UNTIL LOVE SETS US APART ( JENLISA)

Chapter 10

Jennie POV

When I snapped back to my body, it took me a moment to realize that I was no longer with Lisa, no longer in her penthouse, no longer safe. The bag of books that I had grabbed before leaving was the first thing that my eyes focused on. It was dumped in the corner with the books spread all over.

I was sitting on the edge of a bed, in a room I didn't recognize - small, the walls oppressive and peeling with old paint, the smell of damp circling around my head and feeling as though it was choking me out. I remembered the hand around my face, the other around my middle, and touched my ribs to find a shock of pain beneath my fingers. I was hurt. It had been a long time since I had felt this kind of pain, but the sensation of it on my body was familiar, like an old companion.

As soon as those hands had touched me, I had known who it was. I would have recognized them anywhere. I had recognized him when I had seen him at the mall, and I recognized his touch when his hands had circled around me to drag me back to the hell I had only just managed to claw my way out of in the first place.

But I wasn't back in the brothel, which was strange. I got to my feet, slowly, and hoped that this was all some bad dream, a memory forcing itself on me in a new way.

But then the door opened, and reality came crashing down on top of me like a tropical storm.

Kai stood there before me while a smile on his face, a smile that seemed dissonant to what was going on as though he expected me to return it, to run into his arms and let him hold me there. I clenched my fists at my sides, the last vestiges of strength I had in me ready to fight.

"What am I doing here?" I asked him quietly. My voice around him dropped away to nothing, fearful of the retribution if I did some thing wrong, if I acted in any way that might anger him. His smile widened, and he spread his hands out in front of him as though handing me the sweetest gift he could imagine.

"I've brought you home," he told me, taking a step towards me. He was here before me again, his face seared itself on to my brain like a painful brand. Sharp eyes, a long, slightly hooked nose, skin mottled with the evidence of his heavy alcohol use. He was lean and thin, wiry, battle-ready, his body built not for aesthetics, but for violence. He looked like a monster, poured into a human form and bursting to get out of his shell.

"This isn't my home." I shook my head firmly. Never in my life had I talked back to him like this not without paying for my words, at least - but I knew I shouldn't be here. I had tasted a tantalizing glance of the life that I could live, the life that he had nothing to do with. Now I had something to fight for.

"You were gone for so long," he shook his head, ignoring the words that had just come out of my mouth. "I didn't know what to think. And then I saw you, at that mall, and I just... I knew you had come to find me. I knew you were searching for me the same way I was searching for you."

He moved towards me again, and every nerve ending in my body was screaming at me to get away from him, to put as much space between the two of us as I could, but the room was small, and it felt as though with his every step, the walls were getting tighter in on us. I could feel my muscles tensing, my brain shutting off, my tongue growing heavy in my mouth, my body doing what it could to protect me from the violence, the horror of what he was planning to inflict on me.

He clasped my arms, but not so tightly that it appeared he was trying to hurt me. I would have preferred it if he was. At least then, I would know how to react to the situation; I would understand what he was doing to me. My mind was racing so fast I couldn't form a coherent thought for the life of me, staring at his face, trying to get a read on this situation.

"I missed you so much," he murmured, and his face softened, terrifyingly. The Kai that I knew kicked doors open, screamed at people three rooms away and filled the whole house with his rage. He always grabbed me by the arm and physically dragged me places when I wouldn't follow him at once. I could still remember, so vividly, the sight of him on top of me, the feeling as though I was watching my own body violated by him. Ice was running through my veins, my feet rooted to the spot like I would never move them again.