Page 21 of Bottoms
“See something you like, sweetheart?” he asked as he bundled up his shirt and threw it to the floor.
“I thought we were fighting, not stripping,” I snipped back, choosing not to talk about my blatant eye fucking.
I could not be blamed for looking at a body like that, even if it was attached to a killer.There really was something wrong with me, wasn’t there?
“A good fight should make you work up a sweat. It’s a lot like sex in that way, sweetheart.” He winked, reminding me he had watched me have sex with the guys several times.
“Did you jerk off watching them shove their cocks into me?” I asked, hoping to find a way to push Fynn’s buttons. Other than pointing a gun at him.
“Would it get you all hot and bothered if I said I did?” Fynn started as he took a step towards me, and I moved a step to the side. “You liked it when they watched, and you loved it every time they fucked you together,” he continued, taking another step towards me. Forcing me to take another to widen the distance between us.
My mind turned quiet as I anticipated his next move. I knew he was fast, and he was trying to distract me. The moment he lunged for me, I moved in the opposite direction I had been stepping in. I wasn’t fast enough to completely get out of the way. His arm wrapped around my waist like an iron band as he pulled me into his chest.
A once strange sensation that had become all too familiar lately washed over me as my body turned on its fight mode. I kicked out wildly, not gaining an inch of freedom. My body stilled when his other hand wrapped around my throat, tipping my gaze upwards. I could see him looking down at me. Every warning siren in my head turned off at once as I looked into his steady blue eyes, stupefying me with the sudden mental silence.
“It’s going to be hard to train you when you submit so readily,” he hummed. I felt the pad of his thumb against my pulse before his fingers started to squeeze in on the sides.
Panic sprung up inside me as I drew in less and less air as each moment passed. The warning sirens found their way to unmute as my hands came up to claw at his arms. My nails dug into his skin. Patches of darkness started on the edges of my vision, and I struggled to pull in air.
“You can breathe, sweetheart,” Fynn’s voice washed over me as my eyelids fluttered closed.
I could still feel the pressure of his hand around my throat. With my body no longer flailing, I focused on the physical sensations I was receiving. Breathing through my nose, I took a long, steady breath and found that the pressure on my neck didn’t block the air. It was my panic that had choked me.
After a few slow breaths, I opened my eyelids to find Fynn with a look of satisfied pride in his eyes. Despite the tear I felt slipping from the corner of my eye, I smiled too. His gaze tracked the drop until it disappeared into my hairline. The pressure around my neck disappeared a moment before the heat of his body fell away from my back. Leaving me cold and empty in the middle of the room.
“Guess we need to become friends with a few of your demons before you can fight without triggering panic attacks. We’ll get there,” Fynn said, as he scooped his shirt off the floor and threw it over his shoulder before heading back to his surveillance room.
A low tremble had taken over my body as a deep cold settled inside me. I heard the click of the lock on the door after it shut behind Fynn. I was left alone in the middle of the room, trying to figure out what to do now.
Trudging back up to my room, I shed my bulky layers. My skin was covered in a thin sheet of sweat, but I couldn’t seem to get warm enough on the inside. Nothing would help a bone chill other than a shower. Or at least that’s what my mom always said.
I grabbed a new set of clothes and headed back to the bathroom. My reflection startled me, as it often did when I got a chance to see what I had become. The dark rings under my eyes were nearly gone, and my skin was starting to brighten now that I was ingesting more than soup and bourbon. The shaved head was the main cause of shock.
I turned the water on in the shower to give it a few minutes to warm up while I took off the rest of my clothes. While waiting for the steam to rise from the small stall, I decided to head back to the mirror to look at my back.
The bullet entered from my back and exited through my front, leaving only a small scar where it entered, but a much larger one where it left. The rest of the skin on my back looked healthy, with only my usual freckles breaking up the otherwise cream tone. I couldn’t see my thighs in the mirror, but I knew that was where the severe discoloration started. Angry red patches crisscrossed against the pale cream. I brushed my hand across the skin delicately while mentally planning on wearing pants for the rest of my life.
Steam started to fog the mirror when I straightened, signaling the water was hot enough for my shower. Something Fynn fixed immediately when I complained about the lack of hellfire-hot water to shower in. I stepped under the spray of the new showerhead, my feet hitting the mat. Both had also magically appeared one morning.
The torrent of water helped to clear the film of sweat from me while I worked on cleaning my body with a bar of soap. The process took less than one song's time, had I had music to listen to in the shower. No hair to wash and condition saved me a lot of time. Plus, shaving was easy since my legs had mostly given up on growing hair with the burns.
I leaned against the shower wall, letting the hot water warm me. It felt like too much had happened in such a short time. My brain didn’t even know which track to hop on first. Seeing Tanner and the others, even just on a screen, had shattered some piece inside of me. The part of me that held on to the belief that there was some sort of fairy tale ending that could come out of this.
My mind had subconsciously constructed the fantasy image of all three of them falling in love with me despite my resistance. Ending with a thrilling conclusion of them banding together to save me. They would bring me back to Bottoms and claim they would never lose me again. I told myself once before that this wasn’t a fucking fairy tale. HEAs are just stories that stopped at the right time.
The life I had planned, my dream job, or even a fantasy of running off into the distance with my three lovers were all thrown away script ideas in the tale of my life. Now my life was only about survival, and survival had simple rules. Make sure you have what you need by any means necessary and avoid pain.
Though avoiding pain didn’t seem as vital anymore.
My hands smoothed over my skin, and I found the tender chest scar right next to my shoulder. It wasn’t far from my heart. I pressed a finger to the deformed skin, eliciting a small amount of pain to hold on to. Part of me questioned whether I would have been better off if the shot had ripped a hole in my heart.
I sighed, knowing that death wasn’t the answer. My finger pushed into my wound again, earning me another bite of pain. This time I used it as a reminder that I was still here and fighting. Now I was fighting for myself.
For survival.
Too much energy had already been spent on the idea of fighting to get back to them. I thought they were fighting to get to me.
My finger abandoned the bullet wound and traveled to my breast as I leaned further against the wall. I closed my eyes while rolling my hardening nipple, wanting to simply feel good for a moment. Sharp pangs of arousal flooded me with the initial touch, and I abandoned my breast in favor of slipping my finger between my thighs. I was already wet and aroused; even the slightest touch of my finger slipping across my clit made me catch my breath.
