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Fucker had been busting my balls about it ever since.
He knew how much I hated it when he showed up like this, taunting me, and getting off on the interaction like it gave him some kind of sick pleasure.
“A deal is a deal, Patriot.”
I knew that. Right as I opened my mouth to tell him to fuck off, he disappeared.
“Motherfucker.”
At least that deal included a special clause. I had my own unique twist. My Reaper sensed fears and the terror that was unleashed as I reaped a soul fed him like the choicest steak in the fanciest restaurant.
I’d probably be lost now without my secret hunting sprees.
Truth was, I was an addict who kept trading one vice for another, desperate to escape sobriety and the painful truth that awaited in my fucked-up reality. I probably never would have stopped running from my nightmares and guilt.
But I had one friend who never failed to remind me that we are only a product of the life we have lived and experiences that shaped who we were.
The Bishop.
“Mimi!”
My sister’s cry of joy and surprise was a sucker punch to the gut. Even after everything that I’d told her about my life over the last few years, we still had a long way to go to repair our strained relationship. Three weeks ago, I admitted the worst of my experiences with Alexi, crying until I fell asleep out of mental and emotional exhaustion.
Nylah was shocked to hear the extent of the rape, trafficking, and cruelty I suffered. She couldn’t fathom that kind of life or the horror of being used with such apathy. To know that every single moment you were alive was because someone else allowed it.
Some small part of me wished I was still in a coma.
I didn’t want to be sitting up in a hospital bed with sunshine streaming through my windows and everyone smiling, thrilled to walk through their everyday lives and enjoy each breath that left their lungs.
What would she think if I told her that I never wanted to wake up? That staying in the hidden chambers of my mind was far easier and less traumatizing than waking up and facing the reality of my failures, mistakes, and stupid choices.
Nylah was the perfect sister. The nurse. The blonde bombshell. The good girl.
I was the drug-addicted, whoring, wild party girl that got exactly what she deserved.
We couldn’t be more different.
Nylah was leaning back after giving me a hug when the door opened. Patriot walked in and shut it with a loud click, sauntering his way forward with the prowl and grace I was becoming
accustomed to every time he entered a room. He didn’t hesitate to walk up to the side of the bed and lower his head, pressing a kiss to my forehead as he bent at the waist to reach me from his towering height.
His guarded features hid everything he was feeling but the relief in his eyes.
“You’re awake.” Wasn’t hard to tell that he was pleased. “Glad to see you’re sitting up and looking well.”
Looking well?
“Uh, sure.”
He snorted. “Lookin’ good to me, sunshine.”
Sunshine.
The nickname he gave me when we first met. Still didn’t get his reasoning even after he explained why on multiple occasions. Maybe it was hard for me to imagine anyone thinking I was anything but empty, filthy darkness. A void of nothingness left behind after the very core of who I was had been ripped away.
At the lowest moment of my life, I met my savior. I just didn’t know it at the time.
THE GROUND WAS COLD and rough, scraping against the exposed skin of my body and baring me to the perusal of every pair of eyes that glanced my way. Chills erupted along the surface, and I shivered, not quite understanding where I was or how I arrived.
