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“Right here,” I said.
“Didn’t you hear me? Didn’t you hear me at all?”
“Right here,” I repeated.
“I can’t do it,” she said, her little fist shaking at her side. “I won’t do it. I’ll mess it up. I’ll mess everything—”
I took her by surprise. Of course I did. I’d told her I wasn’t going to fight anymore and then there was my hand around the back of her neck. There I was grabbing at her with that frightening speed: a snake against a baby bird. There I was catching those sensitive little hairs at the nape of her neck. There I was tugging her toward me.
There was nothing she could do as our lips collided. There was nothing I could do as the rattling gun slashed at my skin. I hissed in pain against Aurnia’s mouth and she gasped in surprise against mine, but I held us together in place so that neither of us could retreat. Not from fear. Not from pain.
I kissed her with a fierceness that she fought against. Tooth and nail she fought. Fought with that same fire and stubbornness as the day I met her. Fought like I knew she could. Fought like I loved she could. Maybe we bloodied each other’s lips. Maybe we chipped each other’s teeth. Maybe we left the skin around our mouths bruised and swollen. Maybe we were always bound to.
But all I cared about in that moment was that Aurnia, in her own violent, rough, desperate way, was kissing me back. We would always fight. Always fuck. Always love with a wrongness that to us was the only thing right in this blackened world.
We kissed and bit and battled with our tongues till we were both gasping. I released my deadly grip on Aurnia’s neck. We both looked at the cut along my chest. At the smeared ink.
“There’s nothing perfect left,” I told her, guiding the hand which still held the gun back in place. “There’s nothing left to ruin, Aurnia. There’s only something to make beautiful. To make yours.”
Aurnia looked down at me once more. The fear, the apprehension in her eyes had been replaced with that fire I knew. That fire I loved. She drew the back of her hand across her mouth. Wiped away that pale pink lipstick that did not suit the freshly bitten wild raspberry stain of her natural lips.
She was the girl I found robbing my cash register that cloudy afternoon. I knew she’d be stealing from me day after day, night after night. I knew there would be nothing at all I could do about it. Nothing at all I wanted to do about it.
I wanted her to have my everything and more.
Aurnia steadied her hand. Her gaze was focused, determined as she lowered the gun to my chest. This time she didn’t stop when I sucked in a breath at the first bite of the needle.
Good girl.
My girl.
