Marone would never let that happen. I mean, I’ve heard the rumors passing between the guards, one of them or Marone’s buddies going a little too far with the girls. I’ve asked Clara about them, and what happens if it’s true, but whenever she tries to dig, those girls are never to be found.
Thinking about how many have gone missing, I stroke Bunny’s hair, trying to mask my uncertainty with reassuring words. “You won’t. They won’t allow it.”
Something dim washes across her features, stealing all the light and air from the room. With all my ecstasy drained into her, everything comes back into focus, where we are, why we’re here. Our reality is a knife to a moment of dreams—a moment we both needed and that is now gone.
“I wanted to fight,” I admit in a second of silence, feeling unexpectedly vulnerable.
But she’s still lost somewhere in that tangled mind of hers. “What?”
“I wanted to fight,” I repeat, divulging all the dreams that made up who I was before this. I broke down who I wanted to be and how much my parents—mainly my father—hated me for it. My uncle hated me for it, too, I explain, his punishments went far beyond putting me in a barn with animals that actually gave a shit about me. I voiced my dreams and how, for a moment, I believed I could make them a reality. “I was on top of the fucking world when I thought I had it all.” Those final moments play like a movie in my mind, and despite the pain I felt in every inch of my body, I was free. “And then I met him.”
Somber, Bunny leans in, asking, “Who?”
My heart slows when I tell her, but Bunny, she loses her color completely.
“What did he look like?”
I would like to say that I don’t remember—that he wasn’t significant enough to recall—but I memorized every detail of the man who helped ruin my life.
And hers as well.
The invisible string tying us together thickens. I feel Bunny in the deepest parts of me; her pain—her anger. And for the life ofme, I can’t figure out why. All I know is I want to hold on to it, anchor myself against her.
Maybe that way, no one could hurt us again.
There’s no telling how deep into the night we are, but we’ve talked until the silence became nurturing. I found comfort in the way she breathed and peace in knowing she could rest in my presence. For a moment, I could imagine that we were just two people who had chosen each other, and then she spoke.
“We should leave.”
I know.
What I wouldn’t give to do that. “The door is locked.”
Angrily shaking her head, Bunny dips down, attempting to pierce my eyes with the blade in hers. “No.Leave,leave,” she mutters, a snarl in her tone. “As in here, wherever we are.” The pulse in her throat races, and I know she’s serious, beyond it. “We can do it… You and I.”
There’s so much determination in her dilated pupils that I have no choice but to be influenced by it, but before I can agree, the door bursts open, letting in a jovial Culver and Ramirez.
“Rise and fucking shine, children!” Culver laughs, stomping over the crunching carpet in my direction while Ramirez stops to rip his hands through Bunny’s roots, tearing her away from me.
“Motherfucker!” I roar while Bunny screams in terror, erupting the room in explosions of pain and fury. I don’t second-guess the need to fight to reach her when Ramirez’s gun presses against the back of her head. He’s hurting what’s mine; my heart roars. I’m almost off the ground when Culver throws his boot into my chest, stopping my heart to pin me to the floor.
I swing at him when he leans down to gloat, missing him by mere inches. Spit flies from my lips when I roar, “Get the fuck off her!” My hands reach for her, straining beneath the weight of his foot.
“You want her?” I hear him cackle, “Get her! Go get her, tough guy!”
Culver does more than add weight to my chest. He stomps on me with the metal in his heel, fracturing the old cracks in my sternum. I don’t know if it’s the hair pulling from Bunny’s scalp or the muscles shredding beneath my skin, but there’s a vicious ripping in the air. Still, through the agony, I extend myself toward her.
I don’t see the fear in Culver’s eyes as I almost pick myself off the ground. All I focus on is the tears streaming down Bunny’s face when she reaches forme.I should have been paying more attention, though, because while I was fixated on her and the guard tearing her clothes off, he was angling his gun toward the sky, ready to bring it down onto my face.
I didn’t catch it in time. Only when Bunny’s eyes widened in anguish did I realize what was about to happen, but I was too late. I don’t feel the pain of the gun smashing into my nose or the fragments of bone drifting beneath my skin. I don’t feel anything, but darkness comes for me anyway.
I was right.
Even in the darkness, I see her.
Cade
When I come to, I don’t remember a thing. Everything is hazy, and my sight is blurred. As I spend time regaining consciousness, reality becomes clearer. Weakened, I raise my hand, feeling along the wounds on my face until I find the bandage wrapped around my nose.
