I drove my knee into his gut.
He barely moves.
“What are you afraid of?” I snarl. “That I will laugh when I see you?”
I try again, but he grabs me and spins me around so my back faces him. The knife slides down, then cuts. My thong falls away.
“If you want to kill me, then kill me,” I shout, twisting in the chains.
His hand cracks against my ass. I can feel the heat across my skin.
I gasp.
“Psycho,” I spit.
He hits me again.
“Shut. Up,” he says with his broken voice, right in my ear as he turns me back to face him.
“You will never shut me up.” I spit on his mask again.
He wipes it away. I see his chest rising and falling now.
I’m getting to him. I can feel it.
He turns to me once more, pressing close. The knife traces up my inner thigh, then slides across my right cheek. His hand comes down again.
“Mine,” he growls.
“I will never be yours,” I grind out through my teeth.
The blade presses into my skin. He draws the first curve, then a line. Another circle. A slash from the top down. I hiss and move, but he holds me still, pressing deeper on the last letter.
I don’t need to see it to know what’s written across my ass cheek.
“Chaos,” he murmurs.
He straightens, his hand sliding over my bloody skin, smearing it upward. He spins me to face him and drags the red across my lips.
“Mine,” he says again, pulling me closer.
He presses the mask to my face and kisses me through cold plastic.
A tear slips down my cheek. Not just because he carved his name into my skin, but because the sting reminds me of everything I did to myself, every damn day for the last two years.
“Mine,” he says again, stepping back.
This time, I have no words left. I just stand there, chained, staring at him through blurred vision.
The day I lost Judas, I cut the hair tie from my wrist. I knew I wouldn’t be able to distract myself with it anymore, so I punished myself instead. Over and over. I never blamed him. I blamed myself. I told myself I wasn’t enough.
It is easier to tear myself apart than to tear him down.
And even now, I still hope he will save me.
“If my brother were alive, he would skin you for what you did to me,” I shout.
He laughs. Tilts his head from side to side, studying me.
