Page 57 of Darkness

His face scrunches as he glares at me. “Where are you going with this, Eva?”

“You believe you’re okay, but you were traumatized. Alec, you need to talk to someone and find out if this behavior is normal for someone after the trauma you’ve been through.”

“It’s too damn late. We should try to get some sleep.”

He’s shutting down.

“Nycto… I was out clubbing with my sister when we were taken at gunpoint, tied, blindfolded, shoved into a shipping container, and sailed to a new country to be sold for sex. Maybe it would help for me to talk to someone too.”

He holds me close and presses a kiss to the side of my head.

I know when to stop pushing. I will try again in a couple of days. For now, I need to let this go. “Thanks for opening up to me.”

Nycto closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath. “Good night, chiquita,” he whispers.

I slide into his side, getting comfortable. “Good night, Alec.”

I can’t tell what the future holds for Nycto and me, but his past was miserable. If I can keep him focused on how good life can be, maybe he might start to deal with those demons that still haunt him. Because I’m sure they do, whether he believes it or not.

He might want to push me away for wanting to help him, but maybe that’s a risk I need to take.

Chapter Twenty-One

EVA

One Month Later

Being confined to the clubhouse is starting to wear thin. I knew we would kind of be in isolation, but I had no idea Ivy and I would be kept on the clubhouse grounds with such restrictions all the time.

Ivy has coped with it better than I have. She’s happy in her little bubble, as she calls it, but I want to explore America, to experience the city of Tampa, and to go to a freaking mall and buy my own things, but Nycto’s adamant we can’t be seen. The more time goes on without us being found, the more his tension grows. He’s anxious. It’s like something’s eating at him, and no matter how I try to talk to him, he won’t budge on opening up to me or going to speak to a counselor. He’s stubborn.

Other than our mutual frustrations, we’ve been doing good.

Rolling onto my back, I stare at the same gray stucco ceiling I’ve stared at every day for the past… how long has it been now? How long since I’ve set foot on Cuban soil? I don’t know where the hell I am, really, or why on earth I’m here, but for some weird reason, Nycto chose me. It’s something I still don’t completely understand. But when he’s around, something shifts. The air between us becomes thinner. My skin prickles and tingles.

And even though this man is, in a small part, part of the reason my sister and I were stolen from a damn nightclub in the first place, he’s more than that now. I’ve gotten to know him, to see the real him. I can’t control the way my body ignites when he’s around me, the way my heart beats faster in his presence. Is it from fear? That one day he’ll grow bored and get rid of me? Or because he excites me more than he terrifies me?

There’s a part of me that is also completely intrigued by him. He’s hard to read. So alpha, yet there’s a softness in him. Something he tries to hide, and I don’t know why. I guess I’m going to have to pull him out from behind those walls he builds like some kind of fortress. That is if he ever opens up to me again.

Our sex life is off the charts. I’ve never felt more at ease being with someone than I do when I’m with Nycto. We’ve fallen into a relaxed rhythm already, like we’ve known each other for years, not for how ever long it has been… Weeks? Months? I’m not even sure at this point. It’s also funny how being involved with Nycto tends to give me mad respect from everyone else in the club. If I ask for something, I get it right away and without hesitation. They don’t need to bend over backward for me, but they do anyway. Is it because Nycto told them all to do it? Or is that just what happens when you’re kind of seeing the president of Defiance Motorcycle Club’s Tampa Chapter?

It’s like I’m somehow the queen of this clubhouse. I have to admit, it feels fucking good.

This past month, I’ve been trying to spend as much time as I can with each member—brothers, club girls, and a couple of the old ladies of the older members. I’m making my way around to everyone. If I’m going to be here for the long haul, I need to make friends with them all.

On the other hand, Ivy has been keeping more to herself downstairs. She does come up and talk to people, but she isn’t as social as I am, which is the complete opposite of how she was in Cuba. I’m not sure if she doesn’t fit in here like I do or what’s keeping her away, but I need to figure it out. If she’s not happy, then we have got to find a way to fix it.

As I head downstairs to the Chamber, the chill I always get when I walk in shivers over my spine. How she lives down here, I’ll never know. I hate it down here. I’m convinced it’s haunted by espíritu . One day, I heard moaning coming from behind a wall, and it wasn’t Ivy. Moaning. Ivy told me it was the wind and ushered me back upstairs, but being down here gives me the creeps.

Making my way to the Cell, I pull the wall back. She’s sitting with the laptop Void got her, watching some kind of video on the screen.

She giggles, her eyes shift up, and she waves at me. “Eva, come look at this. It’s so cool…”

The brightness on her face has me intrigued. I round the table, then sit next to her, looking at the screen. A giant pimple comes on, and suddenly, someone’s bursting it. The liquid oozes everywhere, making me scrunch my face up in revulsion. “Whoa, that was a good one,” Ivy gushes.

My stomach rolls as I yank her laptop closed, pulling a sour face. I gag, and it takes a moment before I recover enough to speak. “You’re disgusting.”

“You know there’s an actual television show dedicated to popping pimples? The doctor on it is so cute. She’s one of those people you just wanna squeeze ’cause they’re so adorable.”

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