Page 307 of The Professor's Wife

I was awoken much later to the sound of rapid footsteps. A gentle breeze followed. I could smell the summer air. I could see the faint light behind my eyelids, but I didn’t bother to open my eyes. I continued to lay there, unmoving as Oliver dropped down beside me. He pushed aside the hair from my face and tapped my cheek.

“Wake up,” he demanded, harshly, but there was a quickness in his touches. An urgency that told me he was worried I might not wake up at all. “Daisy! You will open your eyes!”

My eyelids cracked open. I saw the blurred outline of him. His face was contorted, all the colors of him dark and swirly. His red lips moved. For a moment, there was nothing but deafening silence against the ringing in my ears that drowned him out completely. His hands moved everywhere, pressing against my chest and then back to tapping against my cheek. I tried to brush his hand away, and that was when he stopped touching me altogether. He backed away, the blurry lines of his body growing further as he stomped soundlessly about the room. He shut the door and then began lighting the little lanterns along the floor.

The world continued to silently spin in blurring colors. The silence was interrupted by the ringing and now my heart pumping in my ears. I moved slowly, reaching for my senses. Gradually, the ringing faded, replaced by the light sounds around me, like my quick and short breaths.

My sight settled last, the blurs losing its saturation and forming finer lines as shapes turned crisp around me. Like the shape of Oliver seated on a wooden chair, silently watching me. I dragged myself upright, my back resting against the hard wallof the room. I didn’t turn my head to look at him, but my eyes moved, meeting his intense gaze.

“I thought you might have killed yourself,” he spoke.

I might have killed myself? I wanted to tell him that I didn’t whack my fucking head against the wall, but the words never made it out. My lips cracked open, but my tongue was sluggish and dry. So dry. I traced my tongue along the backs of my teeth, searching for saliva, but my mouth had the consistency of glue.

He stood up and walked to the small table on the other side. His steps were slow and relaxed. I didn’t bother to watch what he was doing. I looked up at the ceiling instead, sighing as the familiar miserable feeling eased its way into my chest.

“Hello, Misery,” I whispered through cracked lips. “Where have you been?”

“Right here,” that slithering little voice whispered back, mockingly. “Right where you belong.”

Did I belong here?

My eyes ran along every surface of the dilapidated room. I knew my prison by heart. Every feature and imperfection was burned into me. It would be so easy to relent and accept my place here. To appease this man and have my lead extended. The collar only burned when I tugged on it too hard, but if I accepted the boundaries he’d given me, it never burned at all.

Oliver returned to me, carrying two tall glasses of water, one in each hand. I watched him set them down on the floor beside me. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I don’t have to tell you what these glasses of water mean.”

The expression I gave him must have been answer enough because he nodded. “Good. But it’ll be a little different this time, Daisy. What you did…” His face darkened as he inched closer, his teeth gnashing together. I almost thought he might bite me the way he ran his eyes along my face and throat in a way that suggested he wanted to do damage. But he refrained. Maybe herecognized I was too weak to fend him off. Too useless to stop him from carrying out damage that he wouldn’t be capable of holding back from. He wavered there, his eyes filling with that rage and desire and craze. Yes, the word craze was the only thing that came to mind to explain the brutal look about his eyes as he stared at me.

“You will need to be very, very careful of that water,” he said slowly, like he was enjoying the way every word tasted on his tongue. “Otherwise, this will be a very uncomfortable lesson.”

He stood up and stepped back, looking over me, taking every inch of me in. His face clouded with that craze and disturbing desire. “I did miss this,” he confessed quietly. “Just a little.”

My body tightened with fear. “Oliver—”

“When I come back, I want theTragedy of Senecarecited to me, word for word.”

I didn’t think anything he said could shock me, but this… My eyes widened, and he grinned blatantly at my reaction.

“Oliver,” I weakly pushed out. “If you could just listen…”

“I’ll listen after this task has been done correctly.”

“Please, Oliver…It’s…not possible.”

He crouched back down, picking up the hardcover book he’d settled beside me. He trailed his fingers over the pages and puckered his lips out, deep in thought. “No, I think it’s very possible if someone is motivated enough.” His huff of laughter followed as his eyes shot back to mine. “Given you have ten days and two tall glasses of water—”

“—Ten days?!—”

“I’d say you would have the most motivation out of anyone to get this job done.”

The chains moved as I tried to move to him. On my hands and knees, I stared up at him, my eyes shining. “Please, Oliver! Please, it’s not what you think. I didn’t do it to hurt you—”

“I’ll see you in ten days—”

My arms wrapped around his leg, and I hugged him to me tightly, pleading, my tears drenching his pant leg. “You can’t! I’ll die! Oliver, this is going to kill me.”

He dropped back down to me, grabbing at my hands. Without breaking a sweat, he used minimal strength to overpower me, forcing my hands off his leg. He gripped each in his hand, tight and squeezing, and drilled his eyes into mine. There was joy radiating out of them. He leaned close to me, so close he shut his eyes and inhaled my misery and pain, and then ran his tongue along my cheek, lapping at the tears with a hunger that made me gasp and cry out.

“No, sweetheart, no,” he cooed, kissing along my face now. “This lesson won’t kill you.”