CONSUME

17.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Esther had forced herself into different habits. It felt like swallowing nails, but she'd forced herself to do it over and over until it didn't feel excruciating. He would kiss her in the morning and they would make small talk when he came home for dinner, her own voice beginning to feel unfamiliar and distant. They would sleep in the same bed and his touch would linger until she distanced herself, refusing to give him more of her, since he'd stolen her control and weakened her mind, turning her into someone she barely recognized.

She would talk like she saw worth in him. She would respond to him with interest, engaging herself enough to ensure that he was beginning to trust and feel comfortable around her.

He was comfortable enough for her to notice that he kept his car keys in his left jacket pocket and that the numbers to the house alarm started with two eights.

He was also comfortable enough to look at her like he owned her, like he had all the time in the world, a world that he had created to keep her in.

The bed was soft underneath her, his weight heavy as he held her, draping himself over her while kissing her softly.

She kissed him back, it had become a habit.

In the dark, she sometimes ashamedly found herself liking his touch.

In the dark, she sometimes convinced herself that maybe she was supposed to be with him.

Then she woke up and couldn't blink without thinking about her dead friends.

It was strange. To be able to breathe she needed to forget the bad but it clung to her like a second skin, reminding her that she was alive, she wasn't void.

She had become so used to him that it sometimes felt unrealistic that she had a life before him, an identity. His face had become so familiar and his voice so assuring that she sometimes lost herself, telling herself in secret that love felt like this.

Then she watched a romantic movie and realized that he was making her insane.

His trust had a cost, that she knew, she feared that this was his casual version of love because she hadn't tested him more and she had done everything to appear pleasing and appeasing.

She didn't want to be killed, but the frustration had affected her reasoning.

The knock on the door was surrealistic.

The sound that tore trough the cabin made her still, freezing for a second before realizing that someone was here.

Someone was here.

Someone was outside.

His stare was piercing, his comfortable nature gone as a lack of warmth engulfed him and left him threatening.

"Don't move an inch." He spoke, his tone so harsh it felt like it would physically hurt her.

She nodded, watching him leave and quietly walking over the cold floorboards so she could see what was going on.

The man was tall and blonde, a case of beer in his right hand as he entered without hesitation. She could hear them talking, leaning forward until she could spot the two walking to the kitchen.