Page 50 of Broken

Disturbed.

“You need help.” It’s all I can think to say.

“No.Youdo. You need mine.” Her smile is wry, crooked. God help me, it’s charming too.

Once upon a time, she’d have been my type. Exactly what I went for.

But that wasbefore.

When those troubled times had been like a fairy tale in comparison to my current circumstances.

“You need help,” she repeats, “and if you don’t let me in, then I’ll find someone who will.”

The words are strained, uttered like she doesn’t want to say them, but feels as if she has no choice.

She already admitted that the illness she suffered had affected her mind, and for the first time, I sense a threat from her.

Not when she spoke of the bodies that litter my past, not when she spoke of my crimes... I didn’t feel the threat then.

But now, I do.

“What are you talking about?” I rumble, wary with the nascent belief that she just cornered me and I didn’t even notice until I was denied an escape.

“Prison is penance. This life you lead, it’s a prison in itself.” She shakes her head. “I know what you fear most, and I’ll feed it to you if you don’t let me in.”

Despite myself, I bark out a laugh.

She’s a pocket rocket, barely comes up to my chin, has blonde spikes for hair on one side, short curls on the other, a face that puts Grace Kelly’s to shame, and a body made for sin—the purest of them all.

Her threatening words should be ridiculous, but somehow, even though I laugh, something uneasy settles inside me.

She means it.

And while she’s addled, while I know the police would believe me where Paolo was concerned, she already mentioned five names who were my victims.

“Trapped inside your own mind with nothing to think about and nothing to do other than focus on your past, and because of that past, you’d never go to jail,” she states with a humming lilt that, once again, makes me question exactly what kind of lunacy has walked into my life. “We both know that.”

My jaw works as her assertion hits home.

An institute.

Locked doors.

Medication.

A subsistence of dull nothingness until I’m finally embraced by Death and the Devil gets his hands on me at long last.

She’s right—I couldn’t endure that. Wouldn’t.

“So, what is this? Blackmail? To what end? What do you want from me?”

Her smile sends chills down my spine. “Everything. Nothing less than that will suffice.”

My nostrils flare when she slips her arms around my waist, and somehow, she avoids the areas that were bleeding, that are raw from my ministrations.

Her front collides with mine, branding me with a heat that seems to penetrate my bones.

That sinks soul deep.

---