TORTURE ME_ The Bandits MC(11)

Fiona flushed with embarrassment, feeling like she was about two feet tall, even though she was standing at her full height above him. Somehow, he had a way of verbally dismantling her, taking her apart like everything she ever said was a weak assembly of Legos. It’s a good thing, she tried to remind herself internally. He challenges you. That’s important. But somehow, she still felt sick with shame, her entire body shaking a little even as she planted her feet and tried to stand strong.



“I want you,” she began carefully, choosing her words like they were weapons, sharpened for precision, “to respect me. That means letting me make decisions about my own life, Carl.”



“Isn’t it our life now, though?” Carl argued back.



“No,” Fiona replied without a single moment of hesitation, stepping forward so that she closed the space between their two bodies, tilting her chin down to look him in the eyes. “It’s mine…it’s….it’s a part of my life, not yours. It’s none of your business.”



Carl was quiet a moment, twisting his mouth to the side in a slight grimace. Fiona hated that. She wished he’d just get pissed like a normal person instead of just doing this passive aggressive bullshit. Even though it’d scare her, maybe it would be better if he’d just yell at her, scream his lungs out, get in her face, get red-faced and mad. At least then she’d know where she stood. Instead, Fiona was always terrified by default whenever she had to disagree with him or disappoint him, doing something that would make him unhappy or at least fail to make him happier.



“It could be my business, you know, if you’d let it. You’re the only reason, Fiona, that it’s not. You’re the only thing standing in the way. Why don’t you let me get to know your life better, huh? Why don’t you let me see your past?”



“Because he’s a part of my past that I would rather keep separate from my present,” Fiona explained, the words spilling out of her like water out of a spring. But she felt the sick sensation of desperation start climbing its way up her throat, filing her mouth with brackish bile. She swallowed it down, her throat working hard to clear the taste out of her mouth, even as the rest of her body remained still, frozen on the spot, staring down at Carl. “I’m…I’m sorry,” she said with a sigh, feeling herself deflate as she spoke the apology, effectively accepting defeat. Oh, well. She had used up all her strength for the day, and she couldn’t afford to dip into the allotment for tomorrow.



“What’s so bad about your past?” Carl asked casually, as if it wasn’t the stupidest fucking question she’d ever heard. That’s not fair, she berated herself as soon as her anger started to fade. It’s not stupid. He’s a good person. He’s whole. He’s undamaged. He doesn’t understand people like you.



Fiona sighed again and reached up to pull her hair down from the tight bun she’d collected it in earlier, letting her red locks cascade down around her shoulders. “There’s a lot of things…there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me,” she said softly, brushing the random coppery strands of hair out of her face, pushing them behind her ears out of habit.



“Like what?” Carl replied.



Fiona smiled, trying to break the tension between their two bodies. “Like how stubborn I am,” she said, a teasing tone to her voice. Carl took the bait, smiling back at her rather than pushing the issue further.



“Come give me a hug,” he said, reaching out his arms in invitation for her to crush herself against his chest. Instead, she leaned in and kissed him on the top of his head, brushing his hair back from his forehead.



“I’ll get dinner started,” she said, turning away from him to march off into the kitchen.



She’d keep her secrets safe inside of her like a thousand knives embedded in her chest. If she pulled them out, she might bleed, she might gush and gush and never heal. But as long as they were deeply inserted, away from anyone else’s prying eyes, she could go on. She could pretend to be a person. That was the way her life was going to go, as soon as she got this one last thing out of the way.



Fiona was going to say goodbye to the little girl who’d been chained up in a dark cellar, cut into again and again by a man who didn’t know or care that she was human, too. She was going to finally leave that part of her life behind, after one last, prolonged look.



She wasn’t going back to the city to save a girl, not really. She was going to bury one.





Chapter Four