He calls you worthless but he wants you just the same.
He’ll always protect you.
“I don’t believe it,” I insist, more to myself than him. “You’d never accept such a contract. The soldiers could never come before me.”
He lets out a laugh, a dry, humorless one, as he takes a step forward, still cocking his gun at me. “Theydocome before you. Everyone and everything comes before you. You will always come dead fucking last.”
Each word is like a blow to my gut. It’s insane, after everything he’s done to me, that those words are what gets to me. Insane that he’s got a gun trained on me but it’s those words that make me fall apart.
Dead fucking last.
I didn’t come first for the person who birthed me, and I sure as fuck don’t for the person who’s about to end my life. I’ve never come first for anyone. Even when I imagined I did. Have I ever even mattered? Is my life meaningless?
I guess I matter to myself. But when my consciousness ends, who will carry me in their thoughts?
I guess he’s right. I really am worthless.
“That’s not why I’m doing this,” he adds stiffly, taking a few steps toward me, stopping when he’s so close that my insides clench at the spicy heat rising from his body. Then my skin pebbles with goosebumps when the cold barrel of his gun presses against my forehead.
“I’m doing it because you’re a fucking snake and you deserve to die a slow death.” He’s inches away as he breathes, “But I won’t give you what you deserve. I will give you a quick one. I won’t make you suffer.”
“Quill–” I blurt out, trying and failing to stop the tears from bubbling up in my eyes.
“DON’T SAY MY FUCKING NAME!”
I squeeze my eyes shut, my whole body stiffening at what I fully expect to be the moment he shoots, my life coming to a sudden, abrupt end.
But I’m still breathing moments later, and I pop one eye open, then the other.
“You fucking worthless whore,” he spits out, and although I should be used to hearing them by now, each word is like an icepick to my heart.
I don’t know why I decide to rebel at them at this very moment. I guess I’ve reached a hard limit.
“You’re the one who made me one,” I choke out.
The barrel of his gun is still against my head, but his finger isn’t on the trigger anymore. I let out a ragged breath.
“You’rethe one who fucked my friends,” he hisses, like I repulse him.
The rebellion turns into fucking war. Because how the hell can he look me in the eye and say those fucking words?
I dig past the layers of pain and silence to get at the truth. “Only because you told them to!” I shriek. “What the fuck was I even supposed to do? I don’t stand a chance against the two ofthem! They held me down! They drugged me! I couldn’t fucking do a thing about it! You destroyed me that night…” I’m wiping the tears and snot coating my face, no longer caring about the gun threatening me, my body shaking uncontrollably. “Fuck you for taking everything from me, and then for calling me worthless. Fuck you. Fuck you.Fuck you.”
By now, I’m crying, loud, guttural sobs that make my whole core convulse. I barely notice that the barrel of his gun has left my forehead. Nor do I notice his prolonged silence, until he speaks again, his voice slow and quiet.
“What are you talking about, Piper?”
“FUCK YOU!” I’m back to screaming, my eyes screwed shut from all the pain that’s making my insides ache. “I hate you! I hate your fucking guts! You know very well what I’m talking about, so fucking kill me already! Get it the fuck over with, you monster!”
“Piper.” He says my name again, just as quietly as before, but his voice has an urgent quality. “Please tell me what you’re talking about.”
I open my eyes at last, staring at him through a veil of tears and the thick, fogged-up lenses of my glasses. Something in me twists, wondering if maybe… maybe… could I have it all wrong?
No. I’m fisting my hands at my sides, unwilling to fall into that trap again.Never again.
“Kill me, Quill,” I order.
“You were smiling in the picture,” he says, his voice so deathly quiet that I shiver, part of my anger somehow turning to fear.
