Chapter 12 #2
Sheltered and crazy innocent, of course, but awesome.
She hesitantly looks at me. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Were you two a couple before the engagement?”
I make a face. “Nope.”
Evie frowns. “So…that video of you and Bane…”
“Yeah… He staged that.”
Her eyes go wide as saucers. “What?”
Evie of all people doesn’t need to know why I was up on the roof of the Empire State Building with Bane. But I can at least dispel any myths about that kiss being real in any way.
“Yeah, he staged it.” I look away. “To trap me.”
The space goes quiet. I turn to see Evie looking at me in shock. “And I was just telling you what a great guy he is…” Her face falls. “Like, to trap you into marriage? Roman said something about your dad having a new shipping dock—”
“Yeah, it’s not that.”
She frowns. “Then—”
“Can I tell you something?” It just pops out.
She nods. “Of course.”
This…thing inside me has to come out. Maybe I’ve just been holding it inside for too long. Or maybe in some weird way, Evie kind of reminds me of, well, me— if things hadn’t gotten fucked up along the way.
“It’s…big.” My lip catches between my teeth. “Like, really big.”
She nods. “You can tell me. I just…” She smiles wryly, shrugging. “You sure you want to tell me? We’re not…” She pauses. “I mean, we’re friends, and I love being friends, I just—”
“Evie.” I place a gentle hand on her arm. “I…don’t have a lot of close friends.”
She tips her head. “You and Brooklyn seem close.”
“We are. But this…” I shrug. “I dunno. It feels like I need to tell someone, and that someone needs to be you.“ I sigh. “I guess I just…trust you?”
Evie smiles and squeezes my hand. “I’m really good at keeping secrets.” She glances away. “Believe me,” she mutters under her breath.
I smile wryly, then slowly exhale.
Welcome to the deep end, Evie. Take a deep breath.
“You know how I don’t drink when we all go out?”
Evie smiles, instantly looking relieved. “Oh! It’s okay, I get it. Roman is a recovering alcoholic, too. I’m happy to talk about—”
“No, I don’t drink because I’m a heroin addict.”
The room goes pin-drop silent. I swallow heavily, looking down at my hands.
“I’ve been clean and sober for almost two years. But for a while…” I squeeze my eyes shut. “I…yeah.”
There's a pause, then her hand quietly slides across the couch to take mine, squeezing. I look up, feeling so vulnerable, but getting a wave of comfort when I see Evie smiling.
“You can tell me anything. You can also tell me nothing,” she says softly.
I nod, biting my lip.
“I got into it at boarding school. And I got sent there because of something that happened back here, in New York, when I was seventeen.” I look down again. “I had this best friend growing up, named Lark. She was being raised by her grandma, who was our housekeeper. So she lived with us.”
My mouth twists in a mix of sadness and vague emotions that make me smile.
“We did everything together. She even came to school with me at Thornfield Prep.” I glance over at her. “Bane was at Thornfield, too. And he and Lark…” I smile. “They were a couple. Like, a totally in love couple.” I exhale. “He even asked her to marry him.”
“Whoa,” Evie breathes. “I…I didn’t know that about him.”
“I don’t think anyone does,” I say quietly.
I reach for my phone and scroll to the folder I don’t always let myself look at.
“Here,” I say quietly, scooting over so she can see the screen too. “This is Lark.”
I tap on a picture taken when we were ten—us sitting on the front steps of my dad’s house with the jack-o-lanterns we’d just carved.
“Oh, wow!” Evie murmurs. Her eyes move between me and the picture, then back up to me. “You two look so similar.”
I smile quietly. “I know. Her mom was blonde Italian too, like mine. She died giving birth to Lark, which is why she was with her grandmother.” My heart wrenches a little as I look down at the two smiling girls, sitting on the stoop, grinning through missing teeth.
“We always loved how similar we looked.” I laugh softly. “We’d joke about being sisters.”
I can feel the question hanging in the air, so I answer it before she can ask.
“She died.”
Pain stabs into me as I take a deep breath.
Part of me almost wants to tell her about the rest. The night Lark and I snuck out with our fake IDs.
The man at the bar who used to drive for my dad, who offered us a ride home.
The two days of horror and torture and pain that followed, before most of my memories vanished into the ether.
But that’s…too much for someone like Evie.
“It was my fault she died, and Bane blames me for it.”
The short version is bad enough.
“Oh my God, Dove…”
I’m not really a hugger, but I’m grateful for the one Evie gives me after all that comes out. She holds me tightly, my chest shaking as I suck back the tears before they can fall.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she says quietly as she pulls away, her face earnest and raw and real, like she’s truly feeling the same emotions that are rampaging through my heart. She frowns. “So…wait… Bane is doing this for revenge? That’s insane.”
I nod quietly. “Maybe. Well, partly.”
She shakes her head, frowning. “There’s more to it than that? What do you remember about them dating?”
I decide that spilling my guts to Evie about my addiction is my limit on brutal honesty for the evening.
My amnesia can stay in the same “do not share” pile with the graphic details of Lark's and my abduction.
“Not much,” I shrug. “I mean, it was years ago, and… You know how it is. When she was with Bane, they kind of did their own thing.”
At least, I think they did.
Evie looks down at my phone, still open to the photos of Lark and me.
“You really look similar. I mean, not twins or anything, but…whoa.” Her nose wrinkles as she lifts her eyes to me. “It’s…kinda weird that he wants to marry you, when you and Lark—”
“Yeah,” I groan, shuddering. “Tell me about it.”
Evie sighs deeply, then looks at me with a soft, kind smile on her face. “Thanks for trusting me with all of that. Seriously. It means a lot.”
I smile back, my lips twisting as I take her hands in mine and give them a squeeze. “Thanks for listening.”
“I won’t tell a soul.” She shakes her head. “And literally nothing about what you just told me changes how I think of you, or our friendship. I mean that.”
Again, not a hugger. But damn, I don't mind the next one she gives me.
“Evie,” I sigh into her shoulder. “This world does not deserve you.”
Evie and I talk late into the night, basically becoming best friends.
I share a little more about my addiction journey, and rehab.
She tells me how she worries that everyone treats her with kid gloves.
I spill my guts over my mental health issues—some of them, anyway.
And she discusses the mixed feelings she has concerning her dad being dethroned and banished to Russia not too long ago.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, my dad is not a nice man. He had a gun in Roman’s face, and almost killed Bane’s father…” She shakes her head. “But he’s still Dad, you know?”
Eventually, both of us are losing the fight to keep our eyes open. I rustle up a pair of pajamas for her to change into, then tell her I have to check on something in the main house real quick.
Such a lie.
Instead, I linger in the darkness of the back garden, fingernails tap-tapping on the side of my phone. I take a deep, empowering breath, steeling myself.
Then I’d get ready to have some very uncomfortable conversations with just about everyone who thought they knew you.
That motherfucker thinks he’s got me backed into a corner with his threats to tell everyone about my drug issues and my time in rehab.
Fuck. Him.
Yes, telling Evie about my addiction issues was hard. But it was also freeing.
Emboldening.
Fresh power is burning inside me as I tap on Bane’s number and bring the phone to my ear. It rings, and rings, and rings, and rings…then goes to voicemail.
That’ll do.
There's the usual outgoing message followed by a beep.
Showtime.
“Hi, asshole!” I say, my voice laden with fake cheer.
“It’s me, the girl you’re being a total creep to.
To narrow that down, since I’m sure there are many of those, I’m the one you’re forcing to marry you—like a creep—and you think you’ve got me by the balls because you hacked into my computer to look at what I do in my private time.
” I sigh. “Now, I’m pretty sure you think you’ve got me in a bind, because you threatened to tell all my friends about the very private matter of my history of drug abuse and mental health challenges.
” I sneer into the phone. “Again, like. A fucking. Creep. So, let me make this clear, you fucking small-dicked did-I-mention-creep incel: you don’t own me.
You don’t have leverage over me. You want to tell people that I had a nightmare of a time with heroin?
Do it, bitch,” I spit. “It’ll make you look exactly like the heartless asshole you are, and no one will give a fuck anyway.
I certainly don’t. So do your worst, shrimp-dick. ” I smirk in the darkness. “Dove out.”
I hit the end call button with a flourish, my pulse racing, triumph surging through my veins.
Take that, motherfucker.
“You look happy,” Evie grins at me from the couch when I waltz back in. “Everything okay?”
“Everything is grand,” I beam at her. “Now, are you sure you don’t want the bed? Seriously, I'm happy to sleep on the couch.”
She shakes her head. “I’m good down here.”
I walk over and give her another big hug.
“Seriously,” I murmur. “Thank you for earlier. For listening, and not judging—”
“Dove.” She pulls back, smiling at me. “You don’t have to thank me for being a good person.”
“Well, I want to, okay?”
We both laugh and say our goodnights. Then I skip up the stairs to the loft area, shut off the lights, and slide under the covers, my heart light.
I think this nightmare ride with Bane might be at end.
At some point, I fall asleep. I dream of snow, and then suddenly I’m on stage with the Zakharova, dancing in The Nutcracker, my feet carrying my body effortlessly through the movements.
But then the dream morphs around me, and everything goes wrong. My arms can’t move gracefully anymore. They can’t move at all, actually. Then it’s my legs and feet that feel trapped.
A weight settles down heavily on my chest as my pulse starts to beat faster.
What’s happening? Why can’t I—
That’s when I wake with a gasp, coming to two horrifying realizations.
One: my arms and legs are bound tight to the bed.
Two: Bane is straddling my sternum, his eyes glinting with dark fire, his mouth curled in a demonic grin.
…And his tattooed hand wrapped around his huge—and I do mean huge—cock, fisting it slowly mere inches above my face.
“Your mouth had a whole lot of not-so-nice words for my voicemail earlier, little bird,” he growls quietly. “Let’s see if we can fill it with something more fun.”