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“You want to go to the doctor together?” I ask. He nods. “I don’t know if he’ll have time to see me too, but I think it’d be okay if I still went with you for yours. Just to be there for you.”
He nods again, this time more insistently. His left hand reaches out and grabs on to my shoulder while he uses the other hand to take a new bite of his toast. I tilt my head to the side to touch my cheek to the back of his hand. He hums, happy with the added touch.
“I met Carter’s brother,” I tell him, knowing he likes when I fill the silence. “Well, I mean, I met him before. He’s actually who helped me get out of the party. Mast—Travis’s guests left me blindfolded and bound to a bench when everything happened, and he’s the one who found me. But we didn’t really get a chance to talk or anything then. I mean, obviously. But we talked again just now, in the kitchen. I broke a plate by accident.”
His head whips around, eyes huge, toast frozen in the air halfway to his mouth.
“I’m fine,” I hurry to say. “He didn’t even get mad. Promised that no matter what, I can’t get in trouble here. He even helped me clean it up after.”
Matt raises his eyebrows, probably just as weirded out as I am at the thought of one of the men in charge—because let’s face it, Roarke compound or not, there are still men in charge here—helping clean something. I laugh a little at his expression, nodding my agreement. “Yeah, it was strange. But he’s nice.”
He tilts his head and gestures for me to elaborate.
“He’s just nice.” I shrug, then laugh self-deprecatingly. “I mean, once he finds out that I was awful to his little brother, he’ll probably hate me. Plus, he’ll be disgusted when he realizes that I’m so fucked up in the head that I actually love—or… loved?—Mast—Travis. Fuck.”
Matt snaps his fingers to get my attention. When my eyes are focused on him, he points at me, shakes his head no, does the sign for bad, and taps my head. He does the sequence again right after, this time the shake of his head vehement.
“I’m not fucked up in the head?” I ask, figuring that’s what he means by no bad your head.
He nods firmly.
“I love him, Matt,” I whisper. He’s growing blurry through the tears building in my eyes. I blink, letting them drop. It certainly isn’t the first time he’s seen me cry. Won’t be the last either. “I don’t know how to stop now. I fell in love with Nathan Roarke—with our master—and that was fucked up enough, you know? I knew it was fucked up, even as it was happening. But it also made me feel so much better. I mean, you know that. I’ve talked your fucking ear off about all of this. I’m sure it’s textbook behavior. The therapist here will probably love to dissect my brain. And now that guy I fell in love with, the guy I still love, doesn’t even fucking exist. And why do I still have it in my head that I love him? I know I don’t love him. I never loved him. I know that, Matt. It was a fucking coping mechanism. A coping mechanism I don’t need anymore. So, why the fuck do I want nothing more than to go find him and tell him I broke a plate and ask him to punish me so I can stop feeling like a bad slave? How come all I want is to rest my head on his thigh with his fucking cock in my mouth and let my thoughts drift while he plays with my hair? How do I even—what do I even do with that, Matty? What do I do with any of it?”
Matt puts his plate to the side and slides to the floor, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me to him. We can’t sign like this, but that’s okay. I don’t think there’s much for him to say anyway. He knows I’m right.
“God, I don’t know anything anymore, Matt. I don’t know how I feel or what to think. I don’t know the rules here. I don’t know what the fuck to do with myself.” I tuck my face in his neck, shuddering. “I don’t know how to be this person.”
He gently shifts so he has both his hands free and is facing me enough for me to watch when he signs, learn, and then, together.
I squeeze him against my chest, nodding even as a voice in my head tells me it’s not possible. I’m too far gone. Too broken.
“The broken parts are the beautiful ones,” I hear Maison say in the back of my head.
But nothing about this feels beautiful at all.
Chapter Five
Maison
The kitchen with Nolan was the highlight of my day, which is probably pretty fucking sad considering that was me comforting a traumatized, scared man while sitting on a floor, but it’s only downhill from there. Most of the survivors are skittish. Some try to run away. One has a full panic attack that involves screaming and throwing things and an angry scratch across my already bruised cheek.
I can’t keep food down. My head is starting to do this thing where it suddenly feels stuffed with cotton, my vision blurring and ears buzzing for a few seconds, before everything magically snaps back into place. The cuts on my back won’t stop splitting open, making me constantly have to change shirts beneath my sweatshirt before the blood gets a chance to become visible through both layers.
I’m also pissing blood.
Oh, and Carter and Travis still haven’t emerged from Carter’s room. Not a single fucking time. Not for food or water. Not so Carter can check on Casey or any other survivors—or, you know, me, his brother. Not for Travis to do his fucking job. They’re just in there, existing in their own little world. Fuck all of us, right?
I don’t even try eating dinner, staying in my office to pore over paperwork for the survivors who want to leave. There are funds to secure, steps to take to ensure safehouse security remains intact, approvals to be requested, identities to be secured, and a transfer vehicle to contact.
By the time the moon is high in the sky, I’m feeling half-delirious with pain and hunger. I abandon my work—having finished everything time-sensitive anyway—and head downstairs, allowing myself to take my time on the steps since no one is around to see me struggle.
The bottom floor is dark and quiet like every night before the survivors arrived here, when it was just me, Ace, and a skeleton team of guards. It feels different now that the house is full, though. Almost like the air is heavy with all the emotions being housed beneath the roof. With all the expectations. With all the ways I can fuck up and let people down.
“Fuck, you’re really feeling sorry for yourself tonight, aren’t you?” I mumble to myself, shaking my head in disgust.
The self-hatred needs to go on the back burner. It’s selfish, and I don’t get to be selfish. None of this is about me.
It’s about Carter.
