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It’s a relief to be told that. It’s exactly what I needed to hear without even realizing it.
I blink, a single tear falling down my cheek. He watches it trail all the way down to my chin before forcing his eyes back to mine.
“You said it was part of it,” he says, his voice impossibly quiet.
“W-what?”
“Part of it was jealousy—why you treated Carter so poorly.” He eyes the tear again where it’s now stuck precariously to the underside of my jaw. “What was the other part?”
I look to the side, lifting my right shoulder to both shrug and wipe the tear away. The fire is starting to die down. Part of me feels relieved to be able to hide in the darkness soon. The other part of me feels a moment of panic at the realization that he might leave once the flames are out. For some reason, I really don’t want him to leave.
“Nolan?”
“He wasn’t going to survive, Maison,” I whisper, looking back into his eyes to make sure he understands how serious I am. Earlier, it had felt sort of sad to think about him hating me after finding all of this out, but now the possibility feels monumentally terrible. “If he kept going the way he was, he wasn’t going to survive. There are three types of slaves, in my experience. The ones that break, the ones who can compartmentalize between their time as a slave and their free time, and the ones who die.”
Maison flinches, his gaze immediately dropping. It’s the truth, though. I won’t take it back. He rubs a hand over his stubbled jaw, not seeming bothered when he skates over a cut there. “And Carter was the third type.”
It’s not asked, it’s stated, but I respond with an answer anyway. “Yes. He was a fucking mess. And I get it, okay? I’m not some cold-hearted asshole. I’ve been there. It’s scary and traumatizing and your body is suddenly not your own and your life is in the hands of—at best—some rich asshole who looks at you like you bore him, and—at worst—a bunch of coked up assholes who think it’s funny when you bleed. But it’s adapt or fucking die, and he wasn’t adapting. And Master Roarke was easing him in, Maison. Like easing him way the fuck in. I’m not going to go into details because that’s your little brother, but like… for fuck’s sake, kid had it damn good compared to the rest of us in that house, and he needed to get it together. Was I harsher than I needed to be because of that jealousy? Yeah, definitely. But it didn’t change the fact that he was crying up a storm and shaking like a leaf and being disobedient for Todd Henley and embarrassing Master Roarke when all Henley had done was rough him up a little. He didn’t fuck him or even really hit him. He wasn’t even bleeding.”
When I see the way Maison’s expression twists, I quickly look away, something heavy settling on my chest.
“I know, okay?” I say. “I know I sound like a total fucking asshole. But you’re seeing it from the outside. You—you don’t get it. Trauma is trauma and all that—Dr. Singh said as much today in group therapy. He said we all have different experiences, but one isn’t better or worse than the other, and the way we all react is going to be different. He said one way isn’t the right way and all this other shit, and I agree, you know? But survival comes down to either completely breaking or keeping your shit together, and he was doing neither. He was still so fucking human and he wasn’t able to keep that part separate and it was going to get him killed, Maison. It was going to get him killed, and I had already lost two slaves in that house since I’d been there, and Matt wasn’t fucking talking anymore and I wasn’t just going to stand there and let another one of us—”
“Hey,” he says, his voice low and soothing. Arms wrap around me, pulling me against him. “It’s okay.”
We tense at the same time, me with surprise and him with what I assume is the realization that he just grabbed a sexual assault survivor without permission. I grip the fabric of his sweatshirt before he can let me go. “Don’t. It’s—it’s okay. If it’s okay with you?”
“It’s okay with me,” he whispers, his breath warm on my forehead. He adjusts enough for my knees to settle on his lap, my face tucking into the warm space between his neck and the hood of his sweatshirt. “This is nice.”
“Yeah.” I close my eyes, breathing him in. I know it won’t last, but while it does, I’m going to soak in it. “Really fucking nice.”
For a while, the two of us just… sit like that. His sweatshirt smells like some kind of lavender detergent and a manly sort of deodorant, but the hot stretch of skin against my cold nose is something more subtle—something that I think might just be him, with a hint of metal from the cool chain I assume leads to his dog tags. My heart kicks into overdrive as he strokes his thumb in circles on the small of my back. As the fire crackles quietly in the hearth. As rain patters on the roof. As his pulse flutters against my lips.
I slip into this strange mental place where I’m both losing the fight to exhaustion while also somehow feeling exhilarated. It’s nice, like we said. Really fucking nice.
Which means it gets ruined, of course.
It’s his watch that does it, some sort of alert chiming. He goes tense before slowly bringing his wrist up to read the screen. All I can see on his face is pain.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, wishing I could throw the stupid watch out into the rain.
He huffs a sort of laugh. “Depends on who you ask. We just got a lead on the man from the compound—the only one to escape.”
“Mica,” I breathe, years of abuse somehow echoing in the two syllables.
He gives me a sympathetic look, probably fully aware of the type of abuse Mica liked to dole out. Maybe even aware of the specific abuse Mica doled out to me over the years. I’m not sure how much he knows, when it comes to smaller details like that. I’m not sure I ever want to know.
“Yes,” he says, his voice gravelly with anger. “Mica.”
“How could that be bad?”
“It means making myself Carter’s villain all over again.”
I don’t understand at first—Mica may have never gotten to touch Carter as far as I’m aware, but Carter still seems like he’d be pretty “pro-catching the rapists”. Then it clicks what the issue is. Or, more accurately, who the issue is. “You’re sending Travis after him.”
“Travis wants to go after him,” he says a little defensively. “He feels responsible since Mica was from his compound.”
“But Carter will blame you.”
