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I gulped. What was I even doing? Just watching him sleep? I had enough trauma; I didn’t need to add his darkness to mine and hope for light. That’s not how things worked.
At least not in my world. But he was a welcome distraction to everything around me, from Pace’s death to my new reality, to the danger that faced all of us, and to the fact that I was abandoned because I wasn’t useful.
I couldn’t even grade on a scale what was worse out of all of it, but I also didn’t want to spend my days feeling sorry for myself because I knew Pace would be disappointed in me.
Warrior.
Warriors live, and they fight.
Unless, said warrior, can’t sleep, and then they stare at assassins.
My skin felt hot and sticky as I kicked off the comforter and then the sheets and sighed again.
“You could always ask, you know,” Santino said in a gruff voice without opening his eyes. I want to crawl under my own bed and hide. How did he know I’d been watching him?
“What?” My heart slammed against my ribs. I didn’t sound the least bit innocent.
A dark chuckle escaped his lips. It was both alarming and a bit insulting. “If you have to ask, then maybe I read you wrong. Night, Katya.” He started to turn on his side. And for reasons I’ll never comprehend, I panicked.
“Wait!” I reached for him, then jerked back my hand. What was I doing?
“Yes?” He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes drinking me in, the corners of his mouth turned up in amusement.
I made up whatever I could so I didn’t sound dumb for keeping him from sleeping. I had no questions, not really… I mean, I just… I wanted to talk, or maybe I just wanted company, a warm body? Someone to lay down next to me, to keep me safe? I was losing it.
“Is the door locked?” I collapsed onto my back on the bed, squeezed my eyes shut, and then opened them. Was that really the best I could come up with?
“Worried about keeping them out or me in?” I could hear him move, and then a perfect view of abs came into my line of vision, golden skin, dark hair. He was a monster in my eyes, so why did my body feel stunned stupid just staring at him.
“Sometimes…” He sat next to me, not touching me, even though I could feel the heat from his body. His low-slung joggers hid the bottom half of his body but his top?
An eyeful.
“Sometimes,” he said again, “it’s not the hero that makes the nightmares go away. It’s the villain because only the villain knows what it’s like to live in constant darkness and torment. Only the villain knows how to make the burn go away. While the hero works on trying to rescue you, the villain resurrects you.”
I gasped. “I lost my soul back in that room.”
“It’s not lost… it’s just a little bit broken… that happens when you have a twin, you know.” He ran the back of his fingertips up my face from my jaw to my cheeks before dropping his hand. “I’m not gentle.”
“I don’t think I need gentle,” I whispered, licking my lips. “I think I need a fight.”
“Shall I be your captor then? Shall I become the devil himself and let you take it all out on me?”
Tears filled my eyes. How could he see through me so well? I wanted to be the one who pulled that gun out. I wanted to hurt the one who hurt me. I wanted it so much that I didn’t even realize it until he said it out loud.
I wanted to kill him with my bare hands, make him feel my pain, my suffering.
“I’d hurt you.” But even as I said it, my hands were clenched into tight fists, blood pumped and surged through my body.
“I’ve survived worse,” he said cryptically, and then he put his hands on me. “I’m going to fuck you senseless, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’m going to rape you until you bleed, and I’m going to make your brother watch again and again and agai—”
Horrified, I shoved against him, fought, and then screamed as I felt myself go back to that dark, bloody room, as the man who captured me morphed into Santino right before my eyes.
“Never!” I roared, biting at his hand, then his neck as he got closer. I kneed him between the legs and kicked beneath him. “Never!”
“Fight me!” He hissed. “Make me bleed!”
So I did.
