“I’m seeing you in a few hours, you crazy woman,” says Lake, setting her on her feet. I push the jealousy down. I don’t deserve to feel upset that she’s spending time with Lake.
“Um?” Anna grins, wiggling her brows, and Eva rolls her eyes playfully.
“He’s coming to fix my shower,” she explains, and that stings a little more. She’d asked me to sort that and I hadn’t gotten around to it.
“With the promise of pizza as payment,” Lake points out. They all laugh and I ball my hands into fists. Why can’t I be like them? Why can’t I relax and joke around and just be fuckin’ normal?
Eva makes her way towards me. “I left some of your stuff on your bed. Just a shirt and clothes I stole because they were comfy to sleep in,” she says with a smile. “Take care, Elijah.” She tries to walk away but I snatch her hand in mine.
“Why are you giving up?” I didn’t plan on stopping her, but it slipped out. I’m just as surprised as her.
“Why are you?” she asks. She pulls free and walks away.
I stand by the window while Doctor Eleanor Chapman chews on her pen. I’ve been standing in her office for five minutes and neither of us has said a word. “You’re bleeding,” she says and points to my leg. I glance down at the patch of blood soaking through my jeans.
“It keeps busting open,” I mutter. I’d layered Steri-Strips over it just an hour ago, but nothing keeps it closed.
“It might need gluing at the hospital,” she adds thoughtfully.
“Eva left.”
“Things didn’t work out?” she asks.
“Yeah, we’re getting married,” I say sarcastically.
She laughs. “Is she marrying you for your sarcasm?”
“Something happened. To me. And her.”
“Tell me what happened to you,” she says.
“I was drugged. I woke in a room tied to a chair.”
She points her pen back to my leg. “Is that how you got the wound?”
I nod. “A woman I knew. She . . . ” I pause, trying to find the words. “She . . . ” I sigh and take a seat. “We had sex.”
“In the room?” she asks and I nod. “While you were tied to a chair?” I nod again and rub at my chest uncomfortably. I feel too hot. The shrink is looking at me intensely.
“When you’re in this life,” I mutter, “bad shit happens. I’ve been shot. Stabbed. Even beat up once.” I laugh. “You get used to it,” I add.
“Elijah, sexual assault is not something anyone can get used to or should have to.” I glare at her. Picking up on my anger, she asks, “Did you want to have sex with that woman?”
I shake my head. “But we’d had sex before. I wanted to before. I think.”
“Think back to the last time you had meaningful sex,” she says. “Sex that you wanted. That you enjoyed.” I know the exact moment. It was the only time I’d ever enjoyed sex and it was with Eva. “How many times has that happened?”
“Just with Eva,” I utter.
“And how many times have you had sex? How many women have you had sex with?” she asks.
I shrug. “Too many to count.”
“When that woman had sex with you and you were tied up, did you want that sex? That time?” I shake my head. “Then you were sexually assaulted.” I let the words sink in. “Does Eva know?”
I nod. “She saw. They made her watch.”
Doctor Chapman raises her brows. “How is she?”
“She’s gone, I told you. Why would she stick around after that? She watched me cheat.”
“No, Elijah, she watched you be assaulted. She’s as much a victim as you.”
I stand and pace. “I’m not a fuckin’ victim,” I growl. I run my hands through my hair. “They said that before, when I was sixteen. ‘He’s an abused child’.” I mimic the words with disdain and shake my head angrily. “I knew what I was doing. I fucked those women because I could.”
“Or because you needed to keep your pimp happy. You didn’t choose to have sex with those women. It wasn’t your idea. You were pushed into it by an adult who knew better. He knew how wrong it was. That’s why they said you were the victim. It wasn’t your choice.”
“How do I make her come back?” I ask quietly.
“You get yourself better,” she says simply. “You keep talking like you have been. You’re doing so well, Elijah. You have to accept that a lot of what’s happened to you isn’t your fault, but we’re getting there.” I nod. Maybe we are.
I get back to the club and head straight down into the basement. I can face some of my demons down here. With Emily.
She looks up from her cell. Riggs had six spaces made of metal bars down here. Big enough to walk around and house a single mattress and a toilet in each. I pull up a stool in front of her cell and sit down. “Start again. From the beginning.”
Emily sighs and takes a seat on her mattress. “My mum used to have sex with you. Desperate or what?” she mutters. “She had problems with my dad and turned to drugs. You gave her those as well. When she couldn’t afford to pay cash anymore, she had sex with you. It was filmed. It was shared on porn websites for the world to see. To cut a long story short, she died from the shit you sold her, but before she died, she suffered. She was ashamed and vulnerable and you exploited her.”
“And now you want revenge?”
“I knew you’d help me if you saw someone trying to take me. You were already known to the people I hung out with.” She laughs. “So fucking predictable. You know you can’t make up for all the bad you did by being the hero when it suits you.”
“That old guy I thought was your dad, is that the type
