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“I don’twantto hurt you beyond repair,” he whispers, as he takes my hands in his and tracks his thumbs back and forth over my knuckles. There’s a silent ‘but’ that hangs in the air between us. We both sense it, understand it for what it is. “You have to understand...” He heaves out a sigh as he continues to caress my hands, but I don’t want to feel the warmth of his fingers, the gentleness. I need his roughness to remind me of who he truly is beneath this temporary facade, to remind me of what I must do.
“He’slying.”
I drag in a shocked breath, my head snapping around as I watch Jakub enter the room, locking the door behind him. Leon releases me, rushing to his feet, but Jakub grabs the gun carelessly left lying on the bureau and points it at him. It doesn’t stop him though, Leon keeps moving towards Jakub. So he changes tactics and points the gun at me instead.
Oh God.
“Don’t!” Leon snarls, stopping in his tracks.
Jakub ignores him, concentrating on me. The mirrored mask he’s now wearing glints as another flash of lightning brightens the room. It’s unnerving to see myself reflected within it. “Hewantsto hurt you.”
Leon shakes his head “No.”
“The things he’s done with those hands. I’ve seen him strip a man of his skin—peeling it like someone would an orange—without an ounce of regret. He learnt that trick from our father.”
“My God,” I whisper, my stomach roiling.
“I’m not that man anymore,” Leon counters, begging me with his eyes to believe him.
“We both know that’s a lie. You’re still that man. You might want to strip yourself of that part like a snake would it’s skin, but it still exists within you. You. Live. For. Violence.” Jakub says, punctuating each word with a jerk of the gun, before looking at me intently. “He wants to hurt you. He gets off on it.”
“No, not like before.” Leon argues.
“You don’twantto cut her?”
Leon grits his jaw, refusing to answer Jakub. It doesn’t matter though, we both know that he does, he admitted it only moments before.
“You don’twantto squeeze her neck with your hands and feel the fear racing in her pulse?”
Leon flashes a look at my throat, at the fading marks there. His skin flushes.
“You don’twantto mark her skin with your handprint, your teeth marks? You don’twantto fist her hair and angle her head back so you can fuck her throat raw? You don’twantto cover yourself in her virginal blood? You don’twantto fuck her tight arsehole?” Jakub laughs at Leon’s silence, removing his mirrored mask and dropping it to the floor. It cracks with the impact. “That’s who we are. That’swhatwe are.”
“That isn’t all I am,” Leon replies, backing up slowly towards me. “I just don’t know how to be any other way. I’ve never been shownhowto be any other way.We’venever been shown.”
“Andshe’sgoing to be the one to do that, is she?”
“Yes, if Christy’s willing to help us.”
“Us?” Jakub shakes his head. “No. We can’t change who we are. We feed off of pain. We feast on violence. We’re damaged, deranged. We’re fucking monsters.”
“He’swrong, Christy,” Leon says, shaking his head emphatically.
“Prove it,” he says. “Prove to me you can control yourtruedesires and maybe I’ll buy into this bullshit that Nothing is the one who has the power to change us.”
“And how do you propose I do that?” he asks.
“Makeloveto her,” Jakub sneers, spitting out the word like it’s poison.
“What? No!” I shake my head, panic rippling through my blood as I stand, ready to bolt.
Jakub flicks off the safety. “Make love to her and I’ll let her live.”
Leon passes his hand through his hair, contemplating Jakub’s demand as he glances at me.
“You can’t be serious?!” I bite out, refusing to believe this is happening again.
“Do you want to die?”
