Chapter 20 Arlo
Iwake to silence.
My eyes snap open. The bedroom is dark, the sheets twisted around my legs. Cold sweat coats my skin. The nightmares are already fading, leaving only a blurred, bloody echo behind.
I shove my hand through the junk in the nightstand until I find the pills. My fingers shake as I dump two into my palm and swallow them dry.
Everything hurts. And not the usual hurt. Not sore muscles or a busted knuckle. This is full-body agony. Bone-deep. Like something inside me cracked open and hasn’t figured out how to close.
But the pain’s easier than the memories.
So I’ll take it.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Get up.
I shove off the bed, limp to the bathroom, and turn the shower on. Waiting for the water to go from freezing to scalding.
I strip off my shirt, and pause when it hits the floor. Black? I blink. I was wearing white. I’m sure of it…I think?
I step under the water and scrub my hair. My thighs scream in protest. My ribs flare. I keep going anyway. When I’m done, I wrap a towel around me and freeze.
My eyes land on the mirror. And for once, I look.
I shouldn’t have.
A massive bruise wraps around my jaw, purple-red and swollen. My lip’s split, crusted with blood. The side of my nose is puffy, the color creeping up to my temple. My eyes are glassy. Hollow.
There’s a buzzing itch down my spine. I twist, and the mirror shows the stitches on my back. The shadows under my ribs.
I grip the sink until my knuckles go white.
You’re fine. You’re breathing. You’re alive.
“Arsen,” I call, cracking the door open.
His heavy footsteps echo down the hallway.
“I just need—” The words catch in my throat the second I look up.
Not Arsen.
Priest.
“Need what?” he asks.
I freeze.
My stomach twists so hard I nearly double over. He fills the doorway like a nightmare. His shirt’s stretched across his bruised chest. Gashes on his nose.
But it’s not enough.
I should’ve fucking shot him. Should’ve carved his name into his own skin. A kick to the jaw wasn’t enough. Nothing will ever be enough.
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. The air rips out of me…I want to scream. I want to claw his face off.
“Arsen’s on a supply run,” he says, stepping forward. “What do you need?”
My entire body flinches.
Hard.
I hate that I flinched.
I never flinch.
“Get out,” I snap, but my voice isn’t strong. It shakes. “Get the fuck away from me.”
He steps closer. I step back. My towel slips slightly, and suddenly I feel naked in more ways than one. I want to yell again, but it dies in my throat. My hands are shaking. I can’t stop them. I can’t stop any of this.
“Arlo—”
“Don’t you fucking say my name.”
I’m unraveling. I can feel it.
I want to hit him. I want to scream until my throat tears open. Instead, a tear slides down my cheek, and I swipe it away with my fist—angry that it escaped. Angry that he saw. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just watches.
My hand flies to my neck before I can stop it.
Grabbing for something that’s not there.
More tears slip down, and I fucking hate it. Hate that he’s standing here watching me fall apart.
I lunge forward, trying to shove past him. I feel like I’m suffocating just being near him. But he won’t move. Won’t let me through.
I twist again, panic surging up my spine. I need to run. I need out. If I stay here another second, I’ll crack open right in front of him. I’m already drowning. In his scent. His size. His fucking presence.
His eyes flick to where my hand went.
“Where’s your necklace?”
I don’t answer.
Can’t.
He steps in closer.
I spot the gap, slipping through it. Rushing down the hallway, my heart is jackhammering, but his footsteps follow—
“Did they rape you?”
I stop so fast it rattles through my bones.
Did he really just—?
My head snaps toward him, heat flooding my chest. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Is that seriously the shit coming out of your mouth right now?”
The sheer fucking audacity of him asking me that—after everything—makes my stomach turn.
I want to run. I want to disappear.
I want to go back to the version of me that didn’t know him. That wasn’t destroyed by him.
“Answer the goddamn question,” he bites out.
My hands shake. My vision blurs. But I hold his stare anyway.
Why? So he can smile and tell me I liked it?
So he can throw it back in my face the way he always does—every filthy, degrading thing he’s ever done to me twisted into some sick proof that I wanted it.
So he can remind me how I sounded when I begged.
How I looked when I came for him. How he made me swallow his spit and told me I was made for it.
“You want the fucking highlight reel? That fucker with the gold tooth—he burned me. Poured gasoline down my throat. Sliced open my back until I couldn’t scream anymore.”
My body’s trembling. My voice cracks. I don’t care.
“I begged him to stop.”
Silence.
“Wanna know what he said?”
Priest’s jaw ticks. His eyes blacken.
“I bet you taste as sweet as you scream.” I step closer. My heart pounds. “But in that moment, it wasn’t him hurting me.”
I stare up at him.
“It was you. I saw your face. Heard your voice. All those sick, fucked-up things you said to me. How much you love hurting me. Making me scream. Bleed.”
Tears burn my eyes. I let them fall.
“And when that fucker finally broke me…it wasn’t him, it was you. So tell me, Priest. Did they fucking rape me?”
My voice shatters. Tears spill.
He takes a step forward, and I bolt, slamming the door to my room so hard that the walls shake. And then I collapse. Onto the bed. Onto the mattress Arsen helped stitch me up on.
And I scream.
She flinched.
She fucking flinched.
She’s never been afraid of me before.
Not when I made her bleed. Not when I threatened her. Not even when I had her tied up, hand wrapped around her throat, fucking the tears out of her.
I can’t get the image out of my head—the way her body jolted, that breath hitching in her throat, pupils blown wide with fear. Like she’d seen a ghost. Seen her worst fucking nightmare…
And it was me.
There’s an ache in my chest I don’t know what to do with. Something tight. It’s been there since I heard her scream my name with a gun to her head.
It won’t leave.
I want it gone. Want to carve it out with my fucking knife.
Rain patters against the windshield as I sit parked outside Theo’s place. I should be moving. I should’ve stormed in already—put a bullet in his head and been done with it. But I’m frozen. Like a sick part of me wants to hear him say it. Wants to know what they did.
My boots splash in a puddle as I finally get out and walk up to the house. Music’s thumping. Laughter filters through the windows.
I pound on the door with my fist.
Theo answers, shirtless, high as fuck, pupils dilated.
“Yo—Priest?” He grins like a goddamn idiot.
I shove past him. The smell of weed and alcohol hits me in the face. Some half-naked Slut is on her knees in the living room, snorting coke off a table cluttered with empty bottles and cash.
She looks up, licking powder from her lips. “Mmm, you’re hot. You wanna play too?”
Theo slaps me on the back, hands me a beer. I take it. Grip it. Feel the glass threatening to shatter in my palm.
“Caught me just in time. I’m leaving tomorrow,” he says, collapsing onto the couch, feet up on the table. He lights a cigarette, droning on.
I sit next to him, my jaw so tight I’m sure a tooth cracked.
“So, what’s up?” he finally says, his glassy eyes looking me up and down. “You’re kinda scaring me right now.”
“Just here to blow off steam.” I lean back against the couch, eyes locked on the ceiling. “I’ve been told I’ve been too uptight. I need to let loose.”
“Sweet. A night with the Priest. I’ll make it count.
” He laughs, running a hand over his face.
His Slut crawls toward me on her knees. Hands on my thighs.
Her pupils are blown, tongue peeking between her lips.
Before she can reach my belt, I reach behind my back, pull my Glock, and hold it in front of her mouth.
She freezes.
“Show me what that mouth can do.”
Her eyes dart to Theo.
He fucking laughs. “Don’t be shy, sweetheart.”
She hesitates, then opens her mouth, slowly wrapping her lips around the barrel.
“That’s it.” I push the gun further in her mouth, making her gag.
Theo’s laughing like an idiot. “Fucking hot, man.” He takes a video of her gagging and choking, drool dripping down her chin. “I’ll send it to you after.”
I look at him. Smile drops. Voice dead flat.
“Where’s her necklace?”
He blinks. “Huh?”
“Arlo,” I say, pressing the barrel deeper into the girl’s throat. She’s gagging harder now, mascara streaked down her cheeks, hands pushing weakly at my knee.
“I—I don’t know, man,” he stammers. “What necklace?”
“You sure?” I press harder. Her throat spasms. Her eyes are full of panic. “Because I think you do.”
He fumbles, sweating now. “It was nothing. Some cheap thing. Probably in my dresser.”
I nod slowly.
“Did you rape her?”
He stops breathing.
“What? What the fuck are you—”
BOOM.
The room explodes in blood.
The Slut jerks once, then slumps backward, mouth slack, eyes wide and vacant. Her corpse collapses between my knees, smoke still curling off the barrel.
Theo screams, “WHAT THE FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK, PRIEST!”
He scrambles back, slipping in her blood. I let him. Watch him smear panic across the floor while the weight of what I need to know coils tighter in my chest.
Because it matters. It fucking matters. She’s mine. Only my hands, my mouth, my cock—no one else gets to touch her, hurt her, make her scream the way I do.
I rise slowly, pulling the pliers from my jacket pocket.
Theo’s babbling now, wild-eyed and shaking. “I didn’t—I didn’t know you were serious—I didn’t rape her, I swear—”
I grab him by the neck and yank him forward until our foreheads nearly touch.
“You remember putting a gun to her head? You remember firing it next to her ear, laughing while she screamed, while her fucking ears bled?”