Page 56 of Vicious Sentiments

“Come on, are you even trying?”

Jesus. I feel like my arms are going to snap like twigs, how muchharder can I go? I pause to re-situate. Mimicking the stance he demonstrated and shaking out my arms.

“Your opponent isn’t going to wait for you to get it together.” he sneers.

What opponent? I feel like I’m being trained for war. What exactly even happened to Madison? The FBI folder didn’t have a section on her. If she had known how to fight would she have survived? That’s what I’m getting from Cape. I wonder if I can get any information from Marney.

I start punching again. No matter how ridiculous Cape is making this, I enjoy it. Even if he did show up in the bathroom at seven a.m. and force me into it. I want to be stronger, better prepared. Do I think it would have helped me just a month ago? No. I wasn’t ready to be this person, didn’t know I could be this person. I’m surprised that all it took was a few moments of safety to realize I never want to be hurt again, that the mode of numbness wasn’t numb, it was defeat.

“Good. Good,” Cape says, and I realize he has a look of confusion. My next swing comes even harder and I lean into it.

Yes. I don’t want to be defeated. I want whoever has the audacity to touch me without my permission to bleed. Similar to how Julian made Kyle bleed.

I picture Mr. Canes face, panting over me, his stale breath, and I scream, throwing my fists into the pads as fast as I can.

“Woah. Woah. You’re losing your footing again.”

I don’t care. I wail harder, aware that my fists have become little more than just the sides of my hands, berating against the soft cushions. I don’t want the cushions. I want flesh and bone, I want Mr. Canes face to feel my fury.

“Hailey,” Cape tries.

I was fourteen. Fourteen the first time. I didn’t stand a chance. I was used to pain, thanks to my dad, but not like that. Not pain thatwent deep inside me, tearing me apart and leaving me in pieces.

“Hailey.”

It didn’t matter that I had graduated, that I knew I never had to see him again. I sat on that bridge and Iwantedto die. Because of him, because of Kyle, because of my dad, because of every guy who ever looked at me funny, because of fear and pain.

Suddenly, Cape drops his hands, but I’m not done. I bang my hands into thin air, losing my balance and stumbling into him. I hate Cape too. Using his male strength to hold me in fear, threatening to kill me, as if I’m not theonlyone who should get to decide that.

I pound against his chest. His rock hard chest that makes my knuckles split and radiate shocks up my arms. But it doesn’t matter because it feels good. It’s the good pain, pain thatIchoose.

I know he’s saying something yet I can’t hear him over the sobbing. My sobbing. Mixed with frustration and anger. I tighten my fists, trying to form them again and sock, really sock with everything I have. I want him down. I want him on his knees. I want him to say sorry for what he did. And then I want him to say sorry for what everyone else did to me.

I want the roles reversed. I don’t want to be the begging victim, begging,stop, please, don’t.I want the predator at my feet, pleading for mercy, pleading for my body that I refuse to give them because it’smychoice.

Cape lets me throw myself at him, again and again. He doesn’t waver or stumble. Part of me knows I can’t really get him on the ground, but he doesn’t stop me from trying.

The blood on his bare chest from my knuckles finally stops me. I suck in a breath, a real one, and push off of him. My hands shake in front of me. Bloody and raw. The breath I take doesn’t satisfy me though, and I start to gasp and choke. I can’t get any air. I can’t.

I keep backing up and gasping till I hit the mirror behind me. Thecold on my skin jolts me but it’s welcome. I slide down it, thudding onto my ass.

Within a second, Cape is kneeled in front of me.

“Breathe. You’re hyperventilating.”

I want to tell him,no, I’m not,but I can’t catch my breath to say so. His broad chest is front and center, smears of crimson blotting out his tattoos and I have to turn my head and look away. I can’t.

“If you die, Julian is going to kill me. Breathe.”

I keep staring at the ground, my head swimming, refusing to look at his chest and failing to get a proper breath.

“For fuck’s sake,” he snaps and grabs my jaw, twisting me to look at him. His eyes are a black abyss and I focus on them, falling into them like Alice in Wonderland and her rabbit hole. I think I’m going to faint.

“Breathe!” he yells at me, but I don’t really hear it, just see his lips move. “In.” He makes a dramatic show of sucking in oxygen. “Out.” He blows, and his breath, like fresh peppermint, blasts me. He’s making it look so easy.

I focus back on his eyes, on the darkness in them. Do my eyes look like that? Have I been consumed by all I’ve been dealt? All Ilethappen to me?

He shakes my face and I come back to where he’s still repeating the ‘in and out’ but I can hear him a little better.

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