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"What do you want from me?" I ask, finally giving in after an eternity of his hard glare facing my direction.
"I took Liam and now he's here. I took you and now you're here. Your goal is to kill Liam and then I'll let you go. Simple." His voice is rough, low and commanding as he speaks.
"I'm not doing that," I insist with a voice that is nowhere near as confident as I hope it sounds.
"I thought you'd say that." He chuckles darkly.
"See, the thing is - if you don't do it, then my men, who thoroughly enjoy violence and men's weak spots will do it, and I can assure you that you doing it is a lot less painful and humiliating than them doing it."
The walls are soundproof. No one will hear anything that I say. No one will know what I do. And now that he's sat in front of me on a metal chair with his hands tied behind his back and blindfolded, I find myself completely unaware of what to do or say. I can't do this. I can't let them hurt him but I can’t not do this either. Seeing him like this takes me back to the events that unfolded that night with Matt and Danny.
I was sure that someone along the way would insist that I was demented, evil, and wrong for what I encouraged and did but in my mind, they deserved it. But this - Liam does not deserve this.
"I know it's you. I can feel you." His words stun me. He doesn't move, not as though I imagine he could move very much even if he wanted too.
I rush towards him and undo the blindfold from around his eyes, hating that his own flesh and blood could do this to him. The torture he'd been through his whole life was horrendous. The things he'd done and that had been done to him in the name of protecting others was unimaginable and even still, his life was a never-ending array of demonic torture and evil events - through no fault if his own. And now we are stuck. If I don't kill him, they will while making me watch, and I highly suspect that that won't just kill him. I have no doubt that they will drag it out. Hurt him. Maim him. Rape him. To hurt him as well as me.
"Are you here to kill me? I don't mind. I'd prefer my life be ended by your hand than theirs." He sounds confident somehow, even though his voice is hoarse and broken when he speaks. His words are emitting a confidence I'm sure he can't truly be feeling.
I don't speak. I don't respond, largely because I just don't know what to say or how to respond. I suddenly don't even know why I agreed. Except I do. Of course, I do.
"Let me hold you. Please. One last time," he begs, his eyes pleading with me. As if I could possibly say no.
My mind is still reeling and attempting to figure out an escape plan, but as I look around the nameless and empty room, there's nothing. No window, no vent, no way out.
I move to his back and use the knife they gave me to kill him to undo the ties holding him down. He waits patiently as I cut through the thick rope tying his hands together before rounding to his front letting my knees hit the concrete floor beneath him as I bend to cut the same rope from around his feet so that he's free.
My eyes stay downcast for what feels like an eternity, my heart racing as I attempt to compose myself and stop the incessant nagging in my brain. I realise now that I'm so close to him that he somehow still smells like him. Not like the alcohol that so often overpowered the senses like when I was a child but him. The man that I've grown to love in an entirely different way to what I thought I should. The same man that I know would conquer any army thrown his way to protect me.
I don't move as his hand drifts down to my chin and ever so gently places two fingers below it and lifts my tear-filled gaze to meet his.
"It's OK. I'm ready. I know what needs to be done. There's no way out of this, Charlie." I hate how accepting he is. I've never seen him give up or even give in to anything besides me. I don't want to see him give up now. I hate that he’s accepted this lethal fate as if it means nothing. Maybe it doesn't. Not to him, but it does to me.
"Please don't cry, you know I hate it when you cry." His words are soft, low, quiet, barely spoken as I look into the forgiving eyes of the man before me.
His body looks stiff from being in such an awkward position for so long, but I soon realise that he must have saved strength somehow - somewhere, as he crouches down beside me, leaning back against the wall and pulls me onto his lap with what looks to take so little effort from him, my head against his chest while his chin rests on the top of my hair. I can feel his heart beating against my body, the steady thud thud thud that keeps mine from going into overdrive as I listen to his breathing and match mine to it.
"You're matching me again," he says with a sad laugh and a smile I can feel forming above me, one I have no doubt would wreck me if I saw.
"Will you say something please? I don't mind going, especially by your hand, but I just want something good before I go. Tell me anything," he insists, an order more than a question - one I'm willing to oblige as my heart shatters that tiny bit more every time he speaks.
I shift just enough to face him, seeing that his eyes are as glossed over as my own feel as he looks at me with his own screwed up version of love. No one else can see or understand it but I know it's the truth - that he does love me in the only way he knows how. It's the exact type of love I need though. No matter how misunderstood or strange it seems to others, it's his warped, overwhelming and all-consuming love that I've always longed for. I didn't realise until I was given the chance that I needed him. Him and Crow. My only constants. My every breath. My everything.
I swallow down the emotion clogging my throat as I decide to tell him the truth and a fact I've only now come to realise as more true than I knew it to be.
"Three things," I tell him, watching him as he intently watches me in return. "Firstly, you're not giving up. I don't understand why you're just allowing this to happen without even trying to get out but it's not... It's not happening and secondly, I need you, Liam. I thought you'd just left me," I cry out, my hands reaching for my eyes, rubbing the tears away as I continue, "I've been bleeding. Profusely. I thought it was just a heavy period, but Dad got the doctor out and it turns out that I was pregnant. I was pregnant, Liam. With what would have been your baby." I sob as I let out the words I'd been wishing to tell him since I found out.
His breath hitches at my words, his hand around my waist twisting and moving me until I'm straddling him, sitting atop his lap and looking directly at him as his eyebrows crease together and his face looks like it's about to shatter along with me.
"You had a miscarriage?" he asks, his eyes as haunted as his voice sounds while I numbly nod and grasp his hand in my own, intertwining our fingers together while he looks at me, eyes filled with more sorrow than I know what to do with.
"Did you know, that even after a loss, the babies DNA stays with you, as part of you forever?" he asks me, his free hand taking up residency in my hair as he softly runs his fingers through it.
"Alice told me that. I have no idea how or why she knew, but she did," I tell him with a nod.
"I'm so fucking sorry, baby," he cries, his eyes now streaming as he shakes his head and looks heavenward before returning his glassy eyes and tear-stained cheeks towards me. "Not just for that, but for everything. I'm so sorry that I'm so fucked in the head. I'm sorry that I've fucked you up just the same as me. I'm sorry that I took from you what wasn't mine to take. I'm sorry for everything," he tells me on a sob as his head falls and I instinctively catch it, holding his head against my chest this time, allowing him this moment to release it all on probably the only person in the world that cares and it's that thought and that thought alone that ruins me even further.
"You didn't. That's just it. You healed me, Liam. You and Crow have given me everything I never knew I needed or wanted, and that's why you can't let go now. Please, we just need to work together and we can figure this out. We always do," I insist.
