Chapter 233: Can I Feed You?
Chapter 233: Can I Feed You?
Camilla
"What? You don't want me to tell you about the fact that you look sick right now? You have cuts on the insides of your hands from where your nails dig into when you are stressed or scared. You are telling me I have no right to care about you when you were kidnapped a year ago with no news whether you were dead or alive? No right to find you better clothes because the sight of your blood makes me nauseous and that means you were hurt in the first place."
I shook as he spoke, each word tearing deeper and deeper into wounds that had been reopened in a matter of seconds from how he was looking at me alone. I didn't know what to say as my chest rose and fell faster and faster, shaking my head back and forth because that is all I could do. I hated him for keeping me here when I couldn't do anything but listen, wishing things would have just gone how I had planned.
Harper is safe now and she hasn't been harmed for a single second that it took to get her out of The Safe and into one of the many beds in this place. They should have let me go but they didn't. Now that I was here, what purpose did I have when there was nothing left for me?
"Let me go." I sniffled, my senses on even higher alert as Gregorio knocked softly at the door, a plate of food in his hand and a conflicted expression across his face.
"I don't care which one of you assholes does it, get this handcuff off me." I demand, righting myself and using it as a distraction to the tears that threatened to spill.
I had no intention of acknowledging what Domenico had just said to me or how true I knew it was. My methods are what kept me alive up until now, he didn't get to criticize me when I could smell hints of tobacco all over his body. It was obvious neither of them wanted to do it but I could care less about what they wanted right now.
All that mattered was that after multiple seconds of staring him down, Domenico drew a key from his pocket, unlocking me from the headboard before moving off me entirely. His eyes didn't meet mine again as he tossed Gregorio the key that once kept me chained, not saying another word as he left the room with a fuming silence that left me more sick than satisfied. I barely had time to contemplate it though before the second of Gregorio clearing his throat brought my sense to him even as I kept my gaze down on rubbing the ache away from my wrist.
It was my insistent tugging that made it hurt as bad as it did but that still didn't stop the man at the door from walking over to my side, placing down what appeared to be some sort of grilled chicken with a homemade salsa spread over the top of it. I winced as my stomach growled the second the smell hit my nose hit me but I was too focused on Gregorio to really care.
This was the first time I was really able to look at him without all of the other chaos surrounding me, yet I almost missed the distraction of it all as he sat down at my side. He made no moves to touch me though I could tell all he very much wanted to. Instead, however, all he did was run his fingers through thick strands of his white-blond hair, watching me as I made no move to get away this time. To run right now would just be a waste of the energy I didn't have.
"You realize he was just trying to make sure none of your wounds get infected, right?" Gregorio said, his voice barely above a whisper from how quiet he was.
I know I had got a reaction out of Domenico and that was what I had wanted but I suppose this was one of the very few downfalls of there being three of them. They were all complete opposite of each other, each who targeted a side of me I needed to shield against. I had stopped fighting last night because their touch had made me realize how exhausted I was from running but I don't think I could be who they needed me to be anymore. I don't even think I am who I need myself to be right now and it was awful.
"He shouldn't have touched me without asking first." I said, even though his words from earlier kept echoing in my head, about the blood and the fact I looked sick to him.
I hadn't had the courtesy of looking in a mirror recently, though I wouldn't be surprised if I looked like every bit of the hell he painted me as right now. I am surprised I didn't smell him honestly even with the new clothes.
"You are right," he nodded, not trying to argue or deny or divert.
He was simply here and he didn't demand anything of me in the process, maybe that was why my heart slowly began to calm down after the panic that had just ensued. Not just with the fact that I feared Domenico was right but also the fact that they had handcuff me in the first place.
"But.." he continued, sitting down next to me.
"Domenico is also more stressed than I have ever seen him before and this change probably isn't helping."
I watched silently as he pulled the plate of food onto my lap before he began to cut the chicken into strips that were easy to eat, pertaining a kind of calmness I hadn't expected to feel from him. He seems a little at peace right now as he spared me glances in between cuts, at one point stopping to offer me the pills he had brought alone with the water bottle already on the desk. While I kept quiet, I also accepted as I took the yellow and red capsule from his hand, noticing his pause as he watched me take them without fight.
Once he was certain I had swallowed them both, he returned to slicing up the chicken breast, not stopping until all of the pieces were divided into manageable bites.
"Can I feed you?" He asked after a long stretch of silence, food already speared on the fork in his hand. I opened my mouth to respond but before I could, he was already stopping me.
"And yes, I am well aware that you are capable of doing it yourself, but I want to do it anyway." He added, offering me a boyish smile that made my chest hurt. It was so familiar, so easy, so Gregorio.
It took any word that I was about to say straight from my lips, instead leading to a single nod of my head before I opened my mouth for him. I didn't know why I did it, why I was feeling guilty for the way I spoke to Domenico or worrying about the fact that Adriano still hasn't yet made an appearance. It didn't really matter, not right now at least. The second Gregorio brought the fork to my mouth, pulling it away only once I had taken the chicken from the fork, the hunger I felt became a much more dire focus of mine.
"Harper didn't seem this desperate for food when she woke up this morning." He prodded the second it became clear how much I wanted more, my traitorous stomach rumbling yet again from how little I had eaten in the last forty-eight hours.
Defensiveness arose all over again at the words that felt like an accusation but I forced those feelings down as I instead responded.
"I made sure she was well fed before I gave her the NyQuil."
I can tell he had so much more to say but he soon fell back into silence as he continued to feed me, tension unwinding from my body after enough bites managed to cure the raging hunger inside me. I saw that he had a similar reaction, only his was for entirely different reasons. He was being soft and gentle with me, trying to make sure I was cared for in the ways Domenico so blatantly called me out for neglecting. It is not that either had a right approach but that didn't change the fact that both still left me with more conflict than I could handle right now.
"So what?" I asked with a small sigh, continuing to eat from his hand bite by slow bite.
"Is this some sort of game of good cop/bad cop to see which approach can get me to cooperate the most?"
My question was genuine even though there was a little bit of resentment to it, despising how different all of this was compared to what we once were. Even if so much of it was my fault, none of us were innocent in this. I just didn't know what to do now that so many pieces have fallen out of place.
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