Then Gabe, tending to my injuries, dabbing antiseptic with a sympathetic frown.
“No!” I wailed when Rafael grabbed my leg, held my foot up. “No no no—”
“What’s wrong?” Theo whispered, his voice thick with sleep as he reached for me, his warm hands wrapping back around my stomach to tug me into his space again. I closed my eyes and tried to relax into him, pushing away the remnants of the dream, the nightmare forever lurking under my sane mind.
“I…” I tried to say, but winced when the words wouldn’t come. I so desperately wanted his touch to soothe me, to calm me, to sink into him and be loved and safe. It’s all I needed, but it wouldn’t come. When I tried to shift away from him, he gripped me tighter, his grasp firm on my hips.
“Don’t go,” he demanded softly. “Tell me what’s going on. Let me in. Let me help.”
Tears welled up in my eyes at the sensation of his hands on my skin. I knew what my body needed, what my mind craved. He’d done it before, it had worked before. It took me a few beats to build up the courage, but in the softness of the shadows, that didn’t matter. “Hurt me,” I whispered, half-hoping Theo would have fallen back to sleep so he didn’t hear my shame. “I think I need you to hurt me again.”
“No.” Theo sat up, flicked the lamp light on and looked down at me, his hair mussed and pillow creases on his cheeks, but his eyes so awake again. “Never again, Vi.”
“Like before,” I whispered, rolling over to study his face but keeping myself curled up. When he’d hurt me before, when I’d asked it of him and he did it, my own direction, and made me feel good during, it was… it was what I needed. I needed it now. Pain for the sake of pleasure, to take away the memories of the pain for suffering, for torture. A replacement. “Like in the motel, Theo, please.”
“Violet, what are you saying?” Theo looked even more awake now, his eyes intense, his mouth turned down in a frown. Lying down, I reached my fingers up and stroked his cheek before cupping his chin, making him look at me, eye to eye, our noses almost brushing. I needed him to understand, to see behind his eyes that he did.
“He hurt me with a blade that first night,” I whispered, opening a little of myself up to that pain, the memories I’d pushed as deep as I could. Theo had yet to ask me about what Rafe did, the intricate details anyway, but I knew he wanted to. This was me, sharing myself. “He sliced at my skin all over my body after he found me halfway through killing myself.”
Theo sucked in a breath of shock, his eyes widening. His hand reached out for me, then pulled back, unsure what to do with himself.
“The marks I’d given myself,” I said, my voice only a fraction above silent, “he added to them, he criss-crossed slices across my entire body, Theo. None of them deep enough to scar, but I can still feel them…”
Theo was dark, pensive. “What do you need from me?” he asked.
“Let me show you, please.”
Seven
Theo
TherazorbladeinViolet’s hand made me wince. She grasped it in her palm, the thin piece of sharp metal glinting in the dull light coming through from the bedroom.
This was… this was wrong. But it was what she wanted, so I held myself back from snatching the blade away.
We were both half-naked, sleep-dazed, trying to come round from her nightmare. She seemed more switched on that me, having grabbed the razor from our shared toiletry bag before prying it open to free the blade.
I only watched, confused, and fucking concerned for where this was going. I told her there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her, but this… I didn’t like this.
Violet squeezed her hand shut and huffed out a scant breath as a drop of blood dripped from her fist and onto the floor between our feet.
“Stop it,” I said to her, almost without meaning to. My hands reached for her, but I didn’t stop her, didn’t touch. Her eyes snapped to mine, and I withdrew my hand again. The determination there was something else.
There was a fierceness in them, a protectiveness. Was she trying to shield herself from me? Fuck that.
My mind flittered back to what she’d told me about her wedding night, what happened after we’d had that magical, taboo moment together where we took our first steps into this. It made me so damn furious I could hardly breathe. The hellscape she’d walked into after I fucked her… it ruptured me, hurt so deep it only confirmed I would do anything for her.
Including watching her harm herself if that’s what she wanted.
Here she was, finding a way through it while I felt infirm.
“I can’t stop,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, pleading. “Theo, I’m sorry.” She squeezed the blade harder and yelped as the blood poured faster, but her expression flashed with life as tears flooded her eyes and fell down her cheeks. “Please…”
I yanked her hand to me, fucking done prying her fingers open to get that damn blade out of her grip. Tears streamed down her face as she fought me, but I got it free, the thing slicing my own palm in the process, mixing our blood, making me hiss.
“Cut me, please,” she muttered, begged, as she struggled. “Like he did.”
“I won’t do anything he did,” I spat back, angry she could even consider me like him, put us in the same sentence, the same thought. “Don’t you dare ask that of me.” I’d promised, I had, but fuck, to do that? How could she request I do that?
