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I smiled down at the drawing. I’d never done much like that and the dimensions were off, the furniture appearing more like cardboard cut-outs than real couches and chairs and desks. My smile fell. Was I doing it again? Was I play pretending house? Was I moving Mason and Rian’s arms and legs this way and that like paper dolls?
I crumpled up the page and shoved it with the rest beneath the cot. I needed to draw something different. Something that made me feel independent. Strong. I wanted to believe that I didn’t need what I knew I needed. I needed a lie. A lie I could believe.
As I began to sketch again it was a pair of hands, big and strong and tattooed, that appeared on my lap. I remembered how they felt on my skin. Throwing me out of Dublin Ink. Dragging me out of my father’s house. Holding me tight on his motorcycle. I remembered how they looked holding his own pencil. How they looked pouring milk for my cereal. How they looked shaking on either side of my head as Conor roared over the rain.
I was so preoccupied tracing over the lines I’d drawn till my fingertips were stained slate that I didn’t notice Nick coming toward me. My only warning was his body briefly blocking the light from the lantern behind him. When I looked up, there he was.
“Not thinking of being difficult, are we?” he asked, rocking forward with his hands behind his back.
His voice had that fake sugary effect he put on when he was asking something as if there wasn’t only one single acceptable answer. I quickly put the notebook beneath the cot and laid out, fluffing the limp pillow beneath my head.
“I’m just tired,” I said.
I closed my eyes, half believing like a child that that was the way to make the monsters disappear. It was stupid to have ever called Nick. Stupid to have ever put myself back within his clutches. Stupid to allow him close enough to trail his fingers along the dip in my side the way he was in that very moment.
“I’m counting on you, little baby Aurnia,” he said.
I could tell from his voice how close he had lowered his face. I didn’t dare open my eyes.
“The plan only works with you,” he whispered, his breath hot on my cheek. “Very bad things will happen to me if you don’t do what I’ve told you to do. Do you understand? I’ve got people waiting. People…expecting.”
Nick’s fingers played at the hem of my sweatshirt.
“I understand,” I said, eyes still squeezed shut as I tried not to shiver. “I go into that…that place. I go into that place alone. That’s what you want me to do.”
The cot creaked as Nick sank down on the edge. He sighed as his hand moved to the side of my neck. His fingers were clammy. He smeared his sweat across my skin as he circled his thumb along my jugular.
“These people,” he said softly, “they’re not like me.”
I panicked when Nick’s fingers began to tighten. My eyes shot open. Nick’s gaze was boring into me.
“They’re not gentle like me,” he said as he tightened his grip even further.
I began to cough.
“They’re not sweet like me,” Nick cooed in my ear as I shoved my palms against him.
“Nick,” I gasped. “Nick, stop.”
My feet scuffed along the rough material of the cot. I was forced to stare into Nick’s vicious eyes as he glared down at me and squeezed even harder.
“They’re not like me,” he said. “They’re violent people.”
He released me and I gasped in air, folding in on myself. I shuddered when Nick began making soothing circles on my back with the same fingers he’d just used to choke me.
“One more time then,” he said. “Say it one more time for Daddy, little baby Aurnia.”
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“You’ll do what?”
“I’ll go in. Just like you said.”
Nick pressed a kiss to my temple. I could smell the alcohol that stained his breath.
“Good girl,” he whispered.
Nick grabbed the notebook from beneath my cot before he left. I sighed in relief that I’d balled up the Dublin Ink drawing. He leafed through it as he made his way back toward the lantern. I watched him use his lighter to set it on fire. He left it burning there on the floor when he disappeared into the dark. People to meet. Violence to enact. Other girls to fuck. Lucky for me, Nick didn’t mix business and pleasure. At least, not yet.
