Chapter 56 | Ties that bind, remember?

                                    

                                          
Hello!
Thankfully im not so sick anymore so I finally finished this chapter. ENJOY.
Has anyone mentioned new candidate for daddy???
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The next couple of days blur together in a haze of sadness and despair. I spend most of my time in my room, the curtains drawn tight against the world outside. The weight of everything that happened presses down on me, suffocating and relentless. My pillow is damp with tears, and my body feels heavy with the exhaustion of crying.
I can't think properly, everything is a blurr. Everytime I find strenght to think about things I start to cry. My mind can never let go of what happened. I have zero motivation to do anything, I just lay on my bed, staring. Staring at the ceiling, staring at the wall, staring into space. 
I called in sick from my maid duties because I feel like throwing up if I think about running into him again. I also want to cry my heart out and curl into a ball though. Thankfully they gave me two days to recover as I also had slight fever and I must have actually looked ill. Fever was from dehydration and my apperance is from lack of sleep, but they don't have to know.
I want to sleep, want to escape this awful reality and just take a break for a while. But soon I realized that even sleep can't help me escape. Sleep brings no relief. Instead, I am haunted by nightmares of my past, punished over and over again. 
In my dreams, my uncle's cruel face looms large, his voice dripping with malice.
"You're not good enough for anyone," he sneers, his grip tightening around my body, forbidding me from breathing. "You thought he'd ever take interest in ugly orphan like you? Why would he, when he has a grown woman with proper name and title? He finally realized how worthless you are." His hand flies up, smacking me across the face with brutal force, making me cry out.
I wake up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding, my body trembling. The room feels stifling, and I struggle to catch my breath. The tears come again, unbidden and uncontrollable. I hug my knees to my chest, rocking back and forth as I try to calm myself, but the fear and sadness are overwhelming.
My dreams are worse than this cold, empty room. His words cut deep, the echo of his abuse mingling with my fresh heartbreak. I find myself always thrashing in my sleep, trying to escape his grasp, but he only laughs, a chilling sound that pierces through the darkness. He tortures me with memories of the past, the physical and emotional pain he inflicted, and the constant reminder that I am, in his and mob boss's eyes, worthless.
So I try and fight falling asleep for as long that I can, but in the end it's no use. I'm exausted, both mentally and physically, evetually I always succumb to the slumber, diving into terrible nightmares.
The two days pass slowly, each one feeling like an eternity. I refuse food, my appetite lost to the knot of anxiety and despair that sits heavy in my stomach, making me feel sick. The silence of my room is oppressive, yet I can't bring myself to leave and face the world. I feel trapped in my own mind, the walls closing in around me.
I want to hate Dimitri, to push him out of my thoughts, to forget about the look he made when he called after me, to forget about him. But his presence lingers.
I hear his voice in my head, see his cold green eyes when I close mine. The memory of his rough touch on my skin, both tender and possessive, haunts me. I find myself torn between the pain he caused and the twisted comfort of his presence.
It wasn't always like this - me alone with my demons in the dark room. I remember how Demetrios was the only one who could silence the demons in my mind. When the nightmares of my uncle's abuse would overwhelm me, it was him who could bring me back from the edge. His strong arms would wrap around me, his deep voice murmuring reassurances that made the terror fade, if only for a while.