Page 15 of Brian and Mina's Holiday Hits
“How did she get off the property? We were worried sick.”
“Sure you were, Doc.” He was worried about her ratting out the house was what he was worried about. As far as I’m concerned, Mina has earned the right to be a free-range kitty. Her security bracelet won’t be going back on. She could have run. But she didn’t. She could have just let me rot. And now she’s a felon. She’s one of us now.
Mina laughs. “You didn’t give a shit about Brian so why give one about me?”
Everyone in the house actually take a step back from her when she speaks. It’s the same fear they have around me, and it makes me ridiculously happy to see it. Even the shrink finds her threatening which thrills me all the way to the center of my black heart.
“Our girl killed two men today,” I say, flashing them what I’m sure is my most maniacal grin. “I’m so proud.”
More shock. Annette is actually hiding behind Anton. But when I look at Mina, she looks hurt that they’re reacting to her this way. I take her hand and squeeze it.
“Come on,” I say when she turns her attention to me.
A part of me wants to punish everyone here treating her like she’s a threat to them. They’re all so fragile and weak. Normal People. They can’t handle blood or pain or death. They can’t stand to look under the surface of their nice safe life. They believe whatever the people on the TV news box tells them. They believe we live in a world of justice and clearly defined good and evil. And that the good guys always win.
And they will never let someone like me or now Mina pollute or corrupt this happy delusional lie.
Mina picks up a bag and follows me downstairs to the incinerator.
EIGHT
mina
Brian hasme in Cell C, stripped naked and tied to a pole in the middle of the room, facing it. He prowls around me with a single-tail whip. He’s not playing around. A shiver goes down my spine, but I can’t call forth the same fear all the others have toward this man.
I’ve slept in his bed. I’ve seen him cry. I’ve held him after nightmares and run with him on the treadmill. I’ve shared dirty filthy experiences with him and all my vulnerabilities. He’s killed for me. He’s punished for me. So even though I know this won’t be a slap on the wrist, I’m not afraid of this man.
“Tell me, Mina, what are you being punished for?”
His voice has gone to that low terrifying register that would send anyone else into a flurry of panic but just excites me.
“For being a badass?” I quip, looking over my shoulder at him.
He chuckles.
“No. For putting yourself in danger and risking your life for me.”
“You’d do it for me.”
“It’s not the same.”
I want to ask him why it’s not the same. How is it not the same? We’re the same. We share mirroring scars, echoes of each other, like energetic threads that pulled us together until our fates entwined. We’ve both been abused, betrayed, traumatized, abandoned in different ways.
But I can feel Brian closing off to me, and I know he’s finished with this discussion. He doesn’t want to talk about why it’s not the same, why I can’t risk myself for him when he’d do it for me.
I jump when the whip cracks. It doesn’t hit me, but only because he isn’t aiming for me.
“There’s the fear I like.” His whisper carries across the cell before he reaches me, then he’s there, his hand gripping around my throat, forcing me to arch back so he can lick the side of my neck. This is a signature Brian move, and with most I think he does it just to be creepy. With me it’s edged with something more intimate and animalistic.
“I could flay you open with this whip,” he whispers, dragging it up so the leather grazes over my naked body. It draws another shiver from me. “I’m going to make you bleed, but I have other plans.”
This gets my attention. I knew he’d punish me, but the idea that Brian would ever make me bleed is something I’d never truly considered. It feels like betrayal after everything we’ve both been through.
“Master?”
He smirks at my newfound respect for the power dynamic currently in play. “I knew my lost lamb was in there somewhere. So frightened and eager to please. You know what a fan I am of frightened and eager to please. You’ve heard the screams in the dungeon.” His hand trails lower, over my breasts, down my belly, finally settling between my legs.
A moan slips past my lips as he strokes me there. He continues to tease and toy with me until I’m just on the edge, until I could come with the slightest additional provocation, until I’m on the edge of begging him for it. But then he pulls his hand away.
