Page 88 of Run From Me

We were in his little apartment that was cozy and smelled of oil and grease and whatever was him. I hated how my body betrayed me by instantly relaxing in this space.

“Xander, put me down. You can’t just go calling me out of work. I need the money. I need to make sure the Vipers—” His lips were on mine and swallowing the last of my protest.

At this point I was aware enough to realize when he laid me out on the bed and moved over me.

“I promise you, Calliope. The Vipers are not doing anything right now. Not to you anyway. I’m waiting on their terms for letting you go.”

My breath caught.

“You? Wait. To let me go?”

He shifted lower, raising the edge of the shirt he lent me. It was sizes too big, but it was comfortable, and I almost regretted asking for my own clothes.

“Yes.” He leaned down and shifted before moving to kiss under the band of my borrowed shorts. Fuck if I didn’t lose my train of thought as he slid them down, licking over every inch of my skin. Fucking hell if my eyes didn’t close at the nerves he found along my hip.

“Care to tattoo over this abomination?” he asked as his thumb gently ran over the Viper brand.

The memory of the day I received that damn brand resurfaced no matter how hard I tried to forget it. My breathing halted like I was holding it and praying that nightmare would end in my mind.

Xander looked up at me and met my eyes.

“My mom, she sold me to them, you know? And I wasn’t exactly asked. Just dragged out of my bed and gagged and tied up in a basement of some nasty house. I still can smell the urine in that place. They didn’t even pull off the gag as they let me watch them warm the brand over the burner of a gas stove.”

I swallowed before I said anything else.

“The smell of my own flesh burning? Well, it took a few seconds to recognize it was, indeed, my own skin. But what they said next. That’s what haunted me far longer than the memory of the pain. They told me I was no longer my own person. They would kill me if I breathed wrong. All these years working with the dead, training to get this job, and I suddenly wished I was one of them. I envied all those corpses.”

I didn’t realize until now, but Xander was lying next to me, just holding me.

“Never again will you feel that. Never. If you want to cover it up, I can have my guy come here or I can take you to his shop. But it is, and will always be, your choice. And give me a detailed description of each of the men you remember, and I’ll make sure to send them to your morgue as gifts.”

I placed my hand on his, the one that was still touching that little part of my past, and I slowly pushed his hand down my hip.

“Tell me about your scars?”

He stopped his hand before I could push it between my legs.

“Xander, I just told you my story. Tell me something about you. Please. I need to know the real you, not just the you the world gets to see.”

He sat up and lifted the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head.

“You know the car?”

I blushed, because yes. That car was forever part of my core memories.

“Yeah, what about it?”

He shrugged.

“My pops traded my mom for that car.”

I gasped. “What the hell?”

Xander’s brows knit tightly like he was trying to recall something.

“When I shoved the knife right through his neck, severing his spine, I swore I would keep that car and remember exactly what I would never be. The scars on my back? Let’s just say my father wasn’t a nice man, and he regretted the day I was finally bigger than him.”

We just sat there for a moment. I didn’t have any words to say. Neglect suddenly didn’t seem so bad when it was compared to being beaten. Or worse, seeing someone you loved hurt.

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