Page 32 of Not Your Hero

“I … I don’t fucking know, Ren. I’ve looked for it, searched for it, trying to find what my father would talk about when we were younger. When we were kids, it was mainly women who hurt us in some way. As we got older, it was mostly the ones we tried to have relationships with, and they learned the truth about us. We were always looked at like monsters by women. There were laughs and jokes they would tell their friends. It was completely fucked up, Ren.”

“Fuck, Nix. That had to mess your head up growing up like that.”

“It did. It would trigger some darkness in me I couldn’t control.”

“Shit, man. I’m sorry.”

“No. Don’t do that shit. I don’t need you to feel bad for me.”

“You need a therapist,” he adds.

“You think I haven’t tried that shit, too? They want to drug me and put me on so much medicine I can’t function. No one really wants to help me.” The silence in the room is all I need. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to respond to that because if a fucking doctor couldn’t help me, who could?

“You need anything?”

“No.”

“You need to sleep, Nix. Rest,” he says as I nod my head.

“I know, and I will.”

“When?”

“When I know she’s okay.”

“Ron said she’s going to be in and out of it for a while.”

“Yeah, but I need to make sure she’s okay, Ren. I didn’t do this shit for me; I did it for her.”

“I think your emotions play into this more than you think,” he says.

“Meaning?”

“You lost your shit when she was gone, Nix. You had me sell her goddamn house, man. You’re keeping her. You’re not letting her leave here, and we both know it.”

He’s right. I don’t plan on letting Emerson leave here. I don’t plan on letting her out of my fucking sight.

“Does that bother you?” I ask him, turning to look him in the eyes.

“No. You pay me to do what I do, and that’s it, Gannix. What you do with your time is your business.” He’s right. It’s my business, but I don’t know how well I can trust him with this. Can I trust him to keep his mouth shut? Can I trust he won’t help her escape me? Because if he does, I will have no reason not to kill him and his wife. And I will use that against him. He has to know that. He has to know I will fucking make him watch while I gut her in front of him.

“Go home, Ren.”

“You don’t want me to hang around?” I shake my head.

“No. You need to rest, too. We’re not going anywhere and you have this place surrounded. We’ll be fine for now,” I tell him.

“I mean it, Nix. What you do is your business, but all I ask is you don’t drag me into it.”

“My personal business?” I ask to clarify.

“Yeah.”

“You have my word. As far as you are in right now, is it. I won’t drag you into it further.” He nods his head before standing and leaving the room. I watch him close the door behind him before I walk over to the twin bed I had set up for Emerson in my room. I reach out and run my fingers along her cheek and over her cracked lips. I can’t believe he did this to her. She’s burned, cut, whipped, and sick.

The more I think about it, the angrier I get at him. The thought of killing him and ending his life has crossed my mind since we’ve been back. The fact he hasn’t made contact tells me he’s thinking the exact same thing as me. He’s probably plotting my death as we speak.

But my focus right now is Emerson. She needs to heal and get better so I can do all the things to her I’ve been thinking about. She thought she saw me as I was, but she hadn’t seen anything yet. I was just easing her into my world, into the things I like.

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