“Why?”I whisper, small enough I hope Cassius can’t hear.
Because when you live, we matter,the kneecap ghost says.
And we like him weak,the grocery-store man adds.Weak men make mistakes.
“So you’re helping me because you hope it’ll eventually hurt him?”
The possibility is definitely a perk,he admits.
Not for all,Gideon murmurs.Some of us love him.We’ll help you because you’re his.And because he’s ours.
“Ready?”Cassius asks.I nod, because every day, until he forgives me, until he believes me, I’ll choose this.
The ghosts settle like dust.Today it’s nylon.The knot is different, tighter, and my wrists sit high and wrong in front of me.My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.It’s been hours since water.I draw my knees in; the cold from the concrete climbs the bones of my shins.He’s already taught me how to escape three other kinds of rope.
“You said we were done with this one,” I rasp.
Cassius is a black tower in the corner.Unmoving.Much like my other spectators.Arms crossed, weight still, ring and watch winking when he shifts.“I said we’d stop when you stopped hesitating.”
The hesitation is the thing he’s trying to kill.The pause.The doubt.The freeze.The part of me that waits to be saved.I get it.I do.But I’m not like him.I’m not like this.The alley man smiles at nothing.No one is.Until they are.A tear slips down my cheek, and I don’t even bother wiping it away.Cassius doesn’t react.Just points to the knot again.
“You have ten minutes,” he says.“Then we move on to blindfolds and gag removal.”
Something inside me wants to scream.I’m not a soldier.I’m not some vigilante assassin trained to cut throats and chew through restraints.I’m a book editor.I like tea and quiet afternoons and boring men who remember birthdays.
Except—I was taken.I was defenseless.And that changed everything.
So, I close my eyes, push past the thirst, and work on the knot.I stack the numbers until they make a roof in my mind.In three.Out five.In seven.Odd is the hand at the back of my neck.Odd is what comforts me in the basement because Cassius won’t.Not unless I use the word.Not unless I quit.I taste the word we chose,odd, and let the letters sit under my tongue like medicine.
Fingers numb.Sweat at the hinge of my jaw.Nylon bites.A tremor and the sweat that beads at the base of my spine slides to my tailbone.I breathe around it.I stop fighting the knot; I start flirting with it instead.Space, not force.Millimeters, not miracles.I feel the turn I can’t see, the give that’s almost nothing.I slip one knuckle, then another.The rope slides.My wrists come free.
A sound tears out of me, not a cry so much as a release.The kneecap ghost tilts his head, finally freaking approving.The alley man looks bored, so much for his support.Gideon nods once:told you.
Cassius’s jaw ticks.“Better.Water.Take five minutes.”
I crawl to the bottle and drink.My hands shake.Vision swims.Upstairs, I leave the bathroom tap hissing just to hear something that isn’t my own breath.But even with the water rushing and the overhead fan humming, I hear the ropes in my head.Feel the tightness on my wrists.The phantom gag in my mouth.The weight of his expectations.
The dead follow me in.The kneecap ghost sits on the tub lip and dangles his ruined leg.The grocery creep fogs the mirror with breath he doesn’t have.The alley man stands in the doorway and looks past me.
My knees hit tile before I realize I’m sinking.I fold over the tub rim, forehead to porcelain, and the crying arrives without warning, a wave that steals air and leaves my hands tingling.
I want to be strong.I also want this to stop.I’ve lost pieces of myself in that basement.You’re not cut out for this,kneecap says.Couldn’t agree more, buddy.
The door creaks.I don’t turn.I don’t want him to see me shaking.I wait for the order to breathe, to fight harder, to be better, more alert, less human.
Instead, he kneels.“Lindy girl,” he says, gravel wrapped in silk.
“I can’t keep doing this.”My voice catches.“I’m not you.I’m not steel and vengeance.I’m exhausted.”
“I know that, darling.You are sweet and perfect and soft.The only thing that’s ever been able to turn theMachineoff.”He gathers me backward into his lap on the bathroom floor.His forehead presses to mine.Our breaths mingle.Our pain mingles.One hand moves down my spine.The other comes low over my stomach like he’s holding all the soft in place, keeping it from tumbling out of me like stuffing.
“I need you to hear something that isn’t pretty,” he says.“I don’t believe you yet.And I hate that.I’ve never given anyone a second chance to hurt me.Hell, I’ve never given anyone a first chance.Holding this anger in one hand and you in the other is… I’m bad at it.”
“You can’t use this as a way to punish me.”
“I swear to you, Lindy, I’ve never once thought that’s what this is.You’re not broken,” he whispers into my hair.“You’re becoming.You don’t have to be like me.You just have to survive.That’s all I’m trying to teach you.You think Iwantto hurt you?You think I don’t die a little every time you flinch?”
“Then why do this at all?”I ugly-cry into his shirt.When the worst passes, he tips my chin with a knuckle and I have to meet the furnace of his eyes.
