Page 98 of Piece Us Together
Hunter.
“You let him in,” Travis says, standing beside me. I practically jump out of my fucking skin.
“How did you get in here? Show me. Show me how to get out!”
“That’s your fault,” he says, ignoring me. He points at the scene. I don’t know if he’s talking about Carter or Nolan. It doesn’t matter. Either way, he’s right.
There’s a whip in the hand he uses to point.
It’s bloody.
It was being used on my back.
It’ll probably be used again.
“You handed him right over,” he muses. “Didn’t even put up a fight. Was your idea, even.” He shakes his head, laughing darkly. “Please, Travis, save my brother, buy him, please,” he says in a mocking tone. Then, in a flippant voice, “Hey, Hunter, here’s the man I love, mind raping him a few times, it’s the only way he gets off.”
“I didn’t—that’s not how it went. That’s not—it isn’t—”
“It’s all your fault.” He’s standing behind me now. I don’t know how he got there. “You know that, right? It’s all your fault.”
“Yeah.” I press my forehead to the blood-stained glass. “I know.”
The whip rains down on me.
It slices through more than skin. It slices through something vital. Something inside of me that can never be repaired.
“I’m sorry!” I scream, praying they can hear me outside like I can hear them. “I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry. Trav, show me how to get out, Trav, please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, help me, I’m sorry—”
If anyone hears me, they don’t care.
Maybe that’s what I deserve.
It’s all my fault, anyway.
Chapter Twenty
Hunter
I’ve always been a light sleeper when I have a sub around. It’s like my body knows it could be needed at any second. The ability has come in handy more than once, just like my ability to shake sleep off from one blink to the next. It comes in handy tonight as I jerk awake to a sound. Not quite a cry or a scream. Just agony given a voice. Something awful and heart-wrenching.
My view of the source of those sounds is obstructed by Nolan, the boy sitting up with his knees pulled to his chest, his arms wrapped around them. He peers at me in the moonlight. He doesn’t bother to fake a smile. “We can’t wake him.”
I nod, trusting his word.
“He warned me before, about not touching him while he’s sleeping.” I shift on the bed, moving myself closer to Maison while nudging Nolan farther away. He leans his head on my shoulder with a sad sigh. The moonlight perfectly falls across Maison’s body. His shirt is bunched halfway up his torso, and his dog tags have made their way outside of their shirt prison in thenight to lie on his heaving chest. His hands are fisting the sheets so hard they’re shaking with the exertion.
“A nightmare,” Nolan mumbles in case I couldn’t tell.
“Does he have them often?”
“They’ve been getting better.” It’s not an answer, but it’s more information than the two of them usually share. It wasn’t long ago at all that I was happy to have the scraps from them, but it’s starting to hurt in a way that’s hard to ignore. “They’re usually a sign he’s struggling. I—I didn’t think he was, recently. I mean, I knew he was a little, with…you know.”Us,he doesn’t say.Withus, withthis.“But maybe it’s worse than I thought…”
I don’t want to fall in love with you.
Can you make it stop?
Because I’m bad?