Submitting novel Chapter 12

I felt suffocated. Bound inside this body, I felt nothing but a stranger as I struggled to sustain my sanity. The pounding ache in my head didn't help either as I blinked slowly, trying to understand and comprehend the words that Ivan just said. 

What did he say again?

I heard something, I saw his lips move but the piercing static in my ears didn't let those words swim through. Everything was wrong. Everything was so wrong and I wanted nothing more than this to end. I wanted this to be over with yet no matter how much I clawed from the inside of this body, this reality, I couldn't. 

Suppressing the urge to puke my guts out, I gulped deeply. His eyes noticing my every move not bothering me at all as it would have.  

"What did you say?" Tricked by my spiraling head I could hardly catch what he said. A poor attempt from my brain, trying to hide the truth, protecting me from what really is by distorting and distracting the present. Making it hard to understand. It should have understood by now that we were way past the protection stage. I was already too deep into the woods, lost and caged. 

"Dimitri is my...brother!" One strong push from his leg against desk made the chair swing back one last time and come back to the front finally to rest on the ground on its four legs with a loud thump, in perfect sync with my heart. The devilish smile on his lips shining with a show of his perfect set of teeth. His enthusiasm, not contagious. 

The silence that sat in the sudden quiet room was not as daunting as the crazy look on Ivan's face as he kept looking at me with that smile; making me wonder if time really had frozen except for that audible clicking of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, ticking away with its shiny bronze pendulum swaying back and forth until the loud gong echoed throughout the deathly quiet house, announcing the dawn of noon of the day.

Eleven times with the last one making the house shiver in its wake with a trail of goosebumps snaking down my spine. I almost jumped out of my skin when I heard Ivan's voice breaking the eerie trance. 

"You want to know more right?" The drawl of his words might have seemed comical if not for the current situation I was in. Unusually cold, I decided to see this through and not disagree as my fingers gripped onto the edge of the armrests, concealed from his sly eyes while my head nodded slowly in agreement.