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“You won’t believe me, but I did stop. I remembered what it felt like to save you when I was a kid. How you looked at me back then like I was more than nothing. You said I was an angel. I wasn’t. I’m not. I never will be. But for a brief moment in time I’d been kind, and it had feltgood.” He lets out a sad laugh, shaking his head at the concept. A slight breeze blows through the window, shifting the curtains and highlighting his face in silvery moonlight, and for the briefest of moments we lock gazes. My heart lurches but my head shuts those feelings of pity down.
“I don’t care. I want you to suffer like I have, like Ido,” I say, my whole body trembling as he rises to his feet. I watch him as he climbs onto the bed and lays down beside me.
He’s built to kill. He’s muscular, lean.
Powerful.
I’m well aware that he has the ability to overpower me and there’d be nothing I could do about it. I’m the most vulnerable, and yet he’s the one crying.
Not long ago he would have attempted to kill me for seeing him like this. But he doesn’t do anything other than wipe at the tears on his face, then look at his hand as though he doesn’t understand how they got there.
“I don’t blame you. If I were in your shoes, I’d feel the same way. I’d want to kill me, too.”
“How do you know I won’t still do that?”
“I don’t, and going by the look in your eyes I suspect you’ll try. Perhaps you’ll succeed. You want me dead, and I deserve nothing less than your hate, your disgust and your rage.” He shifts so that he’s laying on his side with his head propped up on his hand as he stares down at me. “If I didn’t think you were in danger from my brothers I would hand you my blade now and let you slit my throat for what I did to you.”
I laugh bitterly. “This is all just another twisted game. Another trick. Another way to mess with my head, to keep me prisoner here. If you feel so guilty, why not let me go, huh? Why not do that?”
Across the room I hear Thirteen stir, she murmurs something in her sleep but it’s too jumbled to make any sense of it. I clamp my mouth down on a scream of frustration, at myself for not attempting to run, at Thirteen for doing nothing more than stay by my side, at Leon for trying to fuck with my head.
I want out. I want to go home.
Yet, here I lay talking to the man who robbed me of my life.
“Let me go,” I repeat, locking eyes with him.
He shakes his head. “I can’t do that. Despite my need to protect you from my brothers, Ican’tlet you go.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’twantto. Because you’re the only thing that has made me feel more human than monster. Because… Because...” He brings his hand up to the centre of his chest, the heel of his palm rubbing up and down as though he feels pain. “Because I’m a selfish fuck.”
“Then nothing’s changed. You killed me, Thirteen brought me back to life, and I’m still a prisoner with the threat of death hanging over me. What am I supposed to do other than try and end this torment myself?”
Leon swallows hard as his gaze roves over me. “I don’t know. I don’t have the answer to that. All I know is that I can’t… Iwon’tlet you go. I feel. Ifeel...” he laughs sadly, shaking his head. “You once told me that you were mymirror. That you would reflect every wrongdoing, every act of cruelty, debasement, pain, so that I would see who I am.” He lowers his head, his face hovering over mine, his green eyes nothing more than swathes of nighttime. There’s no colour, no light, just a bottomless void of sorrow.
“I also said I would never break no matter what you did to me. But I did break, didn’t I?Youbroke me, and now all I have left are scattered pieces of who I was. I’m made up of broken shards that you caused. So tell me, Leon, how can I help you? Why would I help you after what you did, when all I feel towards you israge?” I spit, angry tears leaking from my eyes now. “I want out. Do you understand me?”
Leon reaches for my face, tenderly brushing my tears away with his fingers that are shaking so badly I can feel the vibrations all the way to my bones. “The only way out of this life is death.”
“Then so be it,” I retort, gritting my teeth and turning my head away from him.
I can feel his warm breath feathering against my cheek as he lowers his mouth to my ear. “I won’t let you take your life, Christy, and I certainly won’t let my brothers try to do the same. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that you’re mine for however long I get to keep you.”
For a moment all we are are two synchronised hearts beating the same staccato drum. A thump, thump, thump of quiet distrust, fear and uncertainty. The power play between us has shifted. I’m no longer just a prisoner or a victim. I’m as much the one wielding the ability to inflict pain as he is. He knows it, just as much as I do. With that knowledge I turn my head to meet his gaze.
“Then death it shall be. I’ll kill you all,” I reply quietly, ignoring the echo of my mother’s voice as she begs me to remember who I am.
“There isstrength in compassion, bravery in tenderness, and hope in redemption,”she had said.
I reject it. I reject him. I reject all of them.
“Then I ask one thing before you take our lives,” he requests solemnly.
“And what’s that?”
“That you remember this kiss before you slide the knife into my heart.”
