Page 134 of The Monster and the Masochist

‘If I were weak, you would have won that battle,’ I replied, feeling just as pissed with my monster as it seemed to be with me. ‘You are forbidden from touching her again. You basically fucking attacked her! She has a concussion!’ I snarled at it as I fished for a bottle of wine.

My hand only met dead space.

Crouching down to examine the inside of the fridge more thoroughly, I frowned.

There was only one bottle left, which was odd. I could have sworn there were at least four last time I’d been in here.

‘SHE WAS TRYING TO LEAVE! You told the witch you would allow me to kill those who hurt her, and yet, the bitch who hit her still lives! The whore who touched her still breathes!’

“You’re a fucking idiot if you think killing either of those women will make a fucking difference,’ I snapped at my monster, now scanning my pristine kitchen suspiciously.

Where were those other three bottles of wine?

As I checked the recycling and the larger fridge I used for food storage, I grew increasingly concerned.

‘They TOUCHED HER!’ my monster roared as I stalked back into the bedroom, looking for… I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but when my gaze fell on Theo’s half-packed gym bag, my heart skipped a beat.

‘They must be punished for putting their hands on what is ours.’

‘If we kill everyone who hurts her, she will only find other ways to hurt herself. Those women are not the true enemy here. There is something else, and until we figure out what it is, we could slaughter every fighter in that league, and she would just start fighting people in the streets.’

I crouched down on the floor and tugged Theo’s gym bag toward me. It was full of random articles of clothing. I didn’t think she was even looking at what she’d been packing. Everything was just crumpled up in a big mess, and half her shit was falling out the sides.

With a pounding heart, I reached into the bag. There was a tiny ‘clink,’ and I froze.

My monster froze.

Dread rolled through me, but I forced myself to push through the heavy blanket of foreboding that had settled deep in my bones.

Parting the mess of t-shirts to reveal what I already knew I would find, my chest seemed to vibrate with the force of my monster’s fury.

My missing bottles of wine were here, in Theo’s bag.

And they were empty.

‘She poisons herself from within…’ my demon growled, and I pulled one of the empty bottles out, refusing to believe she’d consumed this much alcohol before stepping into that ring.

‘She’s trying to kill something that lives inside of her,’ I replied, almost in disbelief.

‘This is not the way,’ my monster snarled, and I nodded in a rare moment of agreement.

‘No. This is not the way.’

Thankfully, Theo made it through the night, but I still didn’t feel comfortable leaving her alone all day to go into the firm. I’d almost called in, but she insisted she would be fine for a few hours.

“I’ll text you every hour to make sure you know I’m awake,” she’d assured me as she gingerly settled down onto the couch.

“I’m having a hard time trusting you,” I admitted. “You have a bad habit of lying to me.”

Theo winced at the truth of my words, but she nodded.

“I know. I’m sorry. But I promise, I’m not lying about this. If you don’t hear from me, you can come home and ream me out, but… You’ve been missing enough work because of me. I’m gonna feel like shit if you don’t make partner because of my bullshit…”

I hovered there for a moment, wondering if I should tell her that I didn’t give a fuck about making partner. Not if it meant she wasn’t here to celebrate with me like she’d promised she would when she married me.

And if she continued down this path, I knew all her promises would be empty ones.

She wouldn’t be here to celebrate with me or hold me, or remind me of my strength or any of that other shit she’d said.