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I plunge the knife so many times, I’ve made a mess I promised not to make.
I don’t know how long I keep doing it, but eventually he’s there, hands clasping my shoulders. I feel them—heavy, yet comforting. Lulling me with a calming voice I didn’t know he was capable of.
“It’s okay, little wolf. He’s gone now. You can let go.”
When I don’t, when my hands ache with how hard I hold theweapon, he shushes me, heaving breaths causing mine to mellow second by second.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you anymore. I’ve got you.”
I tremble, gasping with a cry.
Does he know? Does he know what they’ve done to me?
And with a quivering sob, I instantly push off of him, the knife still in my grasp.
“Anymore?” I ask, shaking my head, tears leaking out. “Do you…do you know what happened to me? Before?”
When he just stands there, I know instantly he does.
This feeling of being violated by this stranger surges me with so much anger, I want to use the knife on him!
With a scream, I lift it up in the air and aim it at his throat, wanting to hurt him the way I am in this very moment.
But instead, he grabs my wrist with one hand and clasps the back of my head with the other. “If you want to kill me, then do it. Whatever you need to help take away your pain. But just know killing me won’t help. It won’t make it hurt any less. It won’t make you less angry. Less scared.”
His thumb massages my nape, and I whimper, the knife jittering in my hands.
“It’ll just make you regret it. But killing someone who deserves it, someone who’s hurt others? Well, that? That is power. That is good, and we can be good together.”
My hand continues to shake until it falls to my side, the knife plundering to my feet. And instead of running this time, I hold on and I don’t want to let go.
And his arms? They tentatively drape around me too, just a little, just enough to make me feel it—the fact that behind that mask, there’s a man who cares.
I cry into his chest while his strong arms hold me like he doesn’tknow how to do this, but wants to anyway.
I grab a fistful of his hoodie, and I let it all out, a cleansing of my deepest pain, the kind of release that you know will make you feel better when you’ve reached the precipice. But I’m not there yet. There’s so much to let go of. The ruins so ingrained in my scars that I don’t know if I can ever get rid of them.
But I try anyway, knowing that they will never have me again. I don’t care who is out there, trying to take women in the name of the Bianchis, but it won’t be me. And if I can help it, it won’t be anyone ever again. But I don’t know who these people are and how to help the women they’ve taken so far.
Too much evil runs these streets, and I’m not enough to save them. But maybe he is. Maybe we can do this together.
“Do you know who the killer is?” I perch back and stare at an invisible man.
“Why? Do you think us murderers have each other on speed dial?”
“Shut up.” I swipe under my eye and find dark liquid on the finger of my glove. Blood clearly.
Fabulous.
“Let me clean you up.” Without waiting for a reply, he reaches into his pocket and removes a small packet of wet wipes.
With one, he gently rubs away the evidence of my treachery, and the heat skating down the length of me warms me to my deepest core.
“You shouldn’t have,” I tease, trying to ease the heaviness.
“You’re right, but with you, I can’t seem to help myself.”
“Still hard?” My brow rises.
