Page 57 of When Sinners Fear
Abel’s hand comes up, like he’s going to try touching me again.
I slap it away on automatic, sneering. "Don't fucking touch me." No one touches me yet. Only her. And I don't fucking understand that.
He stares. "The hell was that?" I don't know, but he needs to back off.
“Cool, man, yeah?” Dante says. I’m not cool. Don’t want to be. He gets up from wherever he is and puts himself in front of Abel. “You need to vent, you bring it right here.” He’s not the problem, though. Even now, in this loathsome murk and haze of rage and fear, the problem all stems from Jackson fucking Reed and that cage I was in. Take it further back and it’s based in Elias – my brother – and his neck being snapped because of a goddamn woman of zero fucking importance.
“Where’s Naja?”
Abel stares at me, pushing Dante aside. “Why?”
“None of your goddamn business. Where is she?” Tension builds between us, and for once I don’t give a damn about it. What happened is as much his fault as it is Reed’s as far as I’m concerned at the moment, and – fight facing me or not – I’ll defend my right to have my own goddamn way at the moment.
Kai steps into my periphery. “In the furthest room out back.” I turn and yank at the door, pissed beyond all realms of decency, and head for her. Hallways merge into each other as I search them, and women rush to the back of their cages as I pass. I don’t care for any of it, and I’m only somewhere near remotely satisfied when I eventually get to a last locked door and glare at it. It’s unlocked and open before I’ve even tried to calm down, and the sight of the little bitch looking up at me from her bench, incenses me.
She must notice my mood, because she moves from sitting and stands.
“He called you Poe,” she says, quietly. She frowns and looks me over closely, as if sizing up what she might need to do. “But you’re Knox, aren’t you?” I don’t answer. I don’t care for conversation or discussions about names. At the moment, I’m just the guy that took a fuckload of hassle and pain because of her. “I haven’t seen you around here for a while.” I start taking my jacket off, followed by my tie and shirt. “What are you doing?”
She frowns and watches as I peel back the layers of gauze from my burns. Each one rips slowly across my skin, almost relieving me of some hatred with each tear of pain.
“Reed did this to me. For you. Every bruise, and every welt, put there for you. Because we took you back.” Some amount of pride crosses her face. She should have hidden it because if I wasn’t already pissed, I am now.
I turn and hammer the door loudly, knowing someone will turn up soon enough. I don’t even care which one it is, because they’ll all hurt her if I ask. They’ll see it as retribution, just like I will. I’m surprised one of them hasn’t already. They haven’t, though. Her skin is clear – hair clean.
We wait like that for a while, and she keeps glancing at me as if I might attack. I won’t. I don't want to touch anyone other than Peyton, let alone feel them touching me, but what I do want is the perverse thrill I'll get watching someone else attack her.
I head for the bench, ready to make myself comfortable, and am surprised to find it’s Ratchet that eventually walks into the room. He looks at me – no talking, as always.
I grab my smokes, tap the pack, and keep looking at her. “You know, this on me is part of what we are. I almost accept it, but he took someone else as well as me. Changed the dynamics.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, looking at Ratchet.
“I was with someone when he took me. He took her, too. He made me hurt her, Naja. He made me do things to her that you’ve never even felt. She didn’t deserve it.” I watch her backing out of a corner, and light up to take a long draw on my smoke.
“I didn’t deserve being taken from the streets either.”
My head lands back on the wall. “No, but that’s just business for me.”
A cloud puffs out in front of me, and I focus on her beginning to scatter her pace around the dimly lit space. “When someone hurts me, I retaliate, Naja. I couldn’t, though. I had to protect her.” She snatches a glance at me rather than look at Ratchet, clearly confused with that comment. “And because of that, when I find him again, I’ll slaughter, mercilessly and slowly. For revenge. All I’ve got at the moment is you.”
“Knox.” She takes a step towards me, attempting to make herself small and vulnerable. That won’t work. Nothing’s appeasing this appetite for justification on my part. If I can’t have him yet, I’ll use her. “Please. Knox. No. I didn’t know he’d do that. It was nothing to do with me."
“But it is to do with you. Every fucking thing is to do with you, and someone needs to be punished. That’s how this world works. I’ll get Reed, and I’ll kill him for what he did, but he took me because of you, and he killed my brother because of you. So, I need to hurt you, too. Don’t you see? Clarity. Sense comes when things are clear. I’m not full of sense yet. I’m full of visions of what I did for him to make sure she survived.”
They all come back to me while I’m speaking, as if every fucking moment is clear as day in this room with me.
“I put a knife in her, and I raped her, and I beat her. I did it over and over again. I broke her, Naja, and now I’m full of hating myself about that. That doesn’t work for me.” I pull some more smoke in, wishing I’d got a bottle of whiskey alongside me to go with it. “So, I’m going to use you to avenge my feelings, so I can reorganise myself.”
She scurries backwards to the wall, eyes fraught with fear about what’s going to happen. I don’t know in reality. I’m just here, trying to clear my own conscience in some way. This probably isn’t the best way to do it, but my mood suggests otherwise at the moment. I’m hungry for blood, angry as hell, and ready to keep reminding myself what I’m like under that mask of a protector I offered.
“Ratchet, begin. Alive, though. Just.”
CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO
PEYTON
Isurprised myself with how easily I fell back to sleep in his bed. It was a comfort after my treacherous mind took me to all the dark places I didn’t want to go when I stalked the grounds.