Swallowing the lump in my throat I dragged the soapy sponge across his broad chest, avoiding his pensive stare like the plague. His eyes caressed every inch of my body with each movement I made, the way they always did. As pathetic as it sounds, Zhayne doesn't have to touch me to make my body feel anything at all. His invasive gaze was more than enough to make me feel like his own hands were the ones idly gliding down my skin for his enjoyment.

Being the center of his focus was nothing short of suffocating and petrifying. There was just too much power emanating from him no matter what he was doing. Without doing do much as parting his lips, his very presence reminded me that I am no match for him. I'm nothing but an insignificant chess piece in his game that he could destroy at any given moment. I couldn't stand a chance against this sorry excuse of a person.

Slowly lifting my hand again I wrang out the bloody sponge, watching and listening intently as the pink droplets fell back into the tainted body of water. The smell of blood and soap was thick and heavy in the air. Remnants of another innocent human being's life smeared all over the tile beneath me as well as on the walls, and the one who had stolen their existence.

I asked no questions once I initially witnessed him entering the bedroom soaked from head to toe in blood earlier on in the night. My eyes were blown wide with terror as I laid frozen on the bed, incredibly wary of what he'd done and will do. My body only allowed me to blindly obey him as he eyed me blankly, tossing his gun onto the mattress before pointing to the bathroom. Even though he hadn't verbally spoken I understood what he wanted from me. I moved without hesitation, not wanting to test him under any circumstances.

With shaky and sluggish movements, I leaned up to grab some more of the soap from the opposite side of the tub so that I could re-wash him again. The blood was still nowhere near gone. I still have much work to do. There was so much of it that I could hardly make out any of his features at first. It's as if he'd purposely coated himself in the ruby colored fluid. My tongue suddenly felt heavy in my mouth and my lips tightened in anxiety. I wouldn't be surprised if he regularly took blood baths to indulge himself.

Shivering at the unsettling thought, I moved myself upward, mumbling a small apology to Zhayne for having to hover over him. I had received no response in return and I would gladly admit that I was thankful for it. Even if the silence was driving me up a wall, I definitely handled that better than the sound of his voice. It's like every single one of my worst nightmares come running back to me in a split second as soon as he speaks. They become reality.

Grabbing the glass bottle off of the edge, I lowered myself down again once the object was secured in my grasp. Lathering the sponge in soap, I put the bottle aside and began to wash him again. Every breath I took made me feel like I'm progressivley running short on oxygen because of how tensed up I had become. Part of me could hardly even focus on the pain of the cold tile digging into my knees, no doubt leaving deep, angry red marks. The physical discomfort was not enough for me to feel bold enough to move a fraction of an inch. The sheer overwhelming tension in the air had me glued to my spot, completely unwilling to move.

As far as I'm aware, there is no real reason for me to be frightened at the moment but I, of course, can't help my thoughts or feelings when it comes to Zhayne. It always seems like I am mentally preparing myself for a war, or perhaps a bloodbath whenever I am with him. Everything is so much more intense or intimate on a horrifying level when we are alone together and it makes it a challenge for me to even attempt to stand my ground and control myself. It was infuriating. Absolutely fucking maddening.

"You've been waking up in the middle of the night more often than usual." Suddenly came the voice of the very man who has my existence in the palm of his hand. "Tell me what's going on." As a natural reaction, the hairs on the back of my neck stood in alert at the sudden change in the air. Beforehand things were already tense enough, given that being around Zhayne was always a challenge whether he spoke to me or not. But there was something about that voice of his that did something to me. It fucked with me in a way that I couldn't possibly bring myself to even attempt to explain.

I could never figure out what it was. I wasn't sure if it was the deepness of his tone that gave me the sudden urge to piss on myself out of pure fear. Or if it could be because of the sickening things he promised to do to me, or perhaps others, to me right as he inches me closer to death's door. I proceeded to ponder for a brief moment, thinking of other possibilities as to why.

I thought, gripping the bloody sponge in my fingers. It was the tranquility in his tone as he said such questionable things to me that had me so shaken. It's the way he was able to embed it deeply into my soul that it would be nothing for him to commit whatever terrible, awful acts that he so pleased. He was always calm expressing these things to me because in his eyes it is what's normal. Being evil...it just comes naturally to him. It's what he was born to be.

Endless waves of cold chills ran up and down my entire body as I attempt to repress the memories that came rushing back. I softly cleared my throat and brought the soapy sponge back to his chest to begin scrubbing again. I gnawed on my lips, softly but firmly brushing the sponge against his skin. I had to be absolutely sure that every ounce of blood had been cleaned off of him. I knew Zhayne wouldn't let me live to see another day if I proved myself to be incompetent because of a simple task.

I watched, focusing heavily on my movements as the pink suds bubbled up over his thick scars, but soon vanishing as I washed them away with water once any trace of blood had been eliminated. I sucked in a breath upon seeing his imperfections being revealed to me at once. Cleaning him was like witnessing the deshedding of a snake. He looked so different...so normal when he isn't covered in blood.

I'd been exposed to Zhayne's body on many occasions prior to this one. I am no stranger to any of his physical form in any way shape or form. I've seen it all and I am quite familiar with almost every inch of it because of the simple fact that the man was always all over me. Zhayne didn't possess the ability to leave me alone, ever. Yet, I could never bring myself to do a thorough observation of his scars. I've seen them up close and personal before and have even touched them but there was something different about this time around.

They were alluring.

My eyes trailed downward toward his arm, taking in the sight of dried up blood gathering in the crevices of his defined muscles and coating them in its entirety. I found myself in something similar to that of a trance like state as I lifted the sponge yet again and tenderly glided it across his marred skin. A foreign sensation took over me. Something I can only describe as an electric current abruptly pulsed through my body from the top of my head to the tip of my toes.

"I keep having the same nightmare." I finally responded, moving the sponge away from his arm and trailing it upward to his neck. He released a deep content sigh, reverberating through my chest. I rubbed his collarbone in circles, removing the more of the blood. The more I scrubbed, more of his scars were revealed to me. Once that part was clean, I doused the sponge in the tub again and washed the suds away with the steaming hot water.

As more of his natural skin became visible to me again, I took in the familiar yet frightening sight of my name tattooed in cursive letters on on his neck, covering up what used to be a deep gash in the flesh. It's been there for a while and It didn't exactly bother me that he'd gotten my name printed on him. I expected something like that from Zhayne and I know that I have no say in anything he does. What bothered me was the floating dove next to it. I knew what that symbolized and that was what made my heart sink whenever I looked at it.

"Of?"

I was hoping that he would have left it alone. I wasn't really fond of the idea of talking to him about it, but there was no sense in even attempting to not give him an answer. When he expects something of me, I am to do nothing but what I am asked if I want my mother and I to survive. This was something we had established long ago, so I know better. "Murder. People. Piles of dead bodies...Fire"

I'd been having that same dream for the past couple of weeks. The first time it happened I tried not to think too much of it, since I have dreams like that quite often. Nightmares are a normal thing for me now. But when it kept coming back to me every night, that was when it got worse. I wondered why it was this one in particular that kept getting repeated. Why couldn't it have been the ones where Zhayne brutally murdered me in every way possible?

"I'm going to need more than that."

I thought about it for a moment. Truly, it was hard to explain. It wasn't that the dream was too vague for me to remember, because I remember everything that happens in it. From the very first time I had that nightmare everything was fresh in my mind once I woke up from it. My memory wasn't the issue, I just didn't know how I could explain what happened without sounding like a complete mess. I remember everything, I just don't know what it's entailing. I don't know why that dream in particular keeps coming back to me.

"I'm not really sure what to say, Zhayne. There were so many things going on that I can't just come out and say it. There's so much that happens." I told him truthfully, and much to my surprise, he let it go. The nonchalant shrug he gave me before relaxing in the bloody water with closed eyes let me know that he would no longer be pushing the matter. However, I knew that if he did, he would have eventually gotten what he wanted out of me. He just must not care enough, this time. And because of that I considered myself lucky.

Silence came back again and I huffed quietly before getting back to work. I wanted to hurry up and get this over with so I could at least get back to the room and attempt to get some sort of rest. I am so fucking tired of everything. Of life...I realized a long time ago that is way too much of a reoccurring thought in my mind. It goes to show how much worse things have gotten, and how there is no way there will be a change. Not if I've been doing it for this long.

I finished washing the blood off of every inch of his body and once I was finished, I sighed in relief, knowing that I was finally done. It had taken an additional 45 minutes to clean him and make sure there was not a single trace of blood left on his skin. Zhayne was large in every way, so washing him was quite the challenge. Especially when he was dead set on not 100% complying with me whenever I needed him to be positioned a certain way to clean him. If he didn't feel like moving to make things easier on me, I was told to 'figure it out.'

"I'm done." I whispered.

"No you're not. Get in."

I looked down at the water in distaste, trying to reason with him. "Zhayne...I already showered earlier." I said truthfully. My voice was low, sounding close to a whine. He opened his eyes and shifted them toward me in one swift movement, a thick blonde brow raised in question. "A-and...the water...It's bloody." I mumbled. It reeked heavily of blood in this bathroom and it was making me want to hurl up my dinner. "Please, I just want to go lay back down and try to get some sleep. You know it yourself, I haven't been resting properly."

He was not impressed with my response by any means. "You sound like a child making pathetic excuses to get out of something. You don't complain about sleep any other time so shut the fuck up and get in." Zhayne said. "I want you in here with me. I haven't been with you enough today."

I furrowed my brows in confusion, having trouble understanding what he said correctly. I'm not imagining things right? "What? We only parted two hours ago. That was when you left to go-" I averted my gaze from the contaminated water. "-do your job. You were all over me otherwise. You never let me go, ever." And it was the truth.

He licked his bottom lip. "I don't think you understand the meaning of obsession, do you?" He asked me, expecting a response. I went still on my knees and shook my head instinctively. "You really are just a kid. You can't seem to process anything properly to save your life." He leans back, removing his arms from the bath water. Transparent red droplets fell down his large physique as he shifted slightly, making himself comfortable staring at me. Studying me the way he always did, he crossed his arms against his broad chest, only slightly narrowing his gaze.

"I thought I've already made this clear on multiple occasions, and will continue to if I deem it necessary." He shrugs nonchalantly, a playful glint suddenly shone within his eyes. They seemed frosted over with something else. An emotion that I couldn't point out, but something told me it was best that I keep my curiosity under control. It's what got me in this predicament in the first place. One would think I'd have learned my lesson by now. "You can't satiate my desire to have all of you." I dropped the sponge in the tub and quickly stood up, sensing exactly where this conversation would be heading. Zhayne's eyes followed every movement I made.

"I-I think I need to-"

Zhayne didn't allow me to finish. "You're not going any fucking where." I swore I'd never shut my mouth so quick before in my life. "Sit your ass down before I drag you in this tub and crack your fucking skull open with my bare hands." My lips remained sealed tightly as I maneuvered myself back down to the floor beside the tub slowly while cautiously eyeing my captor along the way. I wouldn't dare say anything now.

Once my knees touched the tile again, Zhayne continued. "It doesn't matter that I see your face every day, or that I have my way with you whenever it pleases me..I just can't bring myself to feel replenished." There was a short pause. In reality it must have only been a couple of seconds, but since I was dreading whatever he had to say next, it felt like an eternity before he spoke. "One would think I have everything I want from you at this point in time, but that isn't the case." He stopped talking again, seemingly deep in thought for a quick moment. The silence didn't last long.

"You don't know what you do to me, Angel. Frankly I don't think you ever will. You couldn't begin to fathom just how much you fuck with my head." He slowly rubbed the underside of his chin, stroking it tenderly as he stared up at me through his long and thick lashes. "You make me fucking insane." A breathy chuckle escaped his lips. Electric blues took their sweet time scanning every inch of my body, an insatiable hunger glimmering from deep within those soulless orbs. I thought about saying his name to stop him from going any further but I was afraid of what he would do to me.