Chapter 19 #2
“Sure,” I agree. “I have my rifle in the car. Ellison doesn’t let me bring it into restaurants.”
“Not right now,” Ellison says. “Ignore him. Lily, while you had someone to teach you boundaries and what is legal, Asmodeus is still learning… slowly.”
I shrug. “I’m a phenomenal listener. I listen to everything. Just doesn’t mean I’ll do it.”
“Uh-huh… sure.”
After we’re finished and say our goodbyes, I head out to the car and slump down in the passenger seat.
“I apologize that I did not inform you of my plans ahead of time. I was quite confident you’d have run.”
“I would have.”
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t run?”
“The demons are happy.”
“Yes, and is Asmodeus happy?”
I’m quiet for a moment before glancing over at him. “I am.”
“That’s all that matters.”
“Is it?”
He looks away from me and I find myself wanting to see his face. I want to kiss him again, but he’s avoided getting into a small space with me since then. Does he regret it?
My eyes linger on him, but he refuses to look my way. He starts the car and begins to drive. “We were going to do something with the others today, but I asked them to push it back to tomorrow.”
“Yeah? Should I be frightened?”
I want to tease him more, but I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. Like everything has hit me at once, and my years of sleepless nights seem to be hitting me hard. I feel so tired, but I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to see her face. I don’t want to be told what a monster I am.
“You look exhausted,” Ellison says.
“Oh? I feel fine.”
His eyebrow lifts. “Are you lying to me?”
“Lies are just truths that aren’t true.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Exactly that.”
He throws me a look.
When we get home, I head to the couch where I plan to sit until Ellison falls asleep, and then I will sit on the roof even though there’s no longer anyone out here to hurt him.
Ellison turns on the movie we’d started yesterday and I wish he’d kiss me or we could fuck or do something to distract my mind, but he initiates none of it. And I feel like after what he said yesterday, it isn’t my right to try.
Around ten, I’m struggling to keep my eyes open and decide that I need to do something else to wake me up.
“Go to bed,” Ellison says.
“I’m not tired.”
“You’re like a toddler who has their eyes closed while declaring, ‘I don’t need a nap!’”
“Because I don’t.”
“Do you need me to tuck you in like you’re a toddler?”
Now this idea interests me. “I sure do.”
“Go get ready for bed and I’ll tuck you in.”
“Did your mother ever tuck you in?”
“Oh hell no. My mother only ever peeked in at us to make sure we weren’t up to some shit.
This one time my brother tried playing his Game Boy and my mother caught him, so she ripped all of the electronics and cords out of our rooms. We had to ‘check out’ the cords anytime we wanted to use a device. ”
“I didn’t know you have a brother,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“I sure hope he didn’t ram a stick up his ass like your mother has.”
“Get ready for bed.”
“I feel like when I met you, that stick was right up there… you’ve done well removing it. We could also say that I removed it for you.”
“I will kick your ass into the new year if you don’t get ready for bed.”
“Yeah? Well, I’ll sic my ferret on you,” I say as I aim Pocket Lint at him.
He cusses me out a bit—mostly about how the last time I did this, his car was wrecked—while the ferret latches on to his sleeve and is prepared to never let go. I let go of the ferret, holding my hands under her in case she releases her grip. She dangles from Ellison’s sleeve as he stares at me.
“She’s going in the trash.”
“Is that where the stick that was once up your ass went?”
“You’re going in the trash too.”
“Will you join me?”
“Absolutely not. Stop talking and take this damn ferret.”
I grab the ferret and then look at Ellison. “I think you need to get naked or she’s not going to let go.”
He shrugs out of the jacket she’s holding on to and then leaves. Pocket Lint doesn’t want it now that there’s no promise of flesh. She spits it out and then looks around, seeking out her next victim… although, strangely, her favorite victim is Ellison.
I brush my teeth while Pocket Lint romps around on the sink counter and then punctures a hole in my tube of toothpaste like she’s up against a mighty enemy.
By the time I’m done, Ellison is leaning against the wall in my bedroom. He’s wearing sweats and a long-sleeved shirt, likely to spite me.
He waves to the bed.
“You joining me?” I ask.
“No.”
I grumble about that and consider what it’d take to convince him to join me, but what’s the fun in convincing someone?
I flop onto the bed and look up at him expectantly. “What happens now?”
“Now you go to sleep,” he says before he whips the blanket over me and promptly exits the room.
I sigh, wondering if any of that was worth this. Like really? That’s all I get?
I’m reluctant now that the idea of dreaming has hit me, but the exhaustion takes over. It feels like seconds after I fall asleep that my elder is there and I’m drawn back into that darkness.
“You know it was lies. You really think that girl is happy? She knows how to fake emotions; it’s one of the first things you’re taught.
She knows how to make you think she’s innocent.
She’s going to hunt you down, just like Eve’s brother did.
She’s going to take and destroy. You slaughtered everyone she knows, after all.
“Are you going to kill her like you killed me? Like your own mother? Look at what you did to me. Look—”
I jerk awake when I sense someone entering the room.
“Hey,” he says quietly.
I look over at Ellison, realizing that he woke me up before the nightmare could get worse. “I was just getting up.”
“You’ve been asleep an hour.”
“Plenty of sleep.”
He throws back the covers and climbs in. Then he grabs my head and shoves it against his chest. I’m not quite sure if it’s supposed to be romantic or a torture technique, but I love it.
“I’ll be here to wake you up if your dreams turn bad.”
“I was getting up.”
“You’d rather get up than lie like this?”
“No,” I mutter against his chest. “I very much like my face planted in your pecs.”
“I assumed you would. Now sleep.”
“We could have sex.”
“Sleep.”
“But sex sounds more fun.”
His hand digs into my hair and peels my face off his chest. “I’m not having sex with you, so sleep.”
Ellison releases my face, so I place it back where it’s happiest. I tuck myself against him, wondering if I pressed myself against his cock whether he’d say fuck it and join me after all.
But at the end of the day, what would that distraction change? The second sex was over I’d be right back in this position, and who knows if he’d regret it since he seems adamant to avoid it.
Honestly, this spot is so comfortable that I can’t even consider trying more.
I can feel his chest moving as he breathes.
I’m wrapped up in so many emotions that remind me why he’s so important to me.
For the first time in my life, I’m free to have feelings and to hold on to them.
I don’t have to bury them in a box I’m never allowed to open.
They might ruin me like my elder assured me they would, but I would rather be ruined than live without these people in my life.
I can’t seem to fight the lack of sleep that’s haunted me for years. Pressed up against Ellison, I feel safe, calm, and at ease for the first time since I left that hell.
“You done?” Eve asks.
“With?”
“Hating yourself.”
“Not when I’m this good at it.”
“I never blamed you. You know I never did. You know it was all in your head.”
“My head is a questionable place at best and a wasteland at worst.”
“I always liked your head. I liked you the moment I met you. I knew you were different. I knew you were a good one.”
“I wasn’t good enough.”
“You can’t change in an instant. You’d lived that life for over twenty-six years. How could you have changed so fast?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Just do good. Use those eyes to save people in a way I never could.”
When I wake up, I find that it’s morning, and I treasure the warmth of the body lying next to me.