Page 39 of The Wolf and the Monarch

The man beside him nodded slightly.

“What…? Why?! What did he do?!”

“Because I’ve been disobedient.”

His eyes shifted towards the chair. “About letting me out?”

“About a lot of things, Benji.”

“So, he hurt you because of that?” Sawyer nodded once. “That’s some bullshit.”

“Par for the course. I should have known better.”

He shook his head. “That doesn’t make it okay.” The two fell silent for a few moments after that. Benji didn’t know what to say. His mind was even more all over the place. Sawyer was hurt because he was helping him. He didn’t want that to happen. It wasn’t fair. It shouldn’t be like that.

“He beat me with a fire poker.” Sawyer eventually said.

“Excuse me?” Benji quickly asked, his brow furrowing as he looked at the man.

“It was…heated too.”

He swallowed hard. He couldn’t even imagine how badly that had to hurt. And it was because of him. Sawyer endured that because he was being kind to him. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.

“The hand was probably the worst of it,” he mentioned, “He just stabbed my hand with it.”

The thought of that made him sick to his stomach. “Sawyer–”

“Benji, don’t.”

But Benji did anyway. “I’m so fucking sorry. I-I…I should have told you no. To leave me alone.”

“You were out of your mind. You didn’t know what I was doing anyway.”

That didn’t make Benji feel any better. If anything, it just made it worse because Sawyer really was just helping him from the goodness in his heart. If Benji had begged him to do it, then maybe it would sting a little less. A deep frown crossed his face as he stared up at the ceiling. He couldn’t believe the next words out of his mouth.

“Forget about getting me out of here.”

Sawyer opened his eyes at that. “You were just pissed off about the prospect of me not helping you and now you’re telling me not to?” He shook his head. “You need to pick a lane, Benji.”

“That was before I knew what the fuck you endured just because you were taking care of me,” he paused, “Which, by the way, is your job to do. But I’m not gonna get into that.” Benji sighed, “It’s just…you’re getting yourself mixed up in some shit you shouldn’t be getting yourself mixed up in. Just let him kill me, it’s fine. I’ve had a fine life up until this point.”

“Shut the hell up,” Sawyer spat, “You’re not dying down here, okay? He can hurt me and beat me all he wants. I’m still going to help you because you don’t deserve to be down here. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“And neither did you.”

That gave Sawyer a bit of pause. He clearly didn’t know how to respond to it. “I still want to help you,” he eventually settled on.

“It’s not a good idea.”

“None of this is. It’s all fucked, Benji. But helping you means helping me too,” he admitted and closed his eyes tightly. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to work for my uncle. I want to…escape. Run away. I don’t care where. I just can’t do it anymore.”

Benji took a deep breath and held it in his lungs for a bit before he slowly released it. The conversation was heavy. The air around them was thick. But it was a conversation that needed to be had. Once again, he rolled back over onto his side, no longer bothered about what was said earlier. He just needed to look at Sawyer.

Slowly, he reached his hand out and softly placed it over the bandaged hand of the man beside him. “Then we’ll get you out of here. You can come with me.”

Sawyer’s brown eyes reopened and their gazes met. “Where are you going to go?”

“Home, I guess.”