Incarcerated

{stepping into the Penthouse just as the sun pops up over the horizon....always leaving it to the last possible moment. I have come to dread these daylight hours... Imprisoned in this black tomb of memories, the balcony, our mated bed, the purple splashed wall that I hadn't had the heart to re-paint, the rack where we had consummated our mating, her name in my skin when I catch my back reflected in the bathroom mirrors…a place I have begun to avoid... unable to face the torment in my own eyes. Assailed at every turn by Tory's scent, her things, her presence so palpable that in the times of utter exhaustion, I had even convinced myself she never left... But our bed remains unslept in, the sheets unchanged, since the night she was taken... I have given up trying to sleep... the few times I'd drifted off in front of the four toys, the nightmare had come back to me with a screaming, brutal vengeance, leaving me fighting for breath and shaking with terror...Cradling a bottle of Goose, curling up in a fetal position on the black sheets, fully clothed, fully armed, face buried in the silk pillow that bears Tory's scent, snuffing out the candles with my mind, willing the room to utter blackness, not even the candlelight to bear witness to the crystal tears of desperation and pain that streak my face or the wracking sobs of grief that shake my warrior frame...only here can I admit how frayed the thread of hope that Tory still lives has become..............}