Page 17 of Bad for You

“I just do.” I settle for that reply, making it clear I don’t want to talk about it.

He doesn’t press, but I can see by the tight purse of his lips that he finds it hard to believe. I don’t blame him. It feels as if we’re never going to leave this place. And we’re doomed to remain here until the end of time.

Lenny looks at me, and I suddenly realize what a mess I must look. I wipe my bloody nose with the back of my hand. But it just smudges across my face.

“Here.”

Before I can object, Lennon removes his T-shirt and wipes my face. I shrink away, not wanting to be tended to this way, but he grips my upper arm to stop me from moving. My scrawny arm doesn’t stand a chance against his big hands.

I allow him to tend to me, and although I’m not accustomed to such kindness, I don’t mind it coming from Lennon. He isn’t gentle, but I can feel the tenderness behind his touch. I don’t understand why he’s come into my life or why I feel this pull toward him, but I’m glad he is here.

“What secrets are you hiding, little girl?”

“Why do you think I’m hiding anything? And I’m not a little girl.” I pull out of his grip, not wishing to be treated like a baby.

He has the audacity to laugh. “Yes, you are. But you’re far braver than a hundred men, which is why I think your secrets made you this courageous. You were forced to be brave. It’s either kill or be killed. But here you are. I want to know everything about you.”

I hold my breath.

No one has ever shown interest in me before. I’m used to blending into the background and not existing. But Lenny is different. I want him to know about me because I want to know about him.

He does something that forever ties us—he wipes the blood from my wounds with two fingers and smudges them across his lips, leaving behind a smear of red. Before I can ask what he’s doing, he then runs his fingers along his bloody knuckles and glides them across my mouth so I’m coated in his blood.

“This is my body. This is my blood,” he says, reciting something I’ve heard in Mass many times. But spoken from Lenny’s bloody lips, it takes on a whole different meaning.

Our blood has forever linked us and sealed our destiny in a bloodstained kiss.

I suddenly feel tired, and I realize it’s because I feel safe. I know Lenny won’t hurt me. A yawn slips past my lips.

“Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

I want to argue, but my eyelids grow heavy of their own accord. I force them open, but Lenny gently cups my cheek.

“Sleep.”

It’s evident Lenny doesn’t take no for an answer, so I do as he says. I lay on my dirty mattress and turn on my side to look at him. He stands watch between me and the door. And he doesn’t waver from his post just as he promised he wouldn’t.

This is the first night I sleep and don’t dream.

She sleeps like the dead. And perhaps she wishes she was.

I don’t know what she’s endured, but I know it’s bad. I know she’s broken, and I don’t think she’ll ever heal. But she isn’t a victim. She has fire behind her eyes, and one day, I have no doubt that fire will burn this kingdom to the ground.

And I can’t wait to be by her side when she does.

I don’t understand why I feel this urgent need to protect her. It was there from the moment I saw her. Perhaps it’s because I see myself in her in the sense we are both broken, lost, and alone. But we don’t allow that to define us because we fight.

We fight because there must be more to life than…this.

Valentina…such a strange name for an extraordinary girl.

She said we’re getting out of here. But how?

Regardless, I believe her.

The latch door opens, and without thought, I turn my back toward Valentina, standing between her and whoever creeps into her room in the early hours of the morning before the sun has even risen. She’s been out cold for hours, but the moment the hinges on the door whine, the sound startles her awake.

I look over my shoulder and see her spring up and scamper across the mattress and into the corner of the room with her back pressed to the wall. Her eyes are wide. Her mouth agape as she gasps for air. She hides behind her long brown hair.

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