Page 180 of Scrimmage

I do as he asks, albeit I’m clumsy. Damien’s eyes glow as he watches me try to enact the plan that Yang has laid out for me. I pull up a cut out tile in the floor with my fingernails, and they crack and bleed. I’m so fucking malnourished. The adrenaline is keeping me moving.

I grab the map and shove it into my underwear. I don’t want to cover it in blood because my life depends on it. Yang grabs the star in Damien’s throat and yanks it out. Blood pours from the wound, and Damien gurgles some more.

When Yang speeds out of the bathroom I start to follow, but pause in the doorway, taking one last look at the man who loves me. The one who has brainwashed me into loving him, too.

“You’ll see me again, baby girl,” he coughs. “Next time, I’ll be dragging you to Hell with me.”

“This is him, isn’t it?” Koda points to one of the portraits of the glowing amber eyes. “Who is he?” he barks.

“Evil,” I whisper. It’s all I can manage. It’s so simple, but Koda doesn’t hear me. He isn’t listening.

My hands are shaking, and my teeth are chattering. I stare at the eyes. The same ones that stared into me when I stabbed him. Damien is supposed to be locked in Guantanamo. I'm a nobody here. How? How did he get that letter to me?

“…And you agreed. All of this fucking time you were slutting it out…”

“You went through my stuff!” I scream, effectively silencing him. “Why would you open that?”

My sadness is being replaced by the anger that I know so well. It’s the only way I can try to fight the tears threatening to spill over. They burn my eyes and everything is blurry.

“You know, you had me fucking convinced. You’re a great goddamn actress. I actually felt something for you,” he spits the words out like venom. “Turns out you’re not a slut. You’re awhore. You’ll never be anything else. You pretend you’re this brutally honest face value bitch. Guess what,Stacy, you’re just like everyone else. You know what I see? Someone who torments themselves and keeps their distance, because if they don’t, everyone will see what a fucking liar they are.”

“You have no clue what you’re talking about. What about you, Golden Boy? Do you really think you’re so fucking perfect? You’re surrounded by narcissists who are only worried about what they can make people think about them. When someone asks you a question, they manipulate your answer to make it fit their narrative, and that’s enough because it’s exactly what they wanna hear. They don’t care. Those people don’t like reality. They’ll do anything to escape it, and you just eat that shit up. You hide who you really are,” I laugh. “If I’m a liar then so are you, but you’re wrong. I don’t pretend to be something I’m not. It’s your willful ignorance that gets in your fucking way.”

“You’re a fucking mistake,” he sneers.

I clap. “Well, look at you being honest with yourself for once.”

“At least one of us is. You’re not a good person.” He thought he had me. He thought that would hurt me, but he’s fucking wrong.

My eyes drive daggers straight into his soul. “There's good somewhere out there. Penny is proof of that, but that has never been me. I’ve been to Hell, Koda. I’ve been violated by evil. It peels your skin from your bones, picks apart your soul, and tells you that you’re all the more beautiful for it. Evilbecomesbeautiful. It reminds you that there is no you without it. So, I’m not a Good person, Ko. I’m the goddamn worst. I love evil. So what does that say about you?”

My mouth is dry. I try to swallow. My words landed exactly the way I wanted them to.

Those coal black eyes weaken to their sage green, and he looks like I’ve shoved him into the mulch on the playground. “You stupid fucking cunt.”

“I know, right? Now get the fuck out.”

“Gladly.” He snatches his coat and shoves it on.

“Oh, and, Armory?”

“What?” he growls, glaring at me.

I give him my middle finger. “I love you.”

That does it. Those three little words tell him that I want this over for good. They send a message that no other words ever could. Surprisingly, there’s regret written all over his face. He knows he’s as good as dead to me.

“Give your husband my condolences on marrying such a whore.” Then he leaves.

I slam my fists down onto the counter and scream with frustration. Damien has once again fucked my life up. We’ve technically been divorced for four years, but that doesn’t matter. In Damien’s eyes that’s just a piece of fucking paper. It doesn’t matter that I was sixteen. He owns me like property. It doesn’t matter that I was a prisoner. None of it matters, because Koda didn’t give me the chance to tell him. Even if he had, I wouldn’t.

I face the sink and roughly wipe my eyes, sniffling. I see my hands and arms still covered with the bruises Damien and his lackeys left on me that have long since disappeared. I can suddenly feel them all over me. They’re crawling on my skin like meth bugs. I flip the handle and hot water rushes out.

I start to scrub. I try to scrub them all away from my thoughts and off of my skin. I try to tear Koda from my flesh and erase every touch. When I’m done, I feel my broken body laying on the jagged rocks at the bottom of the imaginary cliff. I feel empty. Exactly how it should've always been.

I grab the dishes from the sink and start to fling them against the walls, letting the shattering of the porcelain become my mantra. I scream until I’m hoarse and all I can do is choke. I told myself I wouldn’t let myself feel anything. I thought that was some sort of choice that I could make, but it never was. He repeated all of the things Damien did and I fell, crawling to him like the brainwashed prisoner I’ll always be.

I grab Damien’s stupid letter where Koda threw it down onto the counter.

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