Page 68 of Greed
When he woke from darkness to find blood on his hands. When he woke to find he’d murdered so many people? Was he somehow…
The sound of irrational water dripping reminded him of blood. The sirens wailing in the distance reminded him of people screaming. A chopper in the sky…
He couldn’t see straight. He couldn’t breathe.
All he could think to do was return her cattle prod and leave it at the door so when she exited, she’d see it. If he offered to take her home, he’d only make it worse. He’d put himself in the same basket as Doppenger. So he left.
* * *
Not long after,Griffin stormed into his apartment, crashing through the door and shedding his leathers, gasping for air. During the ride home, he’d suffocated on his own behavior. He’d left her on her own because he was a coward. Left her in that neighborhood, cold and alone, and what was worse, his erection wouldn’t leave. His body didn’t pick up the message his brain sent…
Because he was a monster.
With the room spiraling around him, and on the way to his bathroom, he tripped over junk on the floor and landed hard on his knees. He rolled and kicked his boots off, frantically pulling his pants to free his legs. They smothered him. When he scrambled to his feet, left only in his thermals, he ran to the shower. Not waiting for it to heat up, he entered the stream, still clothed and soaked, all the while listening to the nasty voice inside his head calling him a coward.
Monster. Freak. Loser.
Those were the kinds of words hurled at him during his training from his drill sergeant, his company, and other recruits. It had taken everything he had to get past that year from hell. The following years in other countries, with other strangers, weren’t much better. He was a little different, he knew it. He never tried to hide it, but at the same time, he was never openly okay with it. Every time he felt himself reaching this level of panic, the only place of privacy he could get anywhere while training was in a shower, and even then, sometimes it was a communal block.
The water weighed his thermals, and he stripped them off, heedless of the painful situation between his legs. When the fabric rubbed over his erection, it felt good. He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut, but that was a bad idea. All he could see was Lilo’s long delicate neck as she arched into him, her breast in his palm and her pert wet nipple begging for him to suckle it again. He took himself in hand and pumped roughly, trying to satisfy his need so it would go away. But all he could see was her willing body writhing under his touch turned sour. He squeezed painfully. The pictures wouldn’t go away. There had been a single wet streak running down her cheek.
Or had he imagined it.
He roared in anguish and punched the tiles, again and again despite the splintering pain in his fist, and the red blood splattering the wall. Power exploded from him and reached for every metal object in the room and beyond. Copper pipes shuddered and groaned in the walls. The faucet trembled. He hit the wall on repeat until pain reached its limit and became his friend. Until it didn’t scare him, but embraced him. Until it choked everything out—the power he couldn’t keep locked away, the painful desire that wouldn’t release, and the idea that control was a fairytale.
He’d been so afraid of losing it with his fists, that he never stopped to think the imbalance affected something worse—his heart. And at the end of the day, it wasn’t even the sin at all. It was all him. He knew that, because as he looked at his wrist, the Yin-Yang tattoo stared back at him, in perfect harmony. It had no right to be. Not after leaving her vulnerable like that.
But his biology wasn’t fussy. It was just like a toxin—you get exposed, you get poisoned. This was the same thing except in reverse. Exposure to Lilo kept him balanced for a period of time after his contact with her. She was his drug. His medicine. And he’d treated her like dirt.
Eventually the wet warmth running down his back suffused into his muscles and worked his tension. He stopped hitting and braced himself, forehead to the tiles, palms to the wall.
He counted. One, two, three… and kept going, focusing on the rhythm in his head, the logic, and the reason. It would be okay. He was alive, and she was alive, hurt, but alive. Hopefully. It was okay.
It had to be okay.
He would fix it.
He’d call someone to check on her.
Twenty-six, twenty-seven… and on and on, until finally exhausted, he turned the faucet off and, dripping, stumbled to his bedroom, wrapped himself tightly in a sheet and fell onto his bed.
His room was a simple room, and unlike the main living area, it was clutter free—the way it began all those years ago when he’d first arrived home from training. A haven with nothing but a bed, a few books, and a rarely used flat screen television on the far wall. He turned it on and searched for something that would make things right, something that would take his mind and debilitating anxiety away.
That’s what normal people did, and he desperately wanted to feel normal.
He found the next best thing on demand, the movie Lilo loved…Casablanca.
He cast his mind back to why she said she liked it. What was it again? Something about connections in times of war, and… he conjured the memory of her face, the bubblegum scent in his car…If we can keep lasting connections when the world is falling apart.
Chapter Twenty-One
When Lilo arrived at number three Partridge Way not long after ten that night, she didn’t know what to expect, but didn’t care. She needed a friend. Grace was working the night shift at the hospital, and Misha Minksi was the only one she knew who might be home.
Lilo had cried the entire subway ride, cursing the integrity of men one minute, cursing her own stupidity the next. No wonder no one dared to approach her, she’d sounded like a madwoman.
All because of him.
She stayed in that darkened stairwell with the wool literally over her eyes until her toes went numb before realizing Greed had left. At one point, the door had opened; she remembered hearing that. But never did it occur to her that he’d abandoned her, just like her ex used to. Donnie never beat her, neither did Greed. But when she’d said no, that she’d had enough, they’d both bailed. Like she wasn’t worth anything if she didn’t put out.
