Athena
"What is this place? Please, Aaron, let me go. I beg you."
Instead of responding, he simply tied my hands behind my back. As I pleaded with him to release me, desperately trying to convince him not to hurt me or my baby, fear gripped me.
This was the real Aaron I was facing now— The facade was no longer there.
The surroundings around me were unfamiliar and I didn't even know my way back since he'd very cleverly covered my eyes right after a few minutes he had forcefully gotten me inside the car. All I knew is that I was locked in an old, dusty room. My eyes caught the peeling paint on the walls. It hung like tired skin, revealing the layers of time that had passed, as if the room had seen countless lives come and go. The air was heavy with the scent of decay, and I could almost taste the dust particles, and a cloud of musty air that assaulted my senses. Cobwebs stretched across every surface, connecting the remnants of a strange bygone era. Ancient furniture, draped with tattered velvet and moth-eaten fabric, bore witness to years of abandonment—The place itself seemed cursed.
"Where am I, Aaron? Why have you brought me here?" I asked, making yet another attempt to escape this nightmare. "Just let me go. What's the point of all this? You won't gain anything from it. Why did you bring me here?"
But, once again, he paid no attention to my questions. Instead, he hummed a soft, eerie tune while moving to tie my legs.
"Please don't do this. I want to go home," I pleaded, finally breaking down into sobs. "Please, why are you doing this to me?"
"You still don't understand?" He finally looked at me, his eyes filled with rage and contempt, a deep-rooted hatred lurking beneath the surface. "How can you still not fucking get it?!" He grabbed my arms and shook me violently, his nails digging into my skin, causing me to whimper in pain.
"I loved you, damn it! And you chose that abuser over me, and you still don't understand why I'm doing this?!" He shouted, and I closed my eyes in fear. "You chose to carry that monster inside yourself, risking everything, even your life, yet you couldn't make the easy decision to choose me over this pathetic existence. I was willing to give you everything, but you chose the worst. And here you are, still asking me why I'm doing this?! Can't you see the reason already? How long will you continue to love that monster?! When will you finally put an end to this madness?!"
It hurt to realise how much I had trusted him, cared for him, and believed he would never hurt me.
"At least he's better than you. What he did was under the effects of the curse, but you..." I managed to muster, "You are doing this despite knowing it's wrong. You know my reasons, but you can't accept them because you never truly loved me. Perhaps I was just a way to satisfy your ego."
"Oh...now you're talking, huh?!" He suddenly grabbed a fistful of my hair in his iron grip, and I gasped in pain, but it didn't faze him. "I have done so much for you, and you dare to question my feelings? Impressive. I must applaud your audacity," His intense gaze bore into my eyes, sending shivers of terror through my body.
I felt a deep sense of unease that gnawed at my gut, and a sharp pain spread through my core and lower abdomen.
"Do you have any idea what I went through to get to you?" He seethed, "Of course, you don't. There's a part of me that I thought of burying after making you mine, and you know what? I don't think I'll ever need to discard those parts, as you've clearly made it clear that you'll never choose me. But since you're the reason I unleashed the worst in myself, you should know what I did for you. I made myself into someone I didn't recognize, worse than I was before you, all in the hope of one day having you by my side instead of in the arms of that Sebastian Valdez."
"What... what are you talking about?"
"That night, if it weren't for those motherfucking rogues, Athena, I would have taken you far away," he chuckled darkly, "The phone call I received from your mate in the car was actually a warning about Vincent and Celine's intentions. But at that time, your mate didn't know I was involved with them all along."
A shocked gasp escaped my lips. I didn't know how to respond. It was as if someone had drenched me in ice-cold water and all my veins had frozen, void of any movement, void of the warmth of my own blood.
"And you know why I continued on despite the warning?" he continued, a sinister smirk forming on his lips, "Because my plan was to avoid them, and your mate had already suspected the driver who was just my pawn. Well... speaking of that," his smirk deepened, "Do you remember the party where you almost got raped by a stranger?"
The memories flooded back, and I shuddered at the recollection. It was as if, in an instant, I relived all the horror.
"That night, you were actually supposed to be kidnapped by Vincent's goons," he revealed, "And do you know who let them in? You can probably guess," His sinister smile confirmed my suspicions – he was the one behind it all.
"But here's the plot twist. Do you know why that guy who almost raped you, approached you in the first place?" He chuckled, a smirk spreading across his face, "Because I diverted his attention to you, though the footage of that has never been retrieved since I wiped all traces of it. Sorry, sweetheart, but there was no other way to save you from Vincent's grasp without being on his bad side, and I couldn't afford that at that particular time. He was offering me a handsome amount of cash, well, technically Celine did, but it came from the same family, so yeah, that's it. But I didn't want you to become Vincent's hostage because I knew his temper, and he would have killed you. So, it's better to be raped than killed, isn't it? Besides, it wasn't your first time facing such a situation, so—"
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" I closed my eyes tightly, desperate to shield myself from the painful words he callously spat out, "Just shut up!"
I had placed so much trust in him... I had considered him family.
"Why can't you handle the truth now, huh? It hurts, right?" He harshly grabbed my face and forced me to look at him, "This is exactly how I felt when I saw you choosing that monster over me."
"You are delusional. You think you are any better than him, but in fact, you are the monster here!" I spat back, "You betrayed Sebastian for your own motives and tried to manipulate me behind his back. And now that you know you'll never get what you want from me, you have stooped to this level just to satisfy your ego! You are the only monster I can see, not my mate."
His jaw clenched, and his eyes burned with rage. Before I could even comprehend what he was about to do, I saw him grab a dagger and press it against my stomach.
"I really thought of sparing a few last moments with your unborn child, but no, you are testing my patience too much," He said coldly, "But I really have to finish it quickly. So listen, first, I'll kill this child inside you, and then I will take you away with me to get rid of it completely. And you know the best part? You'll feel it die within you. It'll be quite painful for you, feeling your boy struggling in your womb to live but slowly succumbing to death. But that's the best part—you should remember it for your whole life."
"No..." I panicked, trying to back away, only to find the cold wall behind me, trapping my escape.
"Don't worry; it'll be over soon. I have brought a potent drug," he snickered as he pulled out an injection from his pocket, "You'll be mine, Athena, whether it's willingly or not."
"Aaron, no!" I looked at the injection, then back at him, fear gripping me to my core.
I couldn't lose my baby! No!
"You left me with no other options, and if I'm being honest, I don't even care about this child that much. I've killed too many people to care about a life that hasn't even stepped into this world yet," he said nonchalantly as he removed the cap of the syringe and filled it with the drug from the vial. "I'm wondering where I should inject it. Ah! The arm would be a good option; though it works slowly, it doesn't matter."
"Aaron, please don't do this," I pleaded, tears welling up in my eyes, "Please, I beg you!"
"Begging won't get you anywhere, Athena," he sighed, flashing me a cruel smile, "Just cooperate, okay?"
He moved closer, pressing me against the wall, while I continued to struggle to break free.
I had to save my baby.
"Please don't! Please! I can't lose my baby. I'll die."
"No one dies from losing someone, Athena. You can always find a new meaning, and I'm here to help," he said, though his focus remained solely on a certain spot on my arm where he rubbed disinfectant and prepared to inject the drug.
"You're wrong. It's entirely possible to die after losing someone—maybe not a physical death that appears on a medical report, but a kind of death that occurs without anyone knowing, and that's the most painful one," a sudden male voice rang out, putting everything to a halt
Aaron frantically looked behind him before I slowly shifted my gaze too.
"Tristan...".