I'm Begging You, Devour Me [03]
She couldn't breathe properly. Cecilia pressed her cheek against the cold stone floor, exhaling breaths that came in broken little pieces, her soaked white hair clinging to her face in a sticky curtain. She didn't have the strength to move so much as a fingertip. The only proof that she was still alive was the slow rise and fall of her chest. She clung to her fading consciousness by a thread — for minutes, or perhaps hours; she couldn't have said whether a day had passed or two. The line between night and day had collapsed long ago. There wasn't even a proper window down here, and even if there had been, everything would have appeared to her eyes as nothing but shades of gray.
What happened in this place was simple. She offered her body to a woman. That woman's touch forced color into her cheeks. Unwanted sounds spilled from her lips. She laughed, she endured, she bore it — while screaming on the inside. It was a life closer to a tool than to a person. She had stopped counting how many days slipped past like that. Counting only crumbled her heart further, and nothing ever changed anyway.
Her chest throbbed. A hot ache pressed down on every spot where fingerprints had been left behind; even the trivial act of drawing breath had become a exquisite agony. The insides of her thighs were badly swollen — even the smallest stimulus against her skin made her wince. Indelible marks remained scattered across her body, and every movement made those marks remind her of the time she'd passed through.
Cold and heat were tangled together. Her back against the floor ached as though it might freeze, while deep inside her body still smoldered like a coal. That contradiction drained Cecilia all the more. Was this truly the right choice? The same question circled her head again and again.
"Chloe. Honestly, what a vicious woman."
Fever washed through her from head to toe. From the tips of her fingers to the ends of her toes, not a single place was whole. Every movement stirred the marks left behind, and the marks reminded her of the price she had paid. Her body still remembered every hour of it. Even her voice wouldn't come out right — all the emotions she'd swallowed and the screams she'd smothered overnight still lodged in her throat, making even a single word an effort.
Cecilia frowned. "...God, how absurd." Even to her own ears, the complaint was laughable. She was the one enjoying nothing at all, while Chloe was reborn a new person with every night that passed. A body purged of pain, mana flowing smoothly again, hands that could grip a sword once more — and the one paying that price, always and only, was Cecilia.
The thought came to her suddenly: Do I even want to keep living like this? The floor was cold, her body felt shattered. If she simply let go, it might be a relief. She could just... exit this wretched story altogether. No. No. I can't give up now. I absolutely refuse to die like that.
Cecilia closed her eyes and looked down at her own bruised arm. Across the once-fair skin lay marks that would not fade — proof of how powerless she had been. Like brands declaring her someone's property, they covered her body from head to toe. Looking at the state of her, a laugh bubbled up. "...I must be that lovable, hm, Chloe?"
It was absurd. Hilarious, really — that the woman she had despised so utterly was now the one clinging to her. The eldest daughter of a dukedom once hailed as a future pillar of the Empire. That proud, untouchable woman now hunted Cecilia like a beast every night, and not a shred of affection could be found anywhere in it.
Had there ever been tenderness in those hands? No. Nothing but greed. The ravenous clutching of a starving creature, the ragged breaths, the teeth that sank toward her nape as if to tear it open — that wasn't love. It was hunger. And yet merely recalling those scenes kept setting off her laughter. In the end, we're no different, either of us. Look — exactly the same. Perhaps I really am going mad, little by little. She didn't bother to deny it.
To a person who had rolled all the way to the bottom, sanity was a luxury. A laugh escaped again through Cecilia's cracked lips. Is this feeling what they call satisfaction? Only belatedly did she understand the strange sensation. The privilege of watching a noble daughter fall into ruin — from closer than anyone, clearer than anyone. And she wasn't the only one being broken.
Cecilia knew. She knew exactly how Chloe changed with every turn of the cycle. At first it had been to cure her illness. Then curiosity. Then craving. Now, it was obsession. You're falling apart right along with me, Chloe.
"...We're going together. All the way."
The hoarse whisper sank low into the empty cell. A companion in the fall. It was, strangely, a comfort. Hatred and obsession were separated by a single sheet of paper, and along that razor-thin line Cecilia walked a tightrope — turning the hand that gnawed at her into the only rope she had left to hold. She let herself be used, and used the using in turn.
She tried to turn over and look at the ceiling, and the instant she moved, the inside of her thigh screamed. Moans kept leaking past her lips whether she wanted them to or not. "Ngh... how sore can one body get. It hurts like hell." Was she to watch that again today, too? The hour of descent was drawing near. Soon Chloe would open the door and come to break her all over again. The mere thought of it was already sickening. Is there really no way out of this?
It was a night uniquely hard to endure. Not an ounce of strength remained even to twitch a finger — this was truly her limit. Cecilia was still turning over her options through bleary eyes when the iron door screeched open. That familiar shriek of metal. That familiar footfall. A shadow stretched long through the gap, and she stared up at it in silence. Beautiful, and ravenous. That silhouette, with the night at its back, was the only lifeline Cecilia had remaining. Even a rotted rope had to be seized — because the moment she let go, she would fall again.
"...You're back."
Cecilia mumbled in a husked-out voice. Chloe didn't answer. Instead she approached slowly and knelt beside the collapsed woman.
"...You look a wreck."
There was something in the low murmur — hard to say whether reproach or satisfaction. Chloe's hands moved with an care she didn't usually show. She started at Cecilia's feet, tracing past the bruised ankle, up the swollen calf, onto the trembling thighs, and each time the hand climbed higher, Cecilia's body flinched in on itself — bracing for the hurt of tender places being pressed. But Chloe's touch was, strangely enough, gentle. It glided over her waist, along her side, and finally came to rest against her cheek, cradling her deathly pale face with a careful thumb brushing beneath her eye, as if handling something that might shatter.
...What is this hand? It was unfamiliar. Nothing like the iron grip that had pinned her down all this time. Cecilia met Chloe's eyes through glazed lashes, and saw something hanging on that face she had never seen before. It bodes ill.
"Cecilia." Chloe's voice was low, and rough. "You can leave this underground now."
...What? She thought she must have misheard. She tried to ask again through her ruined throat, but no sound came. Chloe laid a finger gently across those lips.
"Squirming like that is cute, you know. For a villainess."
Then she smiled, faintly. "Don't worry. I won't do anything."
There was no swallowing those words at face value. This woman, doing nothing? The woman who couldn't bear to let me go night after night? What was she scheming, exactly? Suspicion raised its head first — but her body refused to follow. She had no strength to resist and nowhere to retreat to; all she could do was strain to read the woman's intent through her eyes alone.
Chloe reached out — one arm behind her back, the other beneath her knees — and the exhausted body lifted weightlessly into the air. Cecilia's damp hair spilled loose in the dark. Chloe drew her into her chest. Carefully. As though she would never let her go.
The embrace was unexpectedly warm. "...Why are you being so gentle?" Cecilia managed. At that, Chloe smiled quietly. "It's your reward. You endured well."
It was the first warmth in days. Skin that had frozen stiff against the chill of the stone floor slowly thawed along that borrowed heat, and Cecilia did not resist. She had no choice but to surrender herself to the embrace. ...Something's wrong. This tenderness. This care. She couldn't believe it was the same person as the hands that devoured her night after night. Resting her cheek against Chloe's shoulder, Cecilia felt that disconnect even through her fogging consciousness.
Those eyes glittered, far too bright for the gentle gesture — holding at once the ease of someone who had already obtained something, and the hunger of someone who had not yet obtained it completely. A chill ran down her spine. "...What exactly are you planning?" The question was all she could barely squeeze out. The corner of Chloe's mouth curled slowly upward. That smile was more chilling than any threat. "I've prepared something good for you."
...Something good? She tried to fathom it, but her fever-locked mind wouldn't turn. Her body had already gone limp; there was no escaping her arms now even if she'd known how. I suppose... there's nothing to be done.
The iron door of the underground receded behind her. A long corridor. An unfamiliar direction. A stairway leading up and out. That path which should have meant freedom somehow felt like being dragged down into somewhere far deeper.
At the top of the stairs, open air rushed in. It was night wind — cold, and yet somehow soft. Cecilia narrowed her eyes. Through her blurred vision, a single carriage stood waiting, and around it black shadows stood in ranks. Not ordinary people, any of them. How far are they planning to take me, that they'd go to all this trouble? This wasn't consideration — it was the elimination of every last gap through which she might slip. Forget escape; even the direction of her gaze would be under their watch. From an underground cell, merely transferred to a cage that was larger and more solid.
Only then did Cecilia understand. "...We're going to the villa."
Chloe murmured the answer close to her, unprompted. "Somewhere quiet, empty, with high walls. A place so fine it would be a waste on you alone." She brought her lips to the shell of Cecilia's ear. "You could scream all night and no one would ever know. Hehehe."
Gooseflesh crawled up her arms. To a place with no way out. The design, from the very beginning, had been to cage her. Part of her wanted to demand answers right then and there — what on earth is going through your head? — but the words wouldn't leave her mouth. Chloe's embrace was still warm; her eyes were still unendurably cold. Caught between those two temperatures, Cecilia closed her eyes without even knowing where she was being carried.
One thing, at least, was certain. Fine. Let's see this through to the end, wherever it goes. So Cecilia resolved. She would endure whatever came. Even if it cost her this body everything it had left.