I tap on the folder where I keep the videos from our meetings and open the first one: the footage from the warehouse. Our first meeting. My voice is shaking, his is calm. I was poised, trying so hard to be the one in control while he was just there, dictating my every reaction. Pathetic and out of control but still pretending I knew what I was doing.
Now, looking back at it, it is so obvious that I didn’t, not in the slightest. But God, I looked like I wanted to.He told me he’d destroy me, I just assumed it would be in the way I wanted. Pathetic.
My jaw tenses as I tap the next video, from when Azrael came to my house. He didn’t know I filmed it, but I felt like such a good girl for following his rules to the T, so when he said I need to watch the videos of our sessions, I did it without even questioning it, like a fucking puppet.
Something twists inside me. I watch the expression on my face as I look at him, and I don’t recognize it. I look… alive. No, worse. I look like I feel something. I look like a woman who forgot how to use her brain because someone whispered pretty words in her ear.
I hate it. I hate her. That glint in my eyes? That isn’t me, it’s not who I trained myself to be. There is something primal in my eyes. I look like the prey trying to seduce the predator. I can hear my breath in the video—too fast, too shallow. The way I give him everything, believing I’m the one winning, while he gives me crumbs.
No control. No self-awareness. No fucking weapon in my hand, blowing his brains out when he tried, and succeeded, to control me.
Just pure vulnerability.
“That’s not me,” I say out loud, locking the screen.
But my voice sounds foreign, detached from the reality I’m living in.
“That was just pretend.” I continue, trying to make myself believe the words.
I unlock the phone and watch the screen flicker back to life as it goes straight to Azrael’s messages.
I press and hold.
Delete.
Then again.
Delete.
Delete everything.
Delete her, this person who is not me.
Messages and calls, I burn the evidence of my stupidity while I still can.
I go to my profile and scroll through the settings until I find the option I should have used a long time ago.
Delete account?
Yes.
It’s done. I stand and go to the safe to take out the wine bottle I’d ignored like it was a test of restraint. My fucking precious wine. I pop out the cork, and it hisses, mocking me and my poor life choices.
As soon as I take a sip, the warmth hits the back of my throat, curling in my chest and bringing my body back to life. I continue to chug the entire bottle, and despite my stomach clenching, I don’t stop. Once the bottle is empty, as it should have been days ago, I pick up the phone and make the overdue call.
Alex answers on the first ring. “About fucking time.”
“It’s done,” I say, and I finally recognize my voice. “Secondary plan executed.”
“It was Plan B.”
“Shift in the weather. It will not repeat,” I justify, and from now on, this is the truth I will tell myself until I believe it.
One beat. Two. I can hear the hesitation, but at least he drops it. “Flight’s at 3:15 a.m.”
Silence. More fucking silence.
“Tory,” Alex almost whispers, quiet now. Too quiet. The kind of quiet he only uses when delivering shitty news. “You good?”