Page 54 of Everything Under the Sun
Atticus shook his head glumly and looked at the floor.
I shoved the gun toward him. “Tell me!”
“It was better for you both that you didn’t know!” he shouted back. “You needed to get on with your new lives here, to accept them. If you knew your sister was under my protection, your hope of being reunited with her would’ve strengthened. And I didn’t need you strong; I needed to break you—”
“Break me?” I shoved the gun in the air toward him vigorously. “Break me?” I was repulsed and confused and a million other things I couldn’t name—and it was enough to distract me.
Before I could react, Atticus dropped to the floor and grabbed me by the ankles. I shrieked as gravity betrayed me and my body fell backward; I heard the gun clank against the tile. My arms went up instinctively above my head as the ceiling zipped by in my vision; my hair swished across the floor like a mop as my body was pulled toward him. I screamed, writhing in his grasp, and tried to roll over and crawl away, but found myself effortlessly wedged between his powerful legs, his knees pressed against the tile on both sides of my waist.
“Let me go!” My arms went wild with movement; my flimsy fists beat against his chest until he grabbed both of my wrists in only one of his hands and bound them in front of me.
“I said let go of me!”
“Be quiet!” he roared into my face. “Just stop!”
“LET ME GO!”
“NO!”
Finally, I relented, having no other choice.
I glared up at him as he hovered over me like a giant. I watched his strong, sculpted jaw covered by a week’s worth of facial hair move rigidly behind his cheeks; his blue eyes pierced me intensely; I could feel the strength of his hands, one binding both wrists, the other now around my throat, just under my chin, though he wasn’t putting enough pressure on it to hurt me.
ATTICUS
“I didn’t want to do what I did,” I ripped the words out. “And I’ve been wracking my goddamned brain since that day, trying to figure out a way to make both of your lives, and the lives of other women here, right and fair!”
What the fuck is happening to me? I thought. Am I confiding in this girl? Am I forcing her to listen to my confessions as if she could somehow absolve me of them? But I knew she couldn’t—no one could. I knew I deserved no absolution; and even if by the Grace of God she gave it, I wouldn’t accept it. Because, fuck that.
Slowly my hand fell away from her throat. Her bright eyes looked up at me full of heartbreak, pain I had caused her, and I wished she had just pulled the damn trigger.
I glanced over at the gun on the floor, and then moved off of her to retrieve it. I checked the chamber and found it was loaded, then I shoved it underneath my mattress.
Thais stood up.
I couldn’t look at her.
“Why are you even here?” she asked. “In this city.”
She was no longer afraid of me—I was afraid of her, and I wasn’t even close to understanding why. I didn’t want to know. No matter what it was, it could only end a handful of ways, and not one of them did I believe were in either of our best interests.
I went back over to my desk and sat down, slouching against the chair, interlocking my fingers over my stomach. I stared at the wall.
The soft padding of Thais’ bare feet moving across the floor toward me made me acutely aware of her, aware that something about her had changed. I glanced at her uncomfortably from the corner of my eye.
Her steps were slow and deliberate; her hips swished beneath her dress. She moved between my splayed legs, and stopped. I couldn’t move at first, confused by what was happening, or what I thought might be happening. I looked up at her, and she reached out her hand and went to touch my cheek; my hand shot up and clamped around her wrist, stopping her.
“What are you doing?” I asked incredulously, wishing the chair had wheels so I could roll it backward and away from her—it would be kinder than shoving her onto the damn floor.
THAIS
My face heated to an embarrassing temperature, so hot it felt like the blood was on fire beneath my cheeks. I lowered my eyes to avoid his, felt an uncomfortable pang in my stomach. I had never tried to seduce a man before. I knew nothing of the art of seduction, but I knew men didn’t usually turn women down. I felt ridiculous and unattractive suddenly.
I took several steps back, folded my hands together down in front of me, and lowered my eyes in shame.
“I-I just thought it might be what you wanted.”
“What?” There was an edge of disbelief in his voice. Or was it disgust? I couldn’t tell.
