Mine

until you make me.”

FIVE A PRESENT

Sunlight steals through the window. Remington isn’t in bed. I twist to scan our cute little cottage but can’t see him anywhere. I force myself to slide out of bed and hop into my track pants, then my sports bra and top.

After freshening up, I grab my sneakers and pad out barefoot to find Diane in the kitchen. “Good morning, Brooke,” she says merrily. I love how she travels with her aprons and gives every one of our hotel rooms such a cozy ambience.

She even travels with her green ceramic pans—ones that don’t shed aluminum, so Remington’s food is completely pure.

“Hmm, it smells divine,” I say as I wander around in search of breakfast.

“Dive in. The big man asked me to set a ton aside for you.”

I lift a bowl of sweet potato hash and munch. “What time did he leave?”

“Pete came and got him a couple of minutes ago.”

“Pete? Not Riley? What gym did he go to?” There’s a knock on the door, and I lick the coconut oil Diane used to cook the hash from my fingers as I go to open it.

“Brooke Dumas?”

A woman stands holding a medium-size box wrapped in red paper but without a bow. “Yes?”

Her smile widens. “Mr. Tate ordered this for you.” She hands me the huge box, and I stare in disbelief.

“Remington sent me this?” I ask stupidly.

“Yes, miss. Enjoy.” I kick the door shut as she leaves, my hands full of the big box of surprise Remington sent me.

Ohmigod. He’s completely unexpected. He not only seduces me with music, with his blue devil eyes, with his spiky hair, with his dimples and his delicious fucking smell, he gets me presents?

I immediately tear the box open and discard the top, and I see lots of white packing peanuts inside. I stick my hand among the bubblelike shapes and feel a bunch of tickles running up my finger. Frowning, I take my hand out, and three enormous scorpions come out attached to it.

For a moment, everything is in slow motion.

Everything.

I can see the insects perfectly moving up my arm. I can see the long, segmented tails. The claw on the tail’s tip, the two claws up front, and the eight legs moving on my forearm. I also dazedly register three black dots on each of their heads, as if they have three eyes. Do scorpions have three eyes?

Everything, I register.

In half a second.

And then, in the very next second, I register something else. That this is one of the most WHAT-THE-FUCK MOMENTS OF MY LIFE.

I fall back and kick the box. A dozen or more scorpions come crawling out as I try shaking off the ones already on me. My heart has flown up to my throat and now it’s constricting my airway as it flutters and pounds in my pure building hysteria.

“HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! DIANE!”

I have scorpions. Scorpions. Crawling. Up my fucking arm! They are huge, half the size of my palm, each with eight legs. Seriously? Only eight legs? I feel a thousand legs on me. I feel legs on every inch and centimeter of my skin. I start convulsing and shaking like crazy on the floor, screaming when I feel my first sting on my forearm. “OH MY GOD, DIANE!!”

Suddenly I feel a fourth one crawling up my ankle and I notice that all this time, Diane has been screaming hysterically. “Brooke! Oh my god! Somebody do something!”

“GET THEM OFF ME, DIANE!! GET THEM OFF!”

I don’t know why I am yelling frantically as if that will scare them away. Afraid to touch them with my hand, I’m instead twisting and squirming on the floor when a bucket of water crashes upon me. I suck in my breath as I watch Diane rush back to the kitchen, fill another pan full of water, and throw it at me. But the scorpions are hanging on.

I reach for one and try to push it off me, and its tail snaps at me. The stinger hits my thumb. Instant pain shoots into me as the others keep crawling. Crawling. On me. I don’t know if these animals have been drugged or starved or given something to alter them. They are almost crawling on me like spiders, fast and frantic over me. One swings its tail and sticks its stinger into the skin of my forearm. Then it sticks a second stinger into me. Pain shoots through me. I feel another sting up on my arm, and then I stop squirming and freeze. Fight or flight is full force in me. But I can’t run, and I can’t fight, and now I freeze, my body paralyzed in fear while all my organs go wild at the threat these things pose to me. All my fear rushes to the forefront, and I start crying helplessly.

I’m on the floor, sobbing, the only thing moving on me is the awful legs belonging to these awful creatures, when I hear Diane screaming tremulously into the phone, “Get back here! Get back here please!” She keeps repeating the same thing, over and over, when she suddenly swings the door open and screams out into the hall, “REMINGTON!”

Everything’s hazy as almost immediately, or maybe a few minutes later, I don’t know, the door slams open wider with a crashing noise. Through my tears, I see him, and I can picture what he sees. Scorpions all over me and me, doing nothing, crying like a baby, as afraid as I’ve ever been in my life. My vision blurs completely from something other than tears, and I wonder if it’s the venom. I feel shocks all over me. I feel the scorpions being yanked from me with bare hands, one after the other, as I sob.

Then he grabs me, and I’m in his huge arms, steady arms that hold a body that is mine—is it mine? Is this body that is falling apart mine?—and I am shaking and in an agony of pain.

I try climbing up him higher, like a tree, and cling to his neck as I sob and try to breathe, sucking in his scent like it’s the only way my body can remember to breathe again. He’s breathing hard. His hands are fists in my back, and they are shaking. Then they start rubbing up and down. His hands reach my face and he furiously wipes my tears.

“I got you,” he hisses passionately in my ear, squeezing me none too gently. “I got you. I got you.”

“A woman just came and knocked!” Diane’s frantic words tremble with tears. “She said Remy had ordered the box for her!”

“Jesus,” Pete says in disgust. “Let’s not throw them away, Diane; we need to see what kind they are. Call an EMT and let’s just crush the motherfuckers—give me a pan.”

Remington’s voice is hard as granite in my ear. “I’m going to kill him,” he promises me. “I swear to god, I’m going to kill him so slowly.”

“Just save it for the ring, Rem. Sabotaging your championship is exactly what he wants,” Pete says between whacking noises.

Remy’s voice is a hiss as I feel him rub his hands over me. “Where did they bite you? Tell me exactly where, and I’ll suck all the poison out.”

I’m gasping for breath as if my air ducts were suddenly swelling. “I . . . e-everywhere . . .”

“You shouldn’t suck on these—let me have a look at her,” Pete says.

I cling to Remington, and he tightens his arms around me and slowly rocks me, his entire body shaking almost like my own as he speaks into my ear. “I got you, little firecracker, I got you right here in my arms,” he whispers, and I can hear the barely unleashed fury in his voice.

“Rem, let me see her,” Pete begs him.

“No,” I moan, and I clutch Remy harder because I know that if I die, this is the way I want to go. Oh my god, am I going to die? Who’s going to take care of him? “Don’t let go, don’t let go,” I moan.

“Never,” he promises in my ear.