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My head falls on his shoulder when he moves his arm and I stare at him with heavy-lidded eyes. “Huh?”
“It's how these guys work. They show you the bad first before spoiling you with the good. You only think it's a big gesture because you're so used to being tormented and starved to death, you become thankful. I've seen it many times with captors and their victims. Stockholm syndrome.”
I swallow hard and stare between him and the door.
“We have to remember who and what they are. Monsters. Men who need to die. We can't ever forget that.”
“I know.” I've almost forgotten a few times, practically losing myself in lies and what sounded like sweet promises. Then they threatened to hurt my mom and I snapped out of it, yanking the wool from my own eyes. I learned to separate myself from them after that, no longer forgetting what was real and what wasn’t. I'll do the same with Everett. I'm here physically beside him but in my mind, I'll stay somewhere else. Even if leaving my safe space gets too fucking tempting.
“Good. I hope you always do. They are very good at manipulation. Sometimes they even show you gentleness after causing you pain to let you see how good it can be when you behave. Then people start craving it because it's much better than the alternative. You can't let them have that power over you. When something becomes the only comfort you know for so long, you cling to it. “
He's becoming a broken record at this point. I hope he takes his own advice. I yawn, rubbing my face into his armpit. “Tired.”
“I know, Iggy. You can rest now.”
I lift the other part of the blanket for him to get under and he shakes his head. “No, you can have it. I'm okay.”
I frown and climb on top of him, straddling his lap as I bring the blanket around us, our naked bodies way too close together. I lay my head on his shoulder, thrusting upward and rubbing my cock over his. “N—stop. Easy now. Time for bed.” He wraps his arms around my back, keeping me from moving up and down. I rock forward and backward instead, moaning as my balls move against his closed thighs, my leaking cock head caressing his. I should stop but fuck, I can't. Nothing has felt this good in a long time.
“No, Iggy. I think you've been drugged. You're confused after everything that's happened to you. You're not in your right mind and neither am I. Rest. You'll need your strength tomorrow. We both will.”
He tries to move me off his lap and I shake my head. “No, please. Don't let me go. What if they come back?”
He breathes me in, caressing my neck with his fingers. “Okay. I won't. I'll do my best to keep you safe.”
Pressing my chest to his, our heartbeats sync together, and his warmth surrounds me, the skin to skin contact better than any blanket.
“Night, Iggy.”
He presses a kiss into my hair and I hum softly, settling against him. “Night, Daddy.”
He rubs my back while wrapping his other arm around my waist. His hold weighs me down, settling the restlessness inside me. Before, I’d wanted to crawl out of my skin. Then he touched me and now I'm somehow at peace, my body easily molding to his. I'm not here. He's not him and I'm not me.
He was right earlier about people tricking and manipulating your mind. He would know better than anyone about how it works. After all, he's done something similar, and no doubt he'll try to do it again.
He showed me tenderness and only his caring side when he was around. One I never saw from my father or any other man in my life. It was a nice change from what I was used to. It made me crave it more and I chased after it because in comparison to the way the rest of the world treated me, he made me feel loved and safe.
Too bad it was all a lie. Just like us and this. He doesn't have to worry. I'll never fall for it again. Not with him or with anyone else.
“Fake it until you make it,”my uncle would say.“Allow them to see only what you want them to see. Then, when they aren't paying attention, destroy their whole fucking world.”
I will. They will all pay for what they did. Every single one, starting with the man holding me in his arms.
Six
Everett
Many meals pass. As much as I've fought against it, I've grown weaker. Ignacio is barely coherent most days. The moment he grows more alert and starts fighting, they drug him again. They haven't taken him to the other room in a while and I never stop keeping him close to me. He grips onto my hand when we eat beside each other, crawls into my lap every time the door opens, and lays on top of me when we sleep.
None of it is sexual; it’s more for comfort than anything else. I've never had the desire to be with a man before and nothing has changed, especially not in this fucked-up circumstance. The first time he touched me in here should have felt dirty and wrong but it didn't. Caught between being awake and sleeping, I still don't understand what happened in those few minutes. All I know is we both went somewhere else and before it all ended, nothing around us existed and together we were free.
Ignacio constantly reaches for me if he thinks I'm moving too far away, as if he requires closeness, along with the reassurance of me actually being here.
After being in here for so long, caught between a dark place and hope, I'm starting to need it too. I'd rather cling to him than anything else here. He's the closest to freedom as I can get when down her and occasionally when I hold him in my arms, I can close my eyes, breathe him in, and pretend I'm home.
The door creaks open and Ignacio's eyes pop open. He jolts up when he realizes he's sitting beside me on the floor and throws himself into my lap, whimpering into my shoulder. “Shh,” I say, running my fingers through my hair. “No one else is here but me and you, Iggy. Just us.”
A man enters the room, searching around and walks to the faucet. “Time to get cleaned up.”
