Page 40 of Dark Duet: Platinum Edition
So he’d gotten me back.
That realization echoed through me. Did I feel relieved? Terrified? I couldn’t muster any emotion one way or another. I was just…numb. Empty and buzzing.
He rose from the chair and came toward me. “Don’t be afraid. You’ll be all right now.” I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t all right and never would be. “Your face is bruised, but nothing’s broken. Your shoulder was dislocated and you have a few cracked ribs, not broken. You’ll heal, but I’m afraid all I have to offer you is rest and medicine for the pain.” His words made no difference to me. I was still alive. And still with Caleb. When he got up, I didn’t flinch but just watched as he came toward me. What was left to be afraid of? What did I have left to lose?
“Where am I?” I hardly recognized my own voice. It was hoarse and gravelly, as dry and brittle as my throat felt.
“Somewhere different,” he said. Vague. Typical.
He sat next to me on the bed. Nice bed, nice room, I thought, focusing on the easy stuff my witless brain could handle.I really don’t give a fuck.He reached for my hand. My fingers recoiled, just a slight clench and tension. He nodded and withdrew.
Did he have blood in his hair?Blood. Everywhere.I shut my eyes and blocked it out. I wanted to stay numb. Get this over with. I was ready for whatever malicious words he had prepared for me. Ready for him to tell me how stupid I had been to think I’d get away from him.Jokes on you, asshole. I already know.Ready for him to threaten me with rape or death.Get it over with. Please.
“I’m sorry, Kitten,” he whispered.Hewas sorry? Coming from Caleb, guilt was highly unlikely and the last thing I had anticipated. My face did some weird snort-scoff-laugh-cry thing. It hurt, but I almost laughed. Would have, if it didn’t hurt to breathe. “For what they did to you.”
Right, he was sorry, but not for taking me from home. “Good.”Home. My family.All this because I had wanted to get back to my worthless mother.Even if she doesn’t want me there. Never did. No matter how many times I said I was sorry.My eyes were stinging. I couldn’t believe I still had tears for her. I hated her. Ihatedher, because I loved her so fucking much and she obviously didn’t feel the same way.
Caleb cleared his throat and swallowed. “I made them pay.”
Them. A group of them that was, possibly, worse than Caleb. I felt shaky all over again, but hearing those words from Caleb’s lips was somewhat satisfying. “Yeah, well,” I said, hollowly, “you’re into that.” A hint of a smile touched his lips, and for some reason it cut through me in an essential way. My life was a joke, to him, to my mother, to those asshole bikers! A cruel, heartbreaking joke and I was more than ready for the punch line. Ready for my life, the joke, to be over. Right now, I just neededsomeone. I needed to not feel so discarded and alone. I choked back words I knew I’d regret later, and only said, “Caleb…”
“What?”
I stared at him, not sure, wondering what the next step was, and as terrified as ever. He continued to look at me, inquisitive, his face a twisted mask of indecision. If that mask was real, I almost pitied him. It was better than feeling sorry for myself, but I wanted to be stronger, even as I just wanted to crawl into a hole.Get it over with.“I don’t know what you have planned for me. I know…I know it…” I paused, taking a moment to collect myself as much as my thoughts but the words in me had to be spoken. If not now, then never. I let the sparks of pain encourage me. “…I know it can’t be good. Whatever it is you’re planning. But if you could do me one favor?”
“Oh?”
I blinked once, “If it’s anywhere near as bad as what those assholes did to me…. I’m tired of living through this shit just to step into deeper fucking shit. So if all you have planned for me is more torture, I think I’d rather die. Just do me one favor and don’t…I don’t want to die slow.”
He reared back as if I had slapped him. Or not. I had slapped him twice before and he had never looked the way he did now. He suddenly wasn’t so inquisitive or indecisive—he looked pissed! But also…offended. “Is that what you think?” he said, his voice strained and tight. “You think I would…” He stood up and paced. I could do nothing but stare.
“What do you want me to think, Caleb?” I said harshly. My face was hot and my nose hurt and felt stuffy. Breathing hurt. “You kidnap me, you beat me, you do…unspeakable things to me.” The burning in my chest felt like it was spreading, and it was all the anger and my despair that had been coiling within me, now oozing to the surface. “What am I to expect from you?” I did a lackluster imitation of his abnormal accent “‘Don’t let me find you.’ Isn’t that what you said?”
Finally, he stopped in the center of the room, his eyes flashing then cooling. “You are a stupid, stupid girl, Kitten.” I did laugh this time. Loudly, hysterically, laughing through the pain even as it ripped through every fiber of my being. He had never said anything more true. Iwasa stupid, stupid girl! Stupid to think my mother would ever forgive me. Stupid to think I could be something other than what I was. What had that filthy fucking biker called me?Whore!The label followed me everywhere. And what had I done to earn it? Not enough! Still virgin territory. A whore fighting her nature. For what? Yes, I was a stupid, stupid girl. I laughed and laughed and laughed until finally…I cracked. My laughter devolved into wails of pure loss, grief, and black despair.
Eventually, I found him at my side, his arms engulfing me. I let him. I was always seeking shelter in the people who hurt me the most. My mother. My father. Caleb. Like a battered dog begging for love from a malicious master. It was all I knew. And still his arms felt safe, warm, meant for me to seek sanctuary within. The cycle of damage would never end because I couldn’t tell the difference until it was too late.
“I made them pay.” He whispered again, his tone cold and final, but his words meant nothing to me, though I suspected they meant a great deal to him. Only his arms mattered, only the tangible feel of hard, sturdy flesh surrounding mine. His embrace said all the things his lips could not or would not, they said,you’re safe and I will protect you, maybe even some semblance of caring about me, however fucked up, but everything was fucked up. Through it all, his lips only repeated, “I made them pay,” and I felt something different that still felt oddly real to me, more real than anything.
I hated him, but I didn’t either. And I didn’t understand anything anymore, least of all myself.
I cried for a while, taking solace in the comforting lie of his embrace. The illusion, the fantasy, it helped. I never wanted to leave. I wanted to stay here forever, held tight to his chest, his fingers stroking my hair, his heart beating against my ear: you’re-safe, trust-me, love-you.Love. Did I want him to love me? Yes. I wantedsomeoneto love me. And what was love if not someone risking their lives to save you? Caleb had saved me. Did it mean he loved me? A part of me wanted to think so. To believe in a romantic ideal that didn’t exist. I wanted to believe the lie. But more than that—I wanted it not tobea lie.
After a while, I forced myself to pull away. The longer I stayed, the more I doubted I could keep my resolve to escape, and that was dangerous. I was torn, constantly, between emotions that continued to fight each other. Caleb was dangerous. And not just because he was bigger, stronger, and more sadistic than I cared to think about. “Can I see a mirror?” I asked warily, sniffling. It wasn’t about vanity. I needed to see just how close I’d come to losing my life, and I wanted it to mean something real for me. A harsh dose of reality to shake me free of all my stupid fantasies.
He was very slow, dare I say, reluctant, to release me. Even as I tried to put distance between us, his fingertips wiped gently at the corners of my swollen eyes and the look on his face said the hurt, pain and superficiality didn’t matter. His words echoed the sentiments I read on his face. “It’s not necessary. The damage isn’t permanent.”
“That bad, huh?” I asked, but the look in his eyes shifted, turning harder, colder and it told me all I needed to know. Those sons-of-bitches had done a number on me.My arm bent behind my back. Pain. Laughter. A cock pushing against me, looking for a way in.
“It’s not necessary,” he repeated firmly. “The damage isn’t permanent.” He paused, the hesitation odd in his otherwise firm and confident demeanor. “I made them pay.” Caleb was not a man who hesitated or questioned anything. And yet, I felt him doing so at that moment. There were things he wanted to say and wasn’t. “I know you’ve been through more than enough.” He reached out and tilted my chin gently, meeting my eyes, “But promise me you’ll never do it again.” I turned my head slightly away. He was telling me, not asking me, to never run away from him again. Without saying it, he was chastising me, letting me know that by taking matters into my own hands, I’d just gotten into deeper trouble and all on my own. It was a bitter pill to swallow…because he was right.
“Yes, Caleb.” I paused, “Yes, Master,” I whispered dully, feeling hollow again. Caleb frowned but nodded. I didn’t know what was more frightening, that in that moment I meant it or that Caleb had expected it.
His fingers continued to play softly across my jaw. He was tentative, pensive, and wary of causing me any pain or discomfort. I couldn’t stand it. There was always confusion when he was near. A conflict over what I should do and what I wanted to do.
I thought about my life, the history of my existence, a past that revolved around my mother who’d ushered me in this world. About the way my wants had led to this moment. Just the same way her wants had led her to hers. As hard as I’d tried to not be like her, I felt like I was becoming exactly like her. It was so unfair, and as I stared at Caleb, and his fingers danced across my lips so delicately and intimately, I reaffirmed that life was anything but fair.
I pushed his hand away, not roughly, but firmly issuing my denial of his touch, and oddly, I knew, in the corner of my mind, that it was my denial, too.
