Page 20 of Ravens
“I don’t understand.”
“Teach me. Help me get better at all of this.”
Sucking his teeth, he grumbles and then leans back without answering.
“Ah.” I nod. “Harder to kill me when the time comes if I can fight back. I understand.”
“This isn’t the movies where you get a training montage andfindyourself amid the rubble of your fucking life,” he murmurs meeting my gaze. “I’m not here to groom you into something you’re not.”
It was worth a shot. They always say that you should try to humanize yourself to your captors. Thankfully, I don’t actually need his damn help to get better at this. “But you have no problem using me for what I am, right?”
“And what are you?”
Shit, I walked right into that one. “A glorified prostitute, according to most.”
“I’m not most, and it would be a mistake to think I am.” He dumps out the rest of his coffee. “I wouldn’t have risked the things I have risked—and likely will need to risk again in the future—for a glorified prostitute.”
I glance over at a group of people talking quietly. At some point, he’s going to have to come clean with me, right? Tell me what he knows . . . Does that mean I’ll have to do the same?
Or do we just circle back toTripoli dies in the end?
What I should circle back to is the sex and why I enjoy it. It’s a bit depraved that the degradation is as effective as the crumbs of praise he sprinkles around. To say nothing of the spanking . . . My parents didn’t even spank me. I don’t think I’ve ever beenspanked before now, and the way it affects me requires a lot of introspection.
But the sex is like his protection, or whatever this really is that he’s providing. It is temporary. The worst thing I could do is get used to it or get used to him or become reliant on any of it. All of this is going to get me fucking killed.
The bus driver walks out of the store with a foam cup and heads for the bus. Everyone standing around begins filing back toward their seats, so I get to my feet and meander my way back, too.
By mid-morning, there are only a few hours left in the trip, and York has situated himself in the row of seats across from me. With his back to the window and one leg stretched out across the empty seat beside him, I can feel his gaze on the side of my face. Being trapped in this tin can with him now is suffocating. The bus is quiet, and the silence itself is beginning to become a roar in my ears.
“You know why I call you dove?”
“Don’t care.”
“A dove is someone with clean hands,” he says anyway. “I’m curious to see how and when those hands get dirty.”
I run my palm over the coarse new denim of my jeans. “There is no way for you to know if my hands are clean or not, and any blood I get on them is up to me . . . including yours.”
“Is that how it is?” He stands, moves across the aisle, and sits beside me again.
“Yep,” I say quietly and then look at him. “If you’re holding a knife to my throat, then I’m holding one to yours.”
“You know that me killing you is your narrative, not mine.” He taps the side of my head. “At no point did I ever say I was going to kill you.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t see a future where we both survive, so it’s just logic.”
“Just because your imagination is limited doesn’t mean you’re right.”
“Stop trying to convince me that I’m safe.” I scoff. “I’m here, aren’t I? I haven’t run off. I’m not trying to escape you. If you haven’t figured it out yet, York, I have nowhere else to go, so drop the good-guy act because I don’t buy it, and it doesn’t matter anyway.” My voice rises, and I stop, clearing my throat. “You’re going to use me for whatever it is you’ve got going on, and then I’m expendable again. Just own it.”
“I said I wouldn’t kill you,” he purrs, leaning closer. “I never said you were safe with me. And if you think that anything I’ve done to you or for you up until this point qualifies as good-guy behavior, Dove, then I weep for you.”
Eleven
An indeterminate amount of time passes between us in silence, and only the bus hitting a pothole, making us bounce in our seats, shakes me from my thoughts. I let out a deep sigh. The land whipping past the window is beginning to make me nauseous, so I stare at the seat in front of me.
“Tell me what we’re doing in Virginia . . . please.”
“Safe house,” he mutters, “and resources.”
