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“Fuck you, Danny,” she mumbles through her squeezed lips.
I reach behind her and grab her hand, squeezing it tightly into a fist as I pull her arm around her front. Now, she doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t cry out. She doesn’t try to pull away. I look down and see blood seeping out the cracks between her clenched fingers, and I damn myself for feeling brutal and cruel.
I pry her hand open until I’m staring down at the razor blade, the metal glistening with blood. Her blood. The only blood I’ve ever seen and wished I hadn’t. I breathe in, trying to gather the will to speak. I can’t. This woman, at every motherfucking turn, strips me of normal capabilities. I tip her hand, sending the blade to the marble floor with a little ping. It’s a ludicrously pretty sound for something so ugly and damaging. Taking in oxygen, I turn her arm over until I have her forearm, where a neat slice stretches across her perfect skin, blood bubbling from the opening on her flesh. It’s only now I see them. Maybe a dozen white lines marring her tan skin. All neat. All clean. All done on purpose. I look up into her eyes, eyes that are welling. Not because she’s hurt. Not because she regrets hurting herself. But because I’ve found her doing it. I’ve found a weakness. Or it could be a strength. It could be her way of dealing with things. But dealing with what? The unknown is a true killer. It physically hurts me. It’s slowly driving me mad, and I’m astounded by my lack of ability to know what to do. I’m fucking stumped. Instinct is all I have, and before I register my moves, I’ve stepped back, away from her, and placed the blade I took from Watson on my forearm.
Her eyes snap from the knife to me. “Tell me why,” I demand, the blade resting on my skin.
She shakes her head.
So I draw the knife slowly across my arm, opening the flesh, and her mouth falls open as blood trickles toward my wrist. “Tell me why,” I repeat.
Another shake of her head.
So I move the blade and drag it through my flesh again, parallel to the first slice. “Tell me why.”
She swallows, her eyes wide and haunted. And another shake of her head.
This time, I yank the knife violently, and the collection of blood from my three wounds gathers and swells and starts dripping to the floor. “Tell me why,” I say again calmly, setting the knife on a fresh piece of my arm.
“No,” she says, eyes batting back and forth between my face and my arm.
I slash once more, my arm now drenched, pouring with blood. “Tell me why.”
“Danny, please.”
My jaw’s going to snap, the muscles becoming tighter with each refusal she gives me. Another cut.
“Danny,” she whimpers.
Another cut. “I’ll keep going, Rose,” I promise. “This doesn’t hurt me.” I cut myself another two times until she lunges forward and seizes the knife, tossing it to the floor and grabbing my arm. I make to retrieve it, not taking her horror as anything more than that. She still won’t tell me. Which means my arm is going to look like a patchwork fucking quilt very soon.
“No!” She kicks the blade away, out of my reach, and yanks my body upright.
“Talk,” I grate as she grabs a towel and wraps my arm, applying pressure, looking uptight and stressed. She has nothing on me.
“I haven’t done it for years.” She takes her hands away and moves back, and I can see her intention to walk away, her gaze passing back and forth between my arm and the door. No. I block the doorway and yank the towel off.
Looking up at me, she shakes her head mildly again, as if she thinks I’ll accept her silent plea for immunity.
“So why now?” I kick the door closed and rest my back against it.
“Why do you care?”
Her question throws me. It’s a damn fucking fine question, one I hadn’t asked myself. “I don’t.”
She laughs, quietly and disbelievingly, and I can’t blame her. “You don’t care?”
“I care that you’re alive for me to use as bait.”
“Liar,” she whispers, stepping forward. “You’re harboring so many demons and—”
“Now you’re one of them,” I say, and she recoils. I look away, unable to face the questions in her eyes.
“Am I?”
I stare at the blood-soaked towel on the floor and dip, scooping it up and tossing it in the shower stall. “You are a demon, Rose.” I glance up at her and reach back for the door handle. “I don’t care why you’re hurting yourself. I care that you’re doing it in my home. I don’t care that you’re drawing blood. I care that you’re spilling it all over my fucking carpet. I don’t care if you want to kill yourself. I care that it’ll fuck up my plans if you do.” I yank the door open, watching her nostrils flare with hatred. “I don’t care about you.” I’m so fucking dumb, I deserve a medal for supreme stupidity. I look down at my slashed arm and close my eyes. Instinct screwed me over this time.
