We are still like a picture for what feels like minutes. Night disappears into darkness and reappears each time the light fades and returns. Darkness. Light. Darkness. Light. Each time the light flickers the whir of the vacuum fades and strengthens, like a warped record.
I await the verdict, shivering, until he stands up and flips the switch to the vac. The roaring goes silent. A silence that is deep and haunting compared to the insanity of the screaming and machinery that bounced off these walls just seconds ago. I fall back with relief as I sob with my entire body, crying so hard it hurts. I'm going to live, and I'm going to have this man's child. Any illusions I had of returning to my previous life have been incinerated. Of course, I never had a chance to go back to who I once was, but this is the moment she officially dies. And I mourn Vesper Rivers. As I cry, Night unties each limb gently. His shadow eclipses the light and I open my eyes to find him standing over me. Shirtless, glistening, his eyes are softer than I've ever seen them. He rubs the pad of his thumb against one of my tears and raises it to his lips, subtly running his teeth and tongue against the sadness. I calm down, studying the clear of his eyes, and the way he stands there, his posture relaxed, telling me he won't hurt me today. I don't take my eyes off of him, waiting with shaky breaths to see what he'll do next.
I want him to crawl into the bed and hold me like he did that night he carried me to the shower. To make the pain he caused go away.
I want him to tell me he wants me to have this child, and he will be good to us now.
I want him to fill me with his poison again. He likes the taste of my sadness and I like when he injects me with his venom.
He is my danger, my greatest threat. When he's on my side, I know that I am safe.
So I wait, hoping he'll give me a greater sign that I am protected from him, by him.
Will he pull my legs apart and taste me? Or pull out his cock and make me ease his tension?
I wait.
Finally, he moves. His eyes, the colors of the beach during high summer, staying honed on mine, as he reaches down, over his face, and pulls up his mask.
I study Night’s face so hard, it's almost too much to take in at once. It's like getting too close to the television set, until the moving images are just tiny squares of reds, greens, and blues. His eyes are even brighter against his flushed skin and eyebrows. His lips, often only partially revealed through the mouth hole of his mask, are round and pouty. His jaw, angled, but not sharp—still youthful. Not a mark of stubble in sight. His hair, little wisps of gold mixed into brown, is tousled from the mask. As I put the pieces together, I can step back and imagine him freshly showered and hair combed. He would look like a harmless young man. A shockingly handsome, harmless young man. The proverbial boy next door. But as if his body is displaying a physical manifestation of his lacerated soul, his otherwise pristine face sports a glaring imperfection—there is a thick scar that runs along the right corner of his mouth, up his ear and then out to his temple. While it roams across his cheek like a fault line, it's faded and flat, telling me this is an old scar. His neck on that side, mostly hidden from me, is a collection of uneven skin and jagged scars.
When I am finally able to draw back and look at the collection of his features and his faults—the reds, greens, and blues—what I see before me is a physically beautiful man. The scar does nothing to sway my opinion; instead, it adds a layer of texture and intrigue to someone with eyes like ice and skin as smooth as sand when the water washes away.
I don't know what to do next. All this time I have held onto his anonymity as a sign that none of this is real. That he doesn't see me as worthy of knowing him in any way equal to the way he knows me. The mask told me he didn't trust me. The mask reminded me I was a prisoner. It reminded me I was just a guest here. But I see him now. He's unveiled himself to me, and I almost wish he hadn't. Because what I see is a face I could trust. A face that belies everything he's done. He is a person. He is someone. He is not a monster.
And now that I see the whole picture of this young man, I want to know about his scars, all of them, inside and out.
“W—why now?” I mutter.
He stares at me blankly, as if he's not sure himself.
I sit up, never letting my eyes leave his face. I don't know how long this will last. He might put the mask back on, and then I'll be the only person here again.
“I'm done fighting,” I declare through my still-wavering voice. I am. I can't keep waging battles against both him and myself. A battle where winning is losing and losing is winning.
Again, he just stares back, but his chest sinks with an measured exhale.
“I don't know what to do. I just—I just want you to say something to me. Tell me how it's going to be. Tell me what's on your mind. Why did you stop? Why did you pull your mask off? Do you want this?”