Page 58 of Dolls & Daggers
So why the hell is she meeting him in secret all the way out here?
My stomach drops, acid rising in my throat. I told her everything he’d said. How could she?Whywould she?
It feels like my heart has cannonballed into my stomach, splashing bile back up into my esophagus.
Ryan pulls his hat down, further obscuring his face as he knocks on the door, glancing over his shoulder as he waits.
If they were meeting like this on purpose, wouldn’t she expect him to just walk in?
The door opens. A sliver of peachy light appears on the dirty, cracked concrete walkway outside the room. I shift, trying to see Dove with what little roomRyan leaves as the hulking dickwad takes up most of the doorway.
She’s… surprised?
Dove’s light brown brows shoot into her hairline as she stares up at him, frozen with one hand on the door and the other on the frame. My knuckles whiten as I grip the binoculars tighter when I see she’s wearing a pink and red babydoll, her hair pulled up in pigtails.
Just like the Doll sometimes does.
But the look on her face isn’t one of a stone-cold killer. No, she looks scared. And that pisses me off.
Ryan surges forward. One second, he’s standing still. The next, his hands are around her throat, shoving her backward, kicking the door shut behind him.
What the fuck?
I’m out of my car before I realize I’ve moved, charging toward the room—until a sick thought claws its way into my brain.
What if it’s all a scene?
What if she needs this?
I slow, doubt creeping in like poison.
She’s dressed like an adult version of a little kid. She was abused as a child. What if this is her way of coping with it? What if that’s why they were even—are even?—a thing. He’s an asshole, but maybe he gives her what she needs to deal with her past.
I know it’s a rational, and even potentially therapeutic, way to deal with trauma. Sometimes, it takes returning to the bad place to face it head-on.
But I can’t even face my own trauma. I stayed in the same state as my abuser for years because I don’t know how to confront her or heal from what she’s done. She’s like a sticky substance I can’t scrub from my skin—the shadows deep in the recesses of my mind I can never escape.
How the fuck can I be that for Dove if I can’t even help myself?
I hear no sounds coming from the building.
No struggles. No cries for help.
What if that’s why she’s been avoiding me? She basically called me weak when we fought, and I am. I really fucking am.
I don’t know if I’m equipped to help her with her trauma if this is how she deals with it. I know it’s unfair—I haven’t been honest with her about my past.
What if she needs this and I can’t give it to her?
Lowering to a squat, I thread my fingers over my head as turmoil creeps through my body like a thick, noxious gas.
I thought I was coming to confirm her alter ego as the Doll.
Dove looked scared, though. Genuinely surprised to see Ryan.
“Arrghh!” I growl, pushing forward.
If they’re fucking, I’ll quit. I’ll go back to California and pretend none of this ever happened. If she’s been playing me—using me—this whole time, even if it’s a way for her to cope, I’ll never be able to forgive her.
