Love Unspoken

Quinn hesitated, her hands moving in a flurry of desperate gestures. "I won't see Juliet anymore, don't hurt her," she signed, her eyes pleading. Alexander's lips were a tight line, his gaze intense and unyielding. He said nothing, his silence hanging heavy in the air between them.

She continued, her hands shaping the words in the air. "She's quite old, doesn't have much time left, she's pitiful. Think of it as a kindness for how she once took care of you, take pity on her."

Whether he saw her sign language or not was unclear. His eyes hadn't darted once to her fingers; they were fixed on her eyes. She was unable to speak, her voice trapped in a body that refused to cooperate. If he chose not to watch her hands, she could never express herself, never communicate with him. His attention was a fickle thing, sometimes attentively watching her sign slowly, other times completely ignoring her. He held the power to cut off communication at any moment. Quinn signed earnestly, her hands moving with a frantic urgency. Yet he continued to just look at her, his gaze never wavering. Her heart began to sink, a heavy stone in her chest. Dropping her hands, she ceased her motions, her hope dwindling.

Then, out of nowhere, Alexander spoke, his voice breaking the silence. "Do you know why I don't want you interacting with those people?" Quinn's eyelids fluttered open, her gaze locking onto his with an unsettling intensity. A question burned through her mind, nearly driving her mad with the need for answers. She wondered why her most basic freedoms and rights had been stripped away, as if she were less than human.

As she waited for his response, she felt his slender fingers trail gently across her cheek. "But I hope you never find out," he murmured, his voice a soft whisper in the quiet room.

A twinge of recognition sparked in Quinn's eyes. That sentiment felt eerily familiar as if Walter had spoken similar words to her before. Walter had said, "If you remembered, you wouldn't need to ask. If you remembered, you wouldn't look at me with those eyes."

Different questions, yet leading to the same disturbing implications. Quinn's head began to buzz with confusion and half-formed thoughts. What crucial memory had she lost?

Despite racking her brain, the answers eluded her. It felt like a twisted guessing game they played with her, coercing her to remember, yet barring her from outside contact.

She felt torn between two immense forces, threatening to rip her in half. Wracked with desperation and helplessness, all she could do was silently endure, witnessing the fragmentation of her being.

Suddenly, Alexander sat up, the sheets cascading down to reveal the chiseled contours of his body-a tapestry of red marks crisscrossing his chest and back.

Quinn's fingernails had left no mark, but the traces of her desperate scrabbles spoke volumes of last night's frenzy. Now, Quinn lay almost immobile, depleted of strength save for the faint movement of her hands.

He arose and began to dress, the rustling of fabric transforming him from the wild man she knew to the revered, composed Alexander once more.

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Clasping his wristwatch, he glanced back at her and instructed, "Stay home from work today. Rest... and don't go outside.

"And I expect there won't be another Abigail or Preston," he added, a warning edge in his voice. With that, he grabbed his coat and left, not sparing a backward glance.

Quinn remained motionless on the bed, her eyes trailing the disappearing figure until the bedroom door shut, severing her visual connection with him.

She withdrew her gaze, glancing down at her own bruised arms, which were just as marred as the rest of her. Her lower abdomen throbbed in pain, her body not fully recovered from the previous night's oxygen-deprivation. She wondered how much more she could endure. But deep down, it didn't matter anymore.