Page 46 of Brutal Captivity

“Shh—it’s okay… You didn’t jeopardize anything, I’m sure,” I hush, but Leo clutches his chest, his breaths coming out in sharp gasps. He slams his head against the wall again, this time much harder. I jump out of my skin every time his skull makes a dull thud against the tile. I continue to try to soothe him, but it’s not working. Nothing I say is working, so I do the only thing I can think to do. I kick off my socks and climb into the stall with him.

“I did!” Leo yells the second my bare feet hit the wet shower floor. “I fucked everything up. She saw me. She knows me! She’s going to tell someone, and we’ll get caught, and the whole family is going to be taken down because I couldn’t fucking do it. I couldn’t kill her.”

“Shh.” I bend down and pat Leo on the shoulder, trying to get him to stop hitting his head against the wall, but he keeps doing it, broken words woven between each thud.

“I was so fucking selfish.”

Thud.

“I couldn’t kill her.”

Thud.

“And now we’ll all be punished.”

Thud.

“They ‘ll all die.”

Thud.

“I’ll lose my family all over again.”

Thud.

“I deserve it, though.”

Thud.

“Just like the first time.”

Thud.

“I betrayed them, and now I’ll lose them, and it’ll be my fault.”

Thud.

“All my fault because I’m a fucking coward who couldn’t do my job.”

Thud.

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay that you didn’t kill her,” I soothe, wedging my hand between his head and the shower wall.

When he fights me, trying to pry my fingers away, I don't have any other choice. I drop down between his legs, pressing my body flush against his. I use my other arm to corral him, wrapping his arms around me. If he wants to slam his head against the wall, he will have to slam it into me first. After a few agonizing moments, he stops fighting and pulls my body closer, hugging me tightly, as if I can somehow stop his world from falling into oblivion.

I don’t even notice that the floor is pooling with water, or that my soaked clothes are heavy and freezing against my skin. I don't care that Leo is completely naked while I’m fully clothed. All I care about is comforting the man I have only known as my captor, so I thread my fingers through his wet hair and hold him tight. Maybe I have started to become the captor in all of this.

“He told me to kill her, and I couldn’t. He’s going to kill me instead, but I don’t care. I deserve it. I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t. It’ll be my fault when I lose them, but I couldn’t.” Leo’s cracked voice is muffled by my shoulder, his large hands gripping the fabric of my hoodie, hanging on for dear life.

I press my hands into his damp thighs, stroking his cold skin to calm him down, but his entire body is shaking so violently under my fingers it feels like I’m attempting to touch something that isn’t even in the same dimension. A fuzzy depiction of something that used to be here but is no more.

“How will Peadar find out that you let Violet live? I don’t think Daron or any of the others will tell him.” I try to use logic to halt his hyperventilating. I trace over the tattoos on his arm for lack of anything better to do. Some of them are rough sketches, as if he wanted to mark important moments in his life, but others are much more intricate. Like the compass that points to the word *home*. I trace over the tiny letters, wishing I could have given Leo a home. A real one.

“They are loyal to him,” Leo answers after a few moments. His body isn’t trembling as much now, no longer resembling a structure being dismantled by an earthquake. Whatever I’m doing is working, so I move on to a different tattoo, tracing the large, intricate bird on his forearm. It’s beautifully done, and I am starting to understand why people love tattoos. It’s placing art on yourbody the same way I would hang a canvas on my wall. Leo didn’t have a wall, though. All he had was his skin.

“They’re more loyal to you. They revolve around you like planets do the sun,” I scoff, completely dumbfounded by his answer. Does he not realize that those men do everything he says? They would follow him off a cliff if he told them to, and I am beginning to see the appeal. He is so strong and sure, even when he is trembling on a shower floor. He’s like the beacon in a lighthouse, guiding someone to their destination. So bright I can’t ignore it, but it hurts if I look at it for too long. He is magnetic. He is a leader.

“I know you don’t understand, but they’re my family. They’re the only family I have. The first one abandoned me, and now I may lose this one.” Leo sits up to look at me. The only life left in his steely eyes is the dull reflection of unshed tears. He looks hollow and defeated. His dark auburn hair is matted to his forehead, three days of dark scruff littering his cheeks.