“Please, stop,” I plead, sitting in the corner, hands in front of my face.
That won’t stop him, but it’s worth a shot.
It’s the only thing I have to protect myself right now, my hands.
Everything else is bruised and battered.
He walks toward me, expressionless. His body is large, and muscled, and he’s strong. So much stronger than me. He rarely speaks, but when he does his words are poison. They’re terrifying spits that burn my very soul. Sometimes, I wish he would speak so I know who he is, and why he has me, and how I got here.
I don’t know why I’m here, except to know that Cohen did it.
Cohen.
My best friend.
The man I was falling in love with.
This is his fault.
The man kneels down and curls his hands around my wrists, pulling them down so I can no longer put them up in front of me. Like they were ever going to stop him anyway.
“Please,” I plead again. “I want to go home.”
“This is your home now.”
His voice is rough and gravelly.
He pins my arms to my side and then jerks them around to my back where he pulls a set of handcuffs from his coat pocket and snaps them together. I don’t squirm, or fight, he made sure I knew what would happen to me if I did any of those things. He showed me. The cuts, bruises, and injuries on my body show me what happens if I do that.
When my hands are cuffed, he reaches forward, his fingers slowly going down to my buttons where he begins to undo them, exposing me to him. I clench my eyes shut, my whole body trembling, tears running down my cheeks. Please, someone, make this stop. I’ll do anything, anything, but just make it stop.
His hand curls around my breast, and there he squeezes.
“No,” I cry out. “No, please. Please don’t.”
“Aviana!”
The harsh voice snaps me from the horrid memory that was taking over my body. I forgot I was running, crying, going where? I don’t know. I stop, panting, and turn to see Cohen walking toward me wearing only a pair of pajama shorts. His muscled, ripped body shines underneath the streetlights, making him look like he’s here to rescue me and make all my problems just disappear with one touch.
My heart twists with the kind of agony I simply can’t process right now.
It’s a hurt, a hurt that runs so deep I don’t know how to live without it. I don’t know how to make it stop; I don’t know how to rid my soul of it so I can live freely. I don’t know how to do anything anymore.
I don’t even know who I am.
Right now, though, seeing Cohen walk toward me ... I want him. I want him to wrap his arms around me, to tell me it’s okay, to make love to me until I can’t feel anything anymore. The intensity of that want is all consuming and my knees tremble with the sudden onset of it.
I remember a time when he made it better.
When he saved me from my family.
When he held me as I cried.
When he kissed me for the first time.
I remember it all.
I remember how he smelt, how he tasted, how it felt.
“Hey,” he says when he reaches me.
His fingers curl around my shoulders and he squeezes, trying to snap me out of whatever little zone I’m in. A zone I don’t quite understand.
“Aviana, focus on me, yeah?”
My eyes meet his, and I stare at him with all the pain, hurt, and shattered pieces I’ve been stashing deep in my soul. “Why, Cohen?” I whisper, my voice far too shaky to make an appearance. “Why did you hurt me like that?”
He stares at me, and his face is full of so many emotions I can’t quite pinpoint a single one. He looks hurt, and confused, and even a little angry. At himself? At me? I don’t know.
“I fucked up. I made the worst mistake of my life doin’ that to you, but you gotta know at the time, I thought it was the safest thing. I truly thought I was doin’ right by you. I thought you would get a new identity and you’d be able to start your life fresh...”
“You could have taken me away, could have told me what you were keeping from me, could have kept me safe yourself.”
“I couldn’t have done that. The club couldn’t have done that. Your entire family was dead and you saw me do it. You watched me suck the life from their bodies. You were never goin’ to unsee that. You were never goin’ to be safe. The best thing for you, at the time, was for everyone in the world to think you were dead.”
I shake my head, breaking eye contact. I can’t hear any more. I don’t want to hear any more. I just want all of this to stop.
“I can’t make it stop, Cohen. I can’t make any of it go away. It’s breaking me. I need it to stop. Do you understand me? I need you to make it stop.”
My voice raises toward the end of the sentence, becoming frantic and desperate. My body shakes and my heart pounds. I feel desperate and needy, like if something doesn’t happen soon, I will lose it. I’ll just lose it.
“I can’t make it stop, Aviana. Only you can do that.”
“You can!” I scream, slamming my open hand onto his chest. It makes a slapping sound as it connects with his warm skin. “You can make it stop, you can.”
“Aviana, I can’t.”
“Please,” I beg, my fingers curling now against his skin, my nails scratching into him.
