Page 67 of They Break Beauty

“So the recipient in question can use their phone to turn it on and off at their will, and also schedule it too.”

“That’s neat. I would ask if it was for you, but you’re not into butterflies. But Brianna’s butterfly tattoo comes to mind here. You actually made that for her?”

He lifted a shoulder. “She doesn’t like the dark.”

I frowned. “But Mason said you caused a blackout around her?”

“I needed her in the right frame of mind.”

“And scaring her was the way to go about that?”

“Unfortunately, yes. She insists on pushing me to employ unpleasant methods.”

“Jeez, Lev.”

He ruffled my mohawk. “Relax, it worked the way I intended. All is well.”

“And what if she has second thoughts in the light of day?”

“That’s not an option.”

“It’s not an—”

“Come on,” he said, nudging me. “Go get your bag and I’ll fire up the Harley. Two minutes.”

I stared at him for a moment.

“Go,” he pushed. “I won’t let you be late.”

I guess that was settled then. Not an option.

Holy shit.

15

~Brianna~

I groaned at the sound of my phone alarm cutting through my peaceful reverie of numbness.

Lethargically, I reached over and shut it off.

It was one of those mornings where the hangover from the sleeping pills I’d had to take last night was making it harder to get going and start my day. They—and maybe a sedative too—were the only reason for the peaceful sleep I’d had. Most often when I took them, I didn’t have my nightmares and I just experienced a dreamless sleep. A desperately coveted numbness.

When I’d arrived home last night after that… experience… with Levi, I’d had a bad reaction, some fallout to it all. Flashes of the past had inundated me.

Of him.

Of me.

Of us in that hellscape.

I hadn’t been able to shut it off, even with trying to refocus my mind through doing some of my origami—fashioning a bunch of butterflies. The symbolism I took from those beautiful creatures was the sense of freedom and of personal change and growth. That brutal time had changed me and my life forevermore and making the butterflies had been me trying to focus on that part, what had happened after that awful experience, not what I’d been subjected to during it.

But it hadn’t worked, so I’d had to use alternate methods just to be able to relax and manage to sleep.

I guess being with Levi like that had awakened it. The act itself, maybe. But more so that it was with him, and that he’d brought up the demons in the dark.

My phone kept buzzing even though I’d shut off the alarm, so I snatched it up.

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