12. Seven #2
“Nothing!” I say quickly.
“Seven…” Vortex’s voice is thick with warning. “This stops here.”
I’ve never heard him this stern before, least of all directed at me, and I bow my head in defeat. “She said this is all temporary,” I whisper. “That Caleb’s going to get tired of me. She said…” I swallow hard. “She said a lot of things, all right? She hates me.”
“Well, if she hates you, why would you believe anything she says?” Caleb asks.
“She has clear incentive to make you doubt everything. She wanted you to give up. But you aren’t giving up, are you, pet?
You’ve already stood up for yourself once before.
You can stand up to her, and the rest of the Lockwoods. ”
“Just because she hates me doesn’t mean she’s wrong ,” I argue, but the words feel flimsy.
“We’re telling you right now she’s wrong,” Vortex says, and his hands go to my shoulders again, rubbing more gently. “We know better than she does. She doesn’t know you. She doesn’t know what you’ve become.”
I let out a harsh half-sob. “Yeah.”
Caleb takes my chin and forces me to look at him. “Now tell us what happened. Once you do, you can have your spanking.”
I want it. I want the pain.
But I don’t deserve it, do I?
“I think…” My voice is so unsteady as I manage to get out, “I think I really upset Havoc, and I don’t know what I did wrong.”
“How did you upset him?” Caleb asks gently. “Walk us through the events.”
I don’t want to think about them. I don’t want to talk about them.
“It’s okay,” Vortex says, kissing the top of my head. “We’re not going to get angry at you. We can work through it and figure out how to talk to Havoc.”
I turn away from Caleb, hating how cornered I feel, like I don’t have a choice. But at the same time, I’m desperate to figure out how to fix this.
“I needed him,” I whisper. “And I thought he needed me too. But he got so mad after… after.”
“After you had sex?” Vortex prompts me, his voice as soft as Caleb’s.
I nod, my vision going blurry as I think about how upset he’d been at me.
Caleb purses his lips before asking, “How was he before the sex?”
“Upset,” I say. “He keeps thinking—” It’s not my place to tell them that he thinks he’s like his stepfather, is it? “He gets frustrated at himself for being so mad, but that’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? If there’s anyone he can take his frustrations out on, it’s me, isn’t it?”
“No,” Vortex says, and despite the swiftness of his answer, it’s still gentle. “No, it’s not. He has things he needs to work on, Seven. That includes his temper. You aren’t there to be his punching bag.”
Anger flares up in me, and I turn to look at him as I snap, “He’s not doing that! He doesn’t want to do that.”
Vortex glances at Caleb, then looks back at me. “But you talked him into doing it anyway,” he sums up.
The words are like a punch in the gut. Stunned, I sit there, but I can’t find words to say.
Caleb lets out a soft sigh. “Did Havoc want to have sex, Seven?”
My throat is tight, and I can’t get anything out. I can’t look at either of them, shame suffusing me as I shrink down in my seat.
“But he was hard,” I whisper around the lump in my throat. “He did want it.”
Caleb grimaces, and that lets me know that my answer was wrong.
“Pet… I realize we’ve been bad about boundaries, but if Havoc said he didn’t want to…” He sighs. “It’s like when you insisted on the whipping I didn’t want to give you.”
Or the time I gave Vortex a blowjob when he didn’t want it, I think, but Vortex doesn’t bring it up.
He doesn’t have to.
I remember.
“You all…” I swallow hard. “You make me… Even when I don’t want…”
“ If you open your eyes, I’ll stop ,” Caleb says, and I remember that day where he’d tickled me and I’d almost pissed myself. The shame and humiliation flood back, that sensation of creating a terrible mess and being forced to clean up after myself while she watched.
She’d once made me wear the stained sheets as punishment for not being able to hold it in.
Caleb had stopped when I’d opened my eyes.
“You make me talk about things I don’t want to talk about,” I say hoarsely. “It feels awful and terrible and you don’t listen when I try to make it stop.”
“Will it be less awful and less terrible if you don’t talk about it?” Caleb asks. “Do you want Havoc to stay mad at you? If you don’t want Havoc around anymore, we can arrange that.”
“What? No!” I say, stunned that he’d even suggest something like that. “Why would you even think that?”
“Because you can choose not to talk about things, Seven,” — why isn’t he calling me pet ? — “but if you don’t talk, then we can’t fix things. If Havoc thinks this isn’t working, he’s allowed to leave. If you’re done with him, you can be done with him.”
“But I can’t ever be done with you ,” I say, even though I know the words are cruel.
I want to hurt him as much as he’s hurting me.
Caleb meets my gaze steadily. “You could. You could have gone with Emily. Or you could sneak into a car or a van. We’d be able to chase you down, but you know where the tracker is. You could cut it out.”
I recoil at the idea.
“No, that’s not happening,” Vortex says in a low growl.
“You can be done with Caleb, or you can be done with Havoc, or you can even be done with me, but you don’t get to be done with all three of us until you’re safe.
” He gives Caleb a furious look. “Don’t even put it into his head that he could go with his fucking sister. ”
“I’m merely pointing out that if he truly wanted to be done with us, he could.” Caleb sits back and folds his arms.
“No. He. Can’t,” Vortex says, emphasizing each word. “This isn’t about sex or words. This is his life we’re talking about. He doesn’t get to throw it in the trash because he’s hurting.”
“Vortex…” I begin, but my voice cracks.
“No!” Vortex snaps. “She doesn’t get to come in here and ruin everything for you.
She doesn’t get to come in here and make you doubt and hurt, and Caleb doesn’t get to say that you get to leave if you want.
Because you don’t, not until you’re safe .
You made a mistake. You didn’t understand.
You understand now. We all make mistakes, Seven. ”
“And we fix mistakes by talking about them,” Caleb points out with a small smirk. “Really, Vortex. I was making a point. I’m not in any hurry to be rid of Seven.” He looks at me and strokes my hair again. “Or ever. I did put a tracker in you, pet.”
I have whiplash from the two of them, and I don’t understand what’s happening, not really. But between Caleb’s fingers in my hair and Vortex’s presence at my back, it doesn’t matter as much as it probably should.
“And you’re not taking it out,” Vortex mutters, kneading my shoulders. “For fuck’s sake, Caleb. Don’t even put that in his head, not now, not ever again.”
“I’m not going to,” I say, my voice small. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t want to be done with any of you.”
“In which case, you’ll have to talk to us sometimes,” Caleb answers. He lets out a strange laugh. “You know, my last real boyfriend, he dumped me because I worked too much and we only had sex. He complained we didn’t talk enough. And now here I am, wanting all the talking.”
“Because we need to have these talks,” Vortex says soberly. “And Seven, my beautiful boy, you need to understand that getting hard doesn’t mean you want sex. Your body reacting doesn’t mean you consent. It doesn’t mean Havoc consented. Do you understand that now?”
I can’t.
Because if I admit that, I have to admit that all those times my body was interested, but I didn’t want it, when I felt so gross… I’ve now made all three of them feel that way.
I nod anyway.
“We’ll figure things out with Havoc,” Caleb says. He rubs the corner of my eye. “Let’s have dinner, and after that, Vortex will give you that spanking you earned.” He pauses before adding, “A reward for being a good pet and talking to us.”
I shake my head. I don’t want it. I’m mentally drained and exhausted, and I want to sleep it all off. “Can we do it another day?” I ask quietly.
“Of course, beautiful,” Vortex says. “But you do need to eat. I know your stomach is probably a little upset after this talk, but try to eat some for us, then we can cuddle until you fall asleep.”
Relieved, I nod again.
I don’t think I could handle a reward if my life depended on it. I don’t deserve it.
Caleb kisses my temple. “Good pet. I’m proud of you.”
I don’t deserve that either.
I’m a horrible person.
I’m as bad as the rest of my family.
But I smile anyway. “Thank you, Master.”
Vortex finally releases my shoulders, and he settles into the seat next to me. “Let’s eat,” he tells me.
I have to force myself, like I have to force myself to get through the conversation.
Just like I’ve forced myself to do everything for years.