Page 38 of One for the Money

Cracking open my eyes, I discovered I’d been taken to my bedroom. I wasn’t wearing the clothes I’d put on this morning. Instead, I was wrapped up in my silk robe. Erik appeared and helped me sit up, stuffing pillows behind me to rest against. My eyes widened at the sight of the wicked black eye he was sporting. His skin was so light the dark purple of the bruise stood out rather alarmingly.

Before I could ask what happened, Bear climbed into the bed on my other side, offering me a glass with a bendy straw. I tried to take the cup, but he refused to let go, urging me with a jerk of his chin to use the straw. Not having the fucks to spare, I accepted his help and gulped down as much water as I could before needing to come up for air. Feeling their gazes on me was overwhelming and uncomfortable for reasons I couldn’t explain, so I closed my eyes and relaxed against the pillows.

“Hey, little siren,” Erik coaxed, resting a hand on my knee as if testing to see if I’d pull away.

Not opening my eyes, feeling it was easier to stay in the darkness, I answered. “Sup?”

“This might sound like a strange question, but what’s the last thing you remember?” Erik asked.

A flood of images streaked across my memory, a hellish mix of past and present, making it hard to know what really happened. “I was making popcorn and going to watch a movie,” I offered since it was the last concrete memory I had.

“Do you remember talking to Bear or me finding you?” Erik pressed as if he didn’t believe me.

“I am in no mood to play memory games right now, fire crotch,” I shot back. “Just tell me what the fuck happened and stop pussyfooting around the damn thing.”

Erik’s gaze flicked over to Bear for a moment before resting on me. “You had another PTSD episode, and I’m trying to figure out what might have triggered it. I know right after coming out of an episode, it can be hard to remember anything, and some people never remember.”

“Look, you don’t need to worry about this. It’s not your problem… it’s mine,” I stated. “I’ve been dealing with this since I was about eighteen. On occasion, when things get a little stressful like they are now, they get a little worse. No big deal.”

“No big deal,” Erik repeated, shaking his head and letting out a huff of laughter. “Look, you might be able to bully your way into making everyone else around you leave this subject alone, but that’s not going to work on me.”

Who the fuck did this man think he was spouting off shit like that?

Moving much slower than normal, I grabbed a fistful of Erik’s shirt and got up in his face. “I’m so sorry that’s not going to work for you, but news flash, I don’t give a fuck. In this house, I’m the top bitch in charge, and no one is going to order me around. I’ve been through hell and back to get where I am, and if for one second you think using this against me will work, then I might as well kill you now and save myself the trouble later.”

Erik didn’t flinch in the face at my outburst or show any signs of being concerned about my threat. “Von, if you want to kill me, I can’t stop you. Just know if you don’t deal with whatever ghost is haunting your memory, there will come a time when you do something that can’t be undone and realize it too late.”

“See, that’s the difference between you and me… there is nothing in this world I care about enough to feel regret,” I gloated.

The smirk that appeared on his face made me want to slap it off of him, but I wouldn’t let him goad me like that. “So you’re telling me that if you woke up from your nightmare and discovered you killed Bear, thinking it was the man you kept calling Master, you’d have no regrets?”

I didn’t have to imagine what that would look like. The memory of when I found Bear near death appeared in my mind’s eye. Of course, I didn’t know him then as I do now, but the horror that flooded my body at the mere thought of it being me who’d done that to him proved Erik’s point.

“That would never happen,” I argued.

“But it has, in the shower,” Erik reminded me. “You clawed the shit out of him and even tried to gouge out his eyeballs before he got me.”

“No, that was different. I’d just been choked out by you,” I snapped. “My body was still calming down from that, and it's the only reason it happened. None of this was a problem until you showed up. One more reason for me to just kill you.” My voice had gotten louder and louder until I was screaming at him.

Erik reached down to grab something and offered me the knife I always kept in my boot. “Here, use this. It will be easier to kill me this way.”

“You want me to kill you?” I questioned.

“Von, you’ve made it clear that death was always waiting around the corner for me. So why fight something I can’t change? But before you kill me, do you want to know why I have your knife?” Erik inquired, his whole demeanor relaxed and confident.

“What, is this some trick to get me not to kill you?” I challenged.

He simply shook his head and remained silent, waiting for my answer. Growling in frustration, I snatched the blade out of his hand and let the flat part of the knife rest against his throat. “Tell me.”

“Bear had to leave the property, but before he did, he told me to join you in the movie room so you weren’t alone. Franzi showed me the way after making sure I’d eaten… sweet lady, that old bird,” Erik shared, acting as if his life wasn’t going to end with the simple twist of a knife. “When I entered the movie room, I found you cutting yourself, but when that wasn’t enough pain, you fucking ground the butt of the blade into them. I yelled and tried to get the knife away from you, which is when you absolutely lost your fucking shit, raving like a mad woman. This shiner, all you, babe. Thank fuck Fanzi was still close by and ran up to grab something so I could knock your ass out before your own brain could kill you.”

Stunned, I jerked away and dropped the knife. “No…” I gasped, trying to breathe. “No, no, no! It can’t be happening again. He’s back, but He can’t be.” My hands curled into my hair, tugging roughly at the roots. “I killed him. Chopped him up into teeny tiny pieces so they could never put him back together again. He’s dead.”

Panic clawed at me, or I thought it was until Erik grabbed my hands and yanked them away from my body to stop me from doing any real damage to myself.

“Look at me, Von,” Erik barked out in such a commanding voice I couldn’t do anything but comply. “That’s it, look right here at me. Now, who am I?”

The image of my master’s face and Erik seemed to be shifting back and forth, making it hard to know what was real and what wasn’t.