Page 322 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

Only you could be cheered up by being bullied. What the hell is wrong with you?

So many things, Sir. And I wasn’t ready to admit them yet.

I found myself picking on my nails. I didn’t like doing it, because I knew it was technically self-harm, and it wasn’t actually going to make me feel any better. But I couldn’t help it. I picked at the scabs and the cuticles on my fingers, chewing on my thumbnail, hoping maybe tearing off that little bit of skin that was sticking up would give me enough of a mental relief that I could focus on something else besides my feelings.

He reached out and took my hand out of my mouth, moving it down to the table. Without thinking, I wrenched my hand out from under his. Our eyes met. He looked shocked.

“Don’t touch me.”

I couldn’t explain why I felt like sabotaging myself right now, especially since I was still depressed from being so mean to him a few days ago. But here I was, doing it again. Being a bitch.

He put both hands on the table, pushing himself to standing, and leaned forward to glare at me. Pointing one finger at me like I was a disobedient pet, he growled, “stay.” Then he stalked purposefully away to go get some torture device to punish me.

Fucking, whatever.I picked at my dinner again but then pushed the plate away.

Reuben came back and set a plastic box on the table. It was glittery with stickers on the top, one of those makeup boxes for teenagers from the early nineties.What the hell?I looked up at him questioningly. He ignored me, extracting a thick leather strap with buckles and wrapping it around my chest, securing me to the chair. Then he cuffed my ankles to the chair.

Was he going to make me write lines while he teased me again? “I’m not in the mood, Sir,” I complained.

He ignored me.

“You hear me? I don’t want it. I don’t want you to tease me today. I can’t feel anything anyway,” I added as an afterthought. I was numb enough that I didn’t feel anything, but not so numb that I wanted to cut myself open to remind myself I was alive.

He left again and came back with a strange plywood board. It had nails poked into it in strategic places, and strips of leather sticking out of it. One hand at a time, he uncurled my fingers and set my palm down on the board, my fingers separated and splayed out by the nails in the wood. The strips of leather attached to the wood wrapped around my wrists, essentially securing my hands to the board with my fingers splayed.

“Great. Now I can’t pick my fingers, but I can’t eat either.”

“Well, you said you weren’t hungry. Open.”

“Huh–” he slid a ball gag into my mouth, buckling it behind my head before I had time to calculate what was going on.

“I’ve noticed something about you, pretty little monster. You said you liked to write things down to figure out how you feel, but you also need to say them. And lately, you haven’t been talking to me.” He sat down in the chair beside me, angling himself so he was directly across from me.

“Now I understand you’re stressed and upset with this bullshit with Woodrow. It’s hurting you more than you’d like to admit. And I know you’re depressed because you feel like an asshole for how you acted the other day. But you’ve already been forgiven for that, and you’re dragging it out by not forgiving yourself.”

He opened the box, and extracted... a nail file?

“Hmm?” was all I could say.

“Now, we have a rule about you taking care of your body. It belongs to me, and I don’t want you to hurt it.” He scooted closer, angling the nail file and began smoothing out the ridges of the thumbnail I’d gnawed on, brushing his finger against it to check that it wasn’t sharp. He moved to the next one.

“And in case you’ve forgotten since this morning... you belong to me. That means your body belongs to me, and I can touch you whenever I want to. If that means bringing you pleasure... or pain... or comfort... or using your body to comfort myself. You are mine, and you need to remember that.”

My throat thickened and my eyes burned with emotion. I loved hearing him talk to me like this, all bossy and possessive. But I just didn’t feel like I deserved it.

“Now, if you have anything you’d like to say, feel free to say it. Maybe once you get it out, it’ll be easier for you to talk about. In the meantime...” he pulled out a few bright colors. Red, orange, and yellow. “I think you need some fire. Since you’re my bright, beautiful phoenix.”

The tears spilled over and I shook from the relief.

“I know you’re dying right now.” He leaned over and kissed the top of my hand, peering back up at me. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll be here for you. You just say what you need to say, get it out, and let it hurt. Then you’ll be able to breathe again.”

I sobbed for a few moments. He paused his painting of my nails and took the napkin beside my bowl, dabbing at my eyes, kissing my forehead, and returning to his chore.

He was right, too. I needed to yell and scream and get my thoughts out the way Bea had today, but I didn’t want to hurt him again. The thought of his red rimmed eyes and the thickness in his voice when he’d spoken to me had broken me.

With the gag in my mouth, knowing he couldn’t understand a damn thing, I could let the words flow.

I told him how angry I was about Woodrow, about how assholes like him always had protection because of their money. I told him what a useless fuckup I felt like, for hurting him and rejecting him when all he’d ever done was try to take care of me. I told him I felt like I’d betrayed Augustus Quinn by falling in love with someone else. And I told him I loved him, over and over, until it wasn’t so scary to say anymore... until it felt right in my mouth.

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