If It's With You

032- Footsteps

After some seconds, a realization flashed across his eyes. Without thinking or delaying, he aggressively pulled the tape off my lips, forcing more tears to cloud my eyes as I winced in deep pain.

My lips parted, letting air into my dry throat. I swallowed and when I settled my gaze on Tim again, he was now seated at the edge of the bed, facing me.

“What—” I swallowed yet again, forcing the hoarse effect of my voice down my throat. “What— why— what’s going on Tim? Where is Carl?” I asked, trying to glance around the room.

“It’s safe here, baby, away from them.” He brought his finger to my face again, triggering a crawl sensation on my skin and I shrugged his fingers off.

“Tim, what’s going on?”

“I am protecting you from them, Muna and I need you to understand that.”

“Protecting me from who?” I hated that my voice was breaking.

I didn’t want to appear weak. I wondered if it was okay to pretend to be strong at this moment even though fear had fully engulfed me.

“Carl and Nicklaus. They are hurting you and it was hard to watch. Baby all I need is for you to agree with me and I will take those off you.” He said, glancing at my tied hands.

There were a few seconds of silence and that was me calming my nerves, that was me forcing myself not to cry. Was Tim joking? He must be out of his mind.

After a couple seconds of him staring at me, he leaned towards me, his creepy eyes settling into mine. “I have loved you Muna for a very long time, longer than you can imagine and when you walked right into my shop, I knew the universe wanted you for me. It was fate until Nicklaus came along and stole what was mine. I know I said, I would wait but I can’t wait any longer. I can’t let them hurt you. This is our home baby, we can stay here until everything is clear out there for us to move.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?!” I yelled, struggling to break free. I was scared, really scared but his words were agitating me even more. What did he mean it was fate? I just realized that Tim was a psycho, and I hated that he was staring at me with his creepy eyes. “What the hell is going on, Tim? What the fuck did you do to Carl?”

“Shut the hell up!” Tim yelled back, the walls vibrating at the echo of his voice, and I swallowed the rest of my words.

He left the bed and squatting to the ground, he grabbed my chin and pulled my face closer to his. His breath fanned my face, and I squeezed my eyes shut, releasing tears down my cheeks. I hated feeling helpless. I really hated it.

“I like you, Muna okay but you are going to push my button if you keep acting like a brat. Why don’t you make this easy for us? I mean you can…” His voice trailed off, our gazes lingering on each other’s and slowly, he inched his face even closer.

What was he doing?

Soon, the rough patch of his lips brushed against mine. When he opened his lips to claim mine, I yanked my head away and spat on his face.

“Fuck!” He yelled, storming off to his feet and with his shirt sleeve, he wiped my spit off his face. When he turned to look at me, there was a vivid irritation on his face. He stormed towards me and grabbing my hair, threw me back to the bed.

“I was fucking going to make this easy for you but it seems you will be staying tied up until you understand that this is your home now.” No, no way I would be locked up here with this psycho. “They ain’t going to come for you, no one is gonna know you’re here, Muna. Not even Nicklaus, he took you away from me. You were supposed to be mine and until I figure out how to get rid of him without his stupid family haunting me down, you ain’t leaving here.”