Sam walks in with a smile on his face. It’s quite an interesting expression. Triumphant and satisfied. He looks like a man who just took revenge.
Am I starting to read him better? Or has he infected me somehow, with a mind virus of sorts, or one of empathy? A connection has been forged between us, I think. I can feel things I shouldn’t be able to feel. I know things I can’t know.
“Everything good here?” He addresses the question to the doctor, while dropping a kiss on my head.
“The patient is doing well,” the doctor replies with a wink at me. “Cerebus and I need to be going though.”
“Of course. Thank you for helping as long as you did.”
The doctor leaves and Sam makes himself coffee. I watch him, while trying to form the question I want to ask, and not really knowing what that question even is.
“What now, Sam?”
He looks at me. “Hearing you use my first name so casually is interesting,” he muses. “I did tell you to call me Sir, but I suppose you’ve earned the right.”
“I have classes to attend today,” I say.
“You can go,” he says. “I was going to keep you in, but that’s because I was concerned I couldn’t control the world.”
“You’ve worked out how to do that since this morning?”
“In a manner of speaking.” He grins broadly with a satisfaction I know he can’t hide. He definitely got revenge somehow. He did something that reaffirmed his ability to punish and dominate and control the world around him. I can only imagine the horror he has unleashed.
I know I should be repulsed, but I feel some pride. I try to dissociate myself from it, telling myself that I am better than this. I am a good person. He is not.
“Where were you? Just now, I mean?” I ask, pushing the issue. I know he doesn’t want to tell me, but I also have this sense that it matters.
“I was consulting on a crime,” he says. “I do psychological profiles for the FBI when they call on me.”
“And it was a crime that made you not worry about me leaving the house again?”
He smiles again, and I just fucking know he did it. I know it the same way I know Dave is dead somewhere. Nobody threatens Sam. Nobody tells him what to do, or how to do it. He does precisely what he pleases, whenever he pleases. Using me is one of many expressions of that vicious streak of independence.
“You’ve done something bad,” I say.
He grins again, walks over to me, and kisses me deeply.
“There is no good or bad in this world, sweetheart. There’s just what keeps us safe, and what dares threaten us.”
So he’s on a vengeful rampage. For me. Well, he thinks it is for me. But I don’t really exist to him the way I exist to myself. Sam defends me because I am the most precious thing to him in the world. I am his. A thing he owns. I am his to protect, but I am also his property.
I realize in this moment of fierce possession that he is not the only one who needs his independence.
I can’t live like a captive, or a dog. I have spent my entire life trying to free myself and I know I’m on the verge of doing it.
Besides, whoever drugged and kidnapped me did it because of him, not me. So I’ll be safer on my own too. There’s literally no reason to stay with Sam aside from the fact he’s a murderous psychopath, and that’s a very poor reason.
I’ve reached a point that I knew was coming from the moment we met. If I don’t do something now, and I do mean right fucking now, Sam is going to own me forever.
It might already be too late, but I have to try. It’s the last sane thing to do. It’s the only sane thing to do.
I have to run.
CHAPTER 14
Sam
I drive Laura to school the next morning. We are not supposed to be dating, of course, but I cannot imagine anyone having the nerve to bring the matter up. I watch her cute little ass sashay into classes and have the satisfaction of knowing that she is protected properly. I am prepared to do literally anything to keep her safe. I am also prepared to enjoy everything I do in service of that goal.
