Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Nicky
The drive home is the longest twenty minutes of my life.
Liam is curled up in the passenger seat like a wounded animal, knees drawn to his chest, staring at nothing. He hasn’t said a word since we left Dante’s place, hasn’t responded to any of my attempts at conversation, hasn’t even acknowledged that I exist.
He’s gone. Completely, utterly gone, retreating so far inside himself that I can’t reach him no matter how gentle my voice or how carefully I choose my words.
“We’re almost home,” I tell him as we turn onto our street, but he doesn’t react. Doesn’t blink, doesn’t move, doesn’t give any sign that he’s heard me.
I’ve seen him dissociate before, but never like this. Never so completely, never so utterly unreachable. It’s like looking at a beautiful statue of someone I love, perfect in every detail except for the complete absence of the person who should be inhabiting it.
This is my fault. I should have gone into the probation office with him, should have waited inside instead of sitting in the car like an idiot.
Should have been there to stop that asshole before he could get his filthy hands on Liam, before he could drag him into that alley and whisper poison in his ear.
Should have killed him properly instead of just knocking him unconscious.
The thought should disturb me more than it does.
And maybe that’s the real problem. Because Liam seemed shaken after running into his rapist, but he wasn’t like this. It was delivering his abuser to Dante that caused Liam to shut down.
Murder and torture could be too much for Liam. Seeing the true darkness of who I am now could have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
But what the fuck am I supposed to do? There is no way in hell I could run into the man who raped Liam, and let the bastard breathe, let alone walk. It is simply not in me anymore. If it ever was.
Is that darkness too much for Liam? Is that what has turned him into a living statue? Is this my fault and not his abuser’s?
I park the car and turn off the engine, the sudden silence feeling oppressive after the background hum of London traffic. “Liam? We’re home.”
Nothing. Not even a flicker of recognition.
I reach over carefully, not wanting to startle him, and touch his shoulder. “Can you walk?”
For a moment, I think he’s not going to respond at all. Then he unfolds himself slowly, mechanically, like a marionette being operated by someone who’s forgotten how bodies are supposed to move.
The walk to the apartment is surreal. Liam follows me without question or hesitation, but there’s no awareness behind his compliance. He’s operating on autopilot, going through the motions of being a person while the actual person hides somewhere I can’t find him.
Inside, he heads straight for the bathroom without a word. The door closes behind him with a soft click, and I’m left standing in the hallway wondering what the fuck I’m supposed to do now.
I pour myself a whiskey. Then another. The amber liquid burns my throat but doesn’t touch the cold knot of fear that’s taken up residence in my chest.
Today started so perfectly. Liam was happy and glowing, beaming when I called him my boyfriend, like the word was made of gold. We were making progress, finding our way toward something that looked like healing.
And then that creep had to crawl out of whatever hole he’s been hiding in and destroy everything we’d built.
I should have seen this coming. Should have realized that letting Liam go anywhere alone was a mistake.
But I wanted him to have some independence, some semblance of a normal life. Wanted him to feel like a person instead of a thing that needs constant guarding.
Fat lot of good that did.
I check my watch. He’s been in the bathroom for fifteen minutes. That’s not necessarily unusual, Liam likes long showers, says the hot water helps with the anxiety. But something about the silence feels wrong. Too complete, too absolute.
There is no sound of running water.
“Liam?” I call through the door. “You okay in there?”
Nothing.
“Liam, can you answer me, please? I’m starting to worry.”
Still nothing, and the knot in my chest turns to ice.
I try the door handle, already knowing what I’ll find. Locked.
“Liam, I need you to open the door or say something. Anything. Just let me know you’re alive in there.”
The silence that follows is the most terrifying sound I’ve ever heard.
I don’t think. Don’t hesitate. Don’t waste time looking for tools or trying to jimmy the lock. I just step back and kick the door as hard as I can, the wood splintering around the frame with a crash that echoes through the apartment.
Liam is standing in front of the bathroom mirror, perfectly still, holding a small brown bottle in his hands. The bottle that should be in the medicine cabinet, the one with his name on it and warnings about not exceeding the recommended dose.
The bottle that’s now open, its contents scattered across the white porcelain of the sink.
“Did you take any?” I ask, my voice coming out rougher than I intended.
He looks at me with those blank, glassy eyes and doesn’t answer.
I cross the space between us in two strides and knock the bottle from his hands, pills scattering across the tile floor like tiny white raindrops.
“Did you take any?” I demand again, grabbing his shoulders.
Still nothing. Just that horrible, empty stare.
Panic takes over. I force his mouth open with my fingers, ignoring the way he tries to pull away, and shove them down his throat as far as they’ll go. He gags and tries to fight me, but I hold him over the toilet until he retches up everything in his stomach.
It’s mostly just bile and the remains of this morning’s breakfast, but mixed in are several white tablets that make my knees go weak with relief.
He took some. But not many. Maybe not enough to…
He starts pushing against me, trying to get away from my grip, and suddenly we’re struggling. Not fighting exactly, but not cooperating either. He’s weak from throwing up and shaky from whatever the pills have done to him, but desperation gives him strength.
I don’t mean to be rough with him. Don’t mean to use my size and weight against him. But he’s trying to get away and I can’t let him, can’t risk him finding more pills or another way to hurt himself, so I do what comes naturally.
I slam him against the bathroom wall, face first, and pin him there with my body.
The position is unmistakable. Intimate. Predatory. Everything I swore I’d never do to him.
“Yes!” Liam gasps against the tile. “Make me yours!”
The words hit me like a physical blow, rage exploding in my chest like a bomb going off.
He thinks this is what I want. He thinks I’m pinning him against the wall because I’m some animal who can’t control himself, some predator who takes what he wants without caring about consent or gentleness or love.
He thinks I’m just like that asshole we left with Dante.
“Why would I bother to make you mine,” I snarl, my voice coming out harsh and ugly, “when you’re just going to leave me?”
I kick the empty pill bottle for emphasis, and it skitters across the floor like an accusation.
“I won’t,” he pants, his cheek pressed against the wall.
“The bridge? The pills?” I can hear my own voice breaking, all the fear and terror from the last few hours finally finding an outlet. “Every time something goes wrong, you try to fucking leave me!”
“I wouldn’t if I was your bitch.”
“Don’t say that!” The words explode out of me, violent and desperate.
“Yours, then! Yours! Whatever you want to call it! Make me yours. Make me feel...” He trails off, the sentence hanging unfinished in the cold air of the bathroom.
Make me feel what? Better? Something? Safe? Wanted? Protected?
“Just make it stop,” he pleads, and his voice is so broken, so desperate, that something inside me cracks completely.
Make it stop. Not, make me feel good, not, make me happy. Just make the pain stop, even if it’s only for a few minutes.
Some primal, feral part of me responds to that plea.
The part that’s been watching him suffer for weeks, that’s been holding back out of respect and care and all the civilized instincts that separate humans from animals.
The part that wants to claim him, mark him, make him mine in the most basic way possible.
I want him. I have done so for years. I’m angry and terrified. I love him, and I’m outraged. I’m hurt and panicked. I’m desperate. I’m all of these things and more, and it is too much to contain.
My hands move without conscious thought, yanking at his trousers, pulling them down despite the voice in my head that’s screaming at me to stop.
I watch, like a passenger in my own body, as I reach for the bottle of conditioner on the nearby shelf.
I squirt a big dollop onto the top of his ass crack. The bottle of conditioner falls onto the floor with a dull thud. My fingers slide along his ass crack, smearing the cold gloop down. It soon heats up. Fired by the cacophony of emotions burning through me and the scorching heat of Liam’s body.
Even through the haze of my insanity, I notice that the curve of Liam’s ass is exquisite. I am a monster. I don’t know what the fuck I am doing, but I know I should not be noticing things like that.
My fingers find his hole and smear the conditioner around. He gasps and pushes his ass out towards me. Encouraging me. Coaxing me on.
Maybe he really does want this?
My fingers press against his hole while I hold him against the wall.
Liam whimpers. It is not a moan or a sexy sound of pleasure. It is a small, scared sound that cuts through my daze like a knife through silk.
The sound hits me like a slap in the face and a bucket of ice water all at once.
What the fuck am I doing?
I stumble backward, horrified at myself, at how close I came to becoming exactly the kind of monster I’ve spent weeks trying to help him heal from. My hands are shaking, and I can taste bile in my throat.
This isn’t love. This isn’t protection. This is just more trauma dressed up in the language of caring.
I grab the pill bottle from the floor, because I can’t leave it where he might reach it, and I flee. Actually flee, like the coward I am, leaving him half-naked and broken against the bathroom wall while I run from what I almost did.
The front door slams behind me before I realize I’ve moved, and suddenly I’m standing in the hallway outside our apartment, breathing hard and trying not to throw up.
I almost did it. I almost took advantage of his breakdown, his desperation, his complete inability to consent to anything in his current state.
I almost became the thing he needs protection from.
The realization sits in my stomach like poison, burning through any justification I might try to construct. I told myself I was saving him, that I was responding to what he asked for, that I was giving him what he needed.
That I was fixing him.
But the truth is simpler and uglier. I was scared of losing him, and that fear made me cruel.
I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, the pill bottle clutched in my white-knuckled fist like evidence of my own capacity for damage.
Inside the apartment, I can hear water running. Liam, probably trying to wash away the feeling of my hands on him, the memory of being pinned against the wall like prey.
I want to go back in. Want to apologize, to explain, to somehow undo the last ten minutes and handle everything differently.
But I can’t trust myself. Can’t be sure that the feral thing inside me won’t take over again the moment I see him vulnerable and hurting.
So I sit in the hallway like the piece of shit I am, holding pills I stole from someone who’s probably contemplating ways to finish what he started, and try to figure out how to love someone without destroying them.
Try to figure out how to save someone from everyone, including myself.
The water stops running, and the silence that follows feels like the end of the world.