Chapter 4

  When everyone goes home tired

  Rose had forgotten most of her stuff inside “Cupid” but after the stunt she had just pulled, there was no way on earth she would go back inside to fetch her handbag and coat.

  It was freezing cold outside though.

  What one wouldn’t do to keep their ego intact? Freezing to death? Walk almost two miles in high heels?

  Rose was willing to do all of the above if it prevented her from entering that god-forbidden place again, from seeing the smug face of that little piece of shit. Not that he was really little, but it sounded better this way and she wasn’t about to give him credit for anything, not even his good genetics.

  Rose pulled her phone from her bra. At least she had it with her when she left.

  She quickly sent a message to her group chat with Isis and Carla.

  Rose: I’m going home, can someone pick up my coat and bag?

  Isis: Wait.

  Isis: Give me a minute and I’ll join you outside.

  Carla: Astrid is already on her way out, we’ll be there right after.

  As if Carla’s message had conjured her, Astrid stepped out in her purple coat and held Rose’s.

  “I thought you might need this, Isis has your bag.” Astrid held her coat tighter around her. “Thanks by the way.”

  “For what?”

  “For what you did inside. It brightened my night.”

  Rose almost thought she was about to learn the story behind the annihilation of Astrid’s smile but then Astrid added cheerfully, “I didn’t think you were that foolish though. It’s bound to bite you in the ass.”

  Rose laughed wholeheartedly.

  “Yeah maybe,” she conceded, “ but I’ve dealt with worse. I’ll be alright.”

  “No shit. I want to be in the first row when Cupid rips you a new asshole though,” Astrid said with a shrug.

  Rose could never decide if she liked the girl or if she exasperated her. Right now, all doubts had been disintegrated. She wanted to slap the bitch.

  “Here,” Isis strutted out of the pub with Carla and Mickaela, and held Rose’s handbag for her to take. “Athanaël will be here in a bit if anyone wants a lift.”

  Isis was purposely looking at Rose.

  Rose had a feeling she was the only one without anyone to pick her up. There was a great chance that Sebastian was picking up Carla and his sisters too.

  “I’m too tired to walk, thanks,” she muttered to Isis.

  Isis had come from the city just for the girls’ night and would go back home with her sweet demon. Rose would never have made them take a detour if they had planned the trip home right after the party — it was less than an hour away from Hollowtown, so they could have done that — but they were staying at Isis’ grandma’s house again since the old lady seemed to be less and less home and more and more traveling around the world.

  It wouldn’t be too long for them and it would save Rose a twenty-five-minute walk in heels.

  Sebastian arrived first. Carla, Mickaela, and Astrid bid their goodbyes to Isis and Rose.

  “We should do that more often,” Mickaela said as she opened the door, “maybe not here though.” She added with a sheepish smile to Rose.

  “We can try again,” Rose said at the same time Isis said, “why not!”

  “Well, that settles things,” Carla told them, already sitting in the car with her window rolled down just enough for them to hear her. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

  She rolled up her window and Sebastian’s car disappeared into the night.

  “What was all of that about?” Isis asked Rose when Athanaël had finally shown up and they were in the car.

  “What was what?” Rose answered with a falsely sweet smile.

  “You and Cupid,” she paused, “I know that you love spicing up dull situations, but was all of that necessary?”

  “What happened?” Athanaël asked.

  “She told Cupid he is stupid and she isn’t scared of him, and you should have seen it, Cupid was so red that I thought he was going to turn into a dragon.”

  Athanaël looked at her with an amused smile that made Rose feel like she shouldn’t have been here with them.

  “Dragons exist?” She asked to break the mushy silence that threatened to settle.

  “No,” Athanaël said all serious again, “but Cupid is the real deal. Rose, you might have upset the angel of love.”

  “Not that it’ll change anything in my life.” She snickered. “I already thought Cupid sucked at his job, now I know for certain that I was right.”

  “Don’t be so harsh,” Isis chuckled, “you just haven’t found love yet, it’ll come.”

  The words felt empty for Rose, even more, when they appeared in the same sentence as “Cupid” and “love”.

  “Be careful,” Athanaël said in a soft voice that showed he cared at least a bit about Rose’s wellbeing, “powerful men tend to react violently when they believe someone wronged them.”

  “I didn’t wrong him, at least not on purpose,” Rose bit back, “he’s just an ass.”

  “I didn’t say you did, I said he believes you did,” Athanaël said between chuckles, “there’s a difference.”

  “Here we are,” Isis chimed in.

  Rose hadn’t paid attention to the road or the streets they passed and she was surprised when they arrived in front of her house. It wasn’t grand or big, it was just a two-bedroom house with white walls and blue shutters that made it look like the house was straight from a Greek island. It was what had called to her when she had visited it after her breakup in October. Everything inside had been ready for her new life and it wasn’t far from Carla’s house and Isis’ grandma’s house. It had been perfect for her.

  “Talk to you tomorrow,” Rose told her as she stepped out of the car and into the cold starry night.

  “Talk to you soon,” Isis whisper-yelled from her seat in the car once Rose was out, “and be careful Ro, magical beings are different.”

  Chapter 5

  When the heroine discovers that — maybe — she shouldn’t have antagonized Cupid

  The next few days went on uneventfully. Rose went back to work at the journal, tried to write something interesting, erased it, tried again, and so on until she was back to a blank page and still had nothing to offer to her boss.

  She had thought about writing something about “Cupid” – the place not the man — since it had opened only a few months prior and it was the fancy thing to do lately in Hollowtown but after a few tries, she had realized that her dislike for the man was tainting her judgment when it came to the place too, painting in a dark light the establishment.

  It wasn’t good, she had met the piece of shit only once and already he was affecting her work, turning something amazing and enjoyable into a hair-pulling, sight-making task.

  How the fuck did that happen?

  She knew she had only herself to blame for it. She hadn’t been able to keep her mouth shut in front of him, recognizing a situation she had been in again and again, and refusing to let yet another bully make her feel like less.

  She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge his words, even less feel them, but they were in a loop in her mind repeating the strongest of the words he had said to her. Fucking idiot. Stupid. Useless.

  She couldn’t give them weight and let them ruin her mood. Who was she kidding? They were already ruining her day, even her week.

  It felt as if she couldn’t block them and couldn’t keep going on. It hurt. Damn it hurt so much.

  Words were the worst.

  Rose hated words as much as she loved them. They could build someone, elevate them, paint them in gold and make them spark, but they could also destroy, they could worm their way into someone’s head, make them doubt everything even themselves, and piece by piece, word by word, they could make them fall apart and disintegrate.

  Words were beauty and horror all in the same package.

  Rose loved that they were but not today. Today, she hated having to write words down, having to cover white pages in black letters with the sole purpose to tell things…

  Because today, she didn’t believe in what was on those pages, she didn’t believe it was right that her heart bled out through her words and would affect hundreds of people negatively when it was only her experience with the asshole that was making her see red.

  She was doing the “Cupid” wrong with her words.

  No.

  Cupid had done “Cupid” wrong with his behavior, but it wouldn’t excuse Rose’s words in any case.

  Rose selected CTRL+A then CTRL+X and glared at the screen of her computer.

  It was well past work time and the only three other people working with her at the journal – Yann, her boss, Belinda, and the new intern whom she couldn’t remember the name – had left almost two hours ago. It was dark outside, the night settling down and letting stars shine through the scattered clouds.

  Rose shouldn’t still be here, not that she had anything better to do, or more productive.

  If she wasn’t here she would probably slouch on her couch and binge-watch a new show or read a book while eating chocolate and drinking herbal tea.

  Yeah, some people had an inner child they let out when they were on their own, Rose had an inner grandma, who only wanted to stay home in peace. An inner grandma with the mouth of a sailor though.

  Well, she wasn’t about to change. Some would say that after thirty it was too late to try to change someone. Rose disagreed. It was always too late to change someone if the someone wanting the change wasn’t themselves. Only those who decided to change something within themselves had a chance to achieve this.

  So all those dumb bitches who thought they could change a man and saw potential in them were just that, dumb.

  And anyone who would change Rose’s inner grandma was dumb. Or highly delusive. Or both.

  Rose closed her computer without even turning it off. She tidied her desk, put back everything where it was supposed to be, turned the light off, and locked the journal’s door.

  She had forgotten her scarf this morning when she had gone to work and highly missed it when she finally ventured outside and walked to her place. It was not even half a mile from the journal and maybe it would do Rose some good to breathe some fresh air – even though it was more freezing than fresh and Rose’s lungs already hated her.

  She held her arms tight around herself and kept walking, her breath fogging the air in front of her as she breathed.

  She couldn’t wait to get home, hidden under a blanket next to the heater.

  There was a screeching sound and then a car with dark windows appeared. Rose had no time to think or even act, two men got out of it, grabbed her arms, and pushed her inside the back of the car.

  “Cupid wants to see you,” One of them said. He was built like a mountain and from where she stood at the back of the car, she could only see his shaved head. The other guy had thick black hair and sunglasses on. Who the fuck wore sunglasses at night?

  “What if I don’t want to come?” Rose bit back with venom.

  “You don’t really have a choice in this sweetheart,” sunglasses-guy said, “the boss isn’t the kind one could say no.”

  She already had, and look where it had brought her. Forced into a car, on her way to freaking Stupid.

  She should have stopped thinking how much she wanted to strangle him, it had brought bad luck and now she was going to need to strangle him for real.

  Chapter 6

  When the heroine has murder ideas

  Why the fuck did that idiot wanted to see her? Could he not be like any other human and ask her to meet him?

  Not that she would have accepted, she regretted meeting him the one time at his pub, and she would never agree to see him again.

  Or maybe, yes, she would agree, if that meant he was suffering and that she was the last face he saw before dying.

  That would be epic.

  That would be the only way she would see him willingly.

  As it was, Cupid wasn’t about to die, he was sitting on the edge of his desk, playing with a letter opener that seemed way too sharp for its purpose. His wings were splayed out on the desk and his shirt was opened, giving Rose a sight of his perfectly muscled torso.

  Couldn’t he be as defective physically as morally? At least this way, Rose wouldn’t be drawn to the expense of skin on display.

  Life was really unfair.

  Rose raised her head and looked at a point on the wall behind Cupid, avoiding his gaze by watching the tiny vine details on the light blue wallpaper but still stubbornly holding her ground. She looked fierce… until a shiver ran through her body and suddenly she just looked cold. Why was it so cold in Cupid’s office? It almost felt as if they were still outside.

  It was lacking any comfort in any other way, it was a big office room, with a desk at the back of the room, and what was probably a receiving corner at the front of the room. Rose couldn’t be too sure, two couches at been put against the walls on each side of her and a coffee table was currently in front of an empty fireplace.

  It explained the cold.

  Was he planning on freezing her to death? Literally? Just for mouthing out and being stubborn? It sounded a bit extreme, even for an asshole like him.

  But she could give him that, he was smart because if she froze to death in the middle of February no one would think he had something to do with it, it was freezing cold outside after all, and they always had a few hikers getting lost in the forest nearby, granted that it was usually in summer and that no one would believe Rose had gone back for a walk in the forest in the kind of clothes she was wearing – a dress, even if it was a sweater dress, wasn’t really the hiking type, and her boots were pretty to look at but absolutely not made for forest ground.

  But it could look almost natural.

  On another side, what Rose’s mind conjured once she was in front of his smug smile couldn’t be called natural…

  Inside her head, Rose was currently plucking each of Cupid’s feathers, one by one, and the smile that graced her lips at that moment was possibly the epitome of lunatic.

  She didn’t care if acting on those thoughts would make her no better than him, a bully, as long as it stayed in the confines of her brain, she could live with the idea.

  The problem was that this situation was very real and her lunatic smile was reflected on the madman’s face in front of her.

  And she very well believed that in his case the deranged ideas might come out and play with her.

  “Leave,” he ordered the men who had brought Rose here. They scampered out as if even his words could burn.

  Rose was screwed.

  He moved slowly toward her and ropes appeared out of thin air, and snaked around her wrists and her ankles. It happened so fast that Rose had barely gotten the time to gasp that she was all tied up… and at Cupid’s mercy.

  Yeah, maybe plucking his feathers wasn’t enough. She ought to up her game. Maybe tearing him apart, limb by limb would satisfy her better. She damn well knew that in real life there was no way she had the strength to immobilize him and hurt him this way, but in her mind everything was possible and she reveled in the pain she painted on his face.

  There was a high chance she was turning crazy but she would study that another day. She had the right to go crazy anyway, she had just been kidnapped by the angel of love and she had the suspicion that he had no love for her.

  “Why am I here?” Rose asked icily.

  “Can that be a courteous visit?” Cupid answered in a voice that gave Rose more shivers than the ambient cold.

  “And the ropes are here to caress me?” Rose retorted. She made it sound like a joke but her voice was void of any humor.

  “They could if I wished them to,” he answered her, his smile turning feral, “take a seat.”

  Rose turned her head over her shoulder, and surely there was a chair behind her. It hadn’t been there when she had entered the room. She had no idea if the two idiots who had brought her here had brought the chair too or if Cupid had made it appear out of thin air like the rope, and she wasn’t curious enough to ask him.

  In any case, she wasn’t planning on obeying any of his orders, so, just to spite him, she stayed standing.

  “As you wish, sunshine,” he told her, sitting back on the edge of his desk and crossing his arms, “you might be here for a while, and it’ll make what I want a lot easier this way.”

  It looked like he was quite enjoying the situation and thought that her latest choice would pain her more than it would him.

  “What do you want from me, Stu?” Rose spit the words as if they tasted foul in her mouth.

  “Stu?” Cupid looked genuinely surprised and Rose’s pride swelled at the thought she had managed to unsettle him.

  “Your parents almost got it right. I just rearranged your name a bit and now it’s perfect.” Rose said with a nonchalant shrug.

  The empty eyes he gave her made her feel as if she needed to elaborate.

  “Remove a C, add an S and a T, and the result sounds more… fitting.” Rose singsonged.

  She felt the ropes tighten around her wrists and ankles and before she knew it another one had wrapped itself around her shoulders in elaborated knots. If it wasn’t blocking her and making her feel helpless she could almost have admired the intricate beauty of the knots tying her from under her breasts to her collarbone.

  But the only things she could think about were how she couldn’t escape and how much she wanted to kill Cupid,

  And this time she imagined it bloody, with him tied upside down and his blood pooling on the ground. She would make paintings with his blood and sculptures with his entrails.

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking about, Sunshine, but forget about it, there will be nothing pleasant on the menu for you tonight. Nor tomorrow or the day after either.”

 

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