. Locked up here, with nothing to keep me company other than the darkness and its coldness.

And the corpses. Oh, we couldn’t forget the mound of corpses, the slightly disfigured men who were dead because of me.

I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this. Not once did I ever ask for this. I just wanted to be happy, to make my own decisions for once. Was that truly so bad?

I knew what Daddy would say, of course. Yes, it was bad. No, I shouldn’t want things of my own freewill. I should only want whatever he deemed fit to give me. No freedom, no choices, no men who made my heart skip a beat and my cheeks flush. And definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent no sex.

None of the things I’d come to want Daddy wanted for me. The old me would’ve accepted it, but the new me, the me that had gotten a taste of the forbidden fruit, so to speak, could not accept it, even in the darkness. Even with everything slipping through my fingers and the bodies around me on the floor, I could not close my eyes and picture a life with Daddy again.

I didn’t want to go back, I realized. Some prisons were worse than others. Some were bigger, prettier, full of handsome faces and sweet smiles. Who wouldn’t choose the bigger cage if they had the choice?

It was the exact moment I’d decided this that my ears heard strange sounds. Strange, grotesque sounds that made my stomach crawl. Cracking bones echoing in the air, wet flesh sliding against tile, slick and slimy.

I could see nothing, could feel nothing but the leather straps holding me in place. It took everything in me to speak, “Hello?” Somehow, deep down, I knew this was it. This was the end. I thought of myself rather unlucky to be aware of it; what I wouldn’t give to be blissfully ignorant once more.

The worst smell I’d ever had the displeasure of sniffing filled my nose, and I gagged. Something wet and cold touched my knee, sliding up my leg, like a snake, but worse. Worse, because I knew there were no snakes in here. Worse because I knew it was a hand—a hand that shouldn’t be moving at all.

More sounds, hideous sounds, filled the room. Unnatural, nightmare-inducing. All logical thought left me, and though I resumed my struggling against the restraints, the leather would not budge. Nothing would. I was as helpless as a newborn child as I felt more wet, freezing cold hands touch me. One on my arm, another on my leg.

One found its way to my face, drawing along my cheek in a gesture I could only call sick. For the first time since being brought in here, I was thankful for the darkness, that I didn’t have to see what was happening.

It was as I had that thought the hand on my cheek moved to my mouth, bloody fingers slipping inside. I couldn’t turn my head away, and at this point, there was only one thing I could do besides gagging, so that’s exactly what I did.

I screamed.

The next time I opened my eyes, I saw the darkened ceiling of my room—only it wasn’t my bedroom. Not my home. Not anywhere near Daddy. I woke from the awful dream with hands on me, holding me, trying to shake me awake. Someone sat beside me on the bed, shadows hiding his face as he stared at me through the darkness of the night.

“Juliet,” he spoke, and I knew it was Will. His hands gripped my shoulders, steadying me, trying to stop me from shaking. “You’re awake. Whatever it was, it was just a nightmare.”

Just a nightmare. Easy for him to say. Will didn’t see any of it. He didn’t see Markus dead, didn’t see himself dead, along with Jaxon and Theo—and he definitely didn’t feel the way the hands had crawled along me in the pitch-blackness of the basement.

No. He couldn’t understand the desolation that had swept through me, how I felt so betrayed and dismayed by what Daddy had done, even if it was only a dream.

Just like my dream, tears welled in my eyes. I couldn’t stop them. It might’ve been a terrible, awful dream, but that didn’t change how I felt, or the fact that my heart still beat a mile a minute in my chest.

As the tears spilled over, I sat up, curling myself into Will’s chest. I didn’t want to cry, but how could I fight the guilt inside me? All my life, I’d only ever had Daddy. How could I have betrayed him like this? Didn’t I owe him something? I should’ve tried harder to be strong here, but it was just so hard. So ungodly difficult.

“Shh,” Will soothed me, wrapping his arms around me and holding me close, letting me cry, muffled sounds escaping me every now and then. “It’s all right. Everything’s all right.”

“No,” I muttered against his shirt. “It’s not. I shouldn’t have… Daddy will never forgive me for what I’ve done.” I was too lost, too downtrodden, to temper down my words. The only emotion inside me right now was pure, unadulterated sorrow. Guilt over everything I’d done, everything I’d wanted to do.

At that, Will pulled me off him. He held onto me at arm’s length, forcing me to meet his stare through the darkness. “No, you listen to me, okay?” Though his voice was soft and gentle, as it always was when he talked to me, he also sounded stern, forceful. “That man kept you locked up your whole damn life. Whatever he taught you, whatever reason he told you for doing it, was wrong. You might think your dad is a good man, but I can guarantee you he isn’t. If he was, you wouldn’t be here in the first place, would you?”

I sniffed, though I stopped myself from saying anything in return. He wasn’t wrong, no.

Will went on, “You don’t need him to forgive you. You don’t need his forgiveness. You are your own person. You don’t have to be the person he wanted you to be. Whatever he taught you doesn’t matter. You decide what’s right and what’s wrong. Don’t let thoughts of your dad strangle you… because if you let them, they will.”

A fresh tear spilled over my cheek, trailing down until it hit my jaw. “Were you close with yours?” Though Will didn’t know Daddy, it sounded like he knew men like him, like he told me all of this from experience.

“Not really, no.” Will’s hands rubbed my arms, up and down, warming me up, calming me with the repetitive gesture. “But he always wanted to control me, to keep an eye on me. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why he wanted to now, but back then, it felt like the worst. All I wanted to do was break free, be my own person, make sure my brother was safe and happy.” He stopped rubbing me, his hands falling until they gripped mine. “I never really cared about my happiness, until…”

“Until her,” I whispered, no longer crying, but the tears might just return if he stopped talking, so I’d rather stop thinking of my dream by listening to him, even if it meant I had to listen to a story about his old girl.

“Yeah,” he said. “Until her. My brother loved her, and it was good to see him happy again. It’s all I wanted, to see my brother happy. I would’ve given up everything for him, and I did, in a way, to try to prove that her other boyfriend wasn’t good enough for her. In the end, everything I’d done, he couldn’t forgive. But unlike your dad and mine, my brother was always supportive. He believed in me, trusted me.”

I didn’t think I’d ever had someone like that in my life. Definitely not Daddy. And that truth made me feel quite sad. Would I ever know what it was like, to have someone who cared for me that much, who trusted me implicitly and wanted nothing but my happiness?

“When you find someone like that, you do whatever you can to keep them close. I had to let him go, but I don’t want that for you,” he whispered, fingers curling around my hand tightly. He held onto my hands in a way that told me there was no escape, and it was something I knew in my soul.

I might feel guilty, but there would be no running from this.

“The point of this is your dad should want you to find someone like that, to care for someone so deeply you feel incomplete without them. Love is… addicting, but in the best way. If anyone deserves that, it’s you.”

I didn’t know what to him other than, “Thank you, Will.” He was so good at spilling his heart out to me, so good at simply being there to comfort me, I couldn’t imagine why Markus hadn’t wanted him around me in the beginning. Whatever problems Will had in the past were just that: in the past. He might partake in the things this family did downstairs, but the way he acted, the things he told me… it was enough to make me forget.

Enough to make me forget, and more than enough to make me want him so very much.

“Will you,” I paused, hoping I wouldn’t sound too needy or desperate, “stay with me and make sure I don’t have any more bad dreams?” It was funny; before coming here, I never dreamed at all. Only of that night, only of meeting Markus.

Little did I know those dreams had been dreams of the future. Dreams of the man who’d dictate the rest of my life. My every waking moment, my death.

And then, of course, there were the dreams where I was getting busy with one of the guys in front of Daddy, the dreams where I woke up afterward with aching thighs and wetness between my legs—but I wasn’t going to think about those dreams right now. The nightmare of tonight was too vivid in my mind.

If I had another dream tonight, I hoped it would be one of those instead of another nightmare.

He nodded, whispered, “Of course,” and leaned in to me, pressing his mouth upon my wet cheek, kissing away any other tears that might’ve decided to fall. His hands released their hold on mine, and he let me lay back down, watching me through the darkness all the while. “I’ll be right here. Nothing can get you when I’m here.”

I supposed some might find him a little creepy, but I found him endearing. I liked him. I liked him a lot. Too much, probably, but I didn’t care.

He was right. With how Daddy had treated me, I shouldn’t give him a single thought. I should live what was left of my life however I wanted to live it and not feel guilty over any budding feelings inside me.

As I closed my eyes and snuggled under the sheets, I couldn’t help but recall a single word Will had said: love. What did love feel like? Would I know I was in love, or would I be oblivious? Was it an emotion that took over you suddenly and completely, or was it a bit by bit, inch by inch sort of thing?

Love. Such a complicated word, and I wished I had all of the answers, but alas, I did not. I feared I never would, because, along with everything else Will had said, I couldn’t help but wonder if men like Will—and Markus, and Jaxon, and anyone else living under this roof—were even capable of something like love.

Maybe they were, or maybe they weren’t, and I was just a girl caught in a cage, surrounded by monsters. Some would hurt me and laugh, while others would hurt me while softly cooing to me, telling me everything would be alright.

But then, really, would that be such a bad way to go?

When the sweet, total blackness of unconscious swept over me again, when sleep came crashing down upon me, taking hold of me in its grasp, I did not have another nightmare, thankfully. No, this dream was quite the opposite.