Chapter 30
Mila
My life has become this upside down paradise. Not shaded by tropical trees or bathed in warm light. Instead, I ’ m wrapped in roots that are buried deep, hidden from the world. That ’ s what Dash ’ s affection feels like.
For weeks, a new routine takes shape. We go to school, I dance, Dash trains, we eat with Dante and Cillian; I listen to them talk about the weakness of others; I dance again, Dash trains again. At the end of the day, Dash and I retreat to his dorm, where we can truly be ourselves. No fake personalities.
In his shower, we cleanse each other and rid ourselves of the filth of our lies.I wash him, kiss him, touch him until the man named King is gone and my broken prince remains. It ’ s the happiest I have ever felt.
Dash kisses me, cleanses my mind and touches my body till I ’ m nothing but begging bones and needy flesh.
That shower has magical properties. I wish we never had to leave it. As soon as the water turns off, Dash ’ s body stiffens and part of my broken prince sneaks into hiding.
We share a bed, but it ’ s nothing more than me clinging to him. He ’ s never kissed me on his bed. Only in the shower where the memory of it can be washed away.
Once in bed, he turns his back to me. I ’ m the one left clinging to him, like the big spoon. We share burdens. Outside the walls of his room, he ’ s my shield, but inside this room I ’ m his.
I meant what I said. We will fix each other. I know Dash is stuck in this world. He can ’ t escape like I will one day. I just need to know that he knows what love is. What sleeping soundly feels like; when he closes his eyes as I hug him in his bed, I hope and pray he dreams. When he stumbles because of that cast, I catch him because I want him to know he doesn ’ t have to fall alone.
I want my devil to feel loved because I hope it might change him. I know he ’ s never going to be the hero, but maybe he can be something in between, something in the gray zone. The monster and the slayer.
I know we can ’ t ever be together. He ’ s a King and I ’ m just a ballerina performing for others. Some nights I lay awake fantasizing that he would run away with me.
It ’ s stupid.
Tragically romantic.
I blame it on my upbringing. All ballerinas know is tragic love. Those make for the best shows.
They always intended for me to be the spectacle. The show. Dash was born to be the observer, the king, the predator.
You can ’ t beg a spider to stop spinning its web. Sticky lies and silken promises, designed to ensnare, are in its nature. You have to learn to look at their web of lies as beauty and bravery because the pain of spreading them, of trapping others, is the only way the spider can survive.
Dash can never stop creating webs.
I thought he was trying to trap me in one.
I was wrong.
Making a deal with Dash gave me a rare opportunity to be a bystander. I got to watch how the spider made his art. It was breathtaking, gut wrenching, sickening, humbling, influencing. One day I will have to be a spider, spinning webs of lies, putting on a show, so I can remain free.
***
“ How does it feel?” Why do I sound sad? We all should be happy. The end is inching closer to us. Dash is free of his cast; it was removed today. He has a mobile brace and must continue physical therapy, but after that, his name will be inked onto a list and called forth for The Cleansing.
My gulp is so loud that Dash ’ s eyes glare into mine. His dorm room feels smaller, like a cage, and he ’ s the lion ready to flex his claws.
Suddenly, I want to cry.
I think he does, too. Hidden behind his hardened walls is a broken prince trembling right now.
“ Good as new.” He mocks. But his eyes keep watching me intently.
“ Say it.” He orders.
“ What?” I step back. He arches his brow, causing me to keep inching back until the backs of my legs hit his mattress.
“ What has you on the verge of crying?” Each step he takes in my direction sends his shadow slithering across his floor, closer and closer. A single tear escapes my eyes, but suddenly, he ’ s there, catching it on the pad of his thumb. It shouldn ’ t turn me on when he presses it to his lips.
It does.
There is no part of me he doesn’t want to savor.
“ I don ’ t want these kinds of tears staining your face, little fox,” he mutters gently as he touches my chin.
“ What kind of tears do you want?” I whisper as I lean into his touch.
His eyes darken, and he runs his nose along my jaw, sighing as if he ’ s found peace after a long journey he barely survived. He presses his lips to my ear, his hot breath tickles and fans over my skin, “ The kind of pleasure and passion so fucking painful you want to die in my arms. Those are the tears I want from you.” he turns my head and claims my lips. Searing hot passion glides over my tongue as he moans into my mouth.
“ What am I going to do with you?”
“ Love me.” Make love to me!
“ I can ’ t do that, and you know it.”
“ Liar.” I challenge. He ’ s hard, and I know it must be painful. I reach out for the zipper of his pants, but he stops me as he grabs me, lifting me till he sets me on his bed. “ You ’ re just scared.” I declare.
“ Of what?”
“Of what we both will find.” I reply. He looks down at me with such a mixture of emotions it has me reaching out to grab his shirt, trying to pull him back down to my lips.
I inch back over the mattress, legs widening, inviting him closer. He grabs my wrist and removes it from his shirt.
“ Don ’ t,” I plead. Don ’ t run from me. Kiss me on your bed, and don ’ t let the water wash it away.
“ Please.”
He closes his eyes. “ I need to shower.”
My heart sinks. “ Fine.” I push off the bed, walking past him to the bathroom.
“ I don ’ t need your help anymore.”
I freeze. Inhaling deep with my back to him. You ’ re trying to push me away.
“ I would have helped you regardless of the deal. What you see as a weakness, I saw as humanity. You ’ re broken, and that ’ s okay.”
“ I ’ m not broken anymore.” He replies in a sharper tone. “ I ’ m going to shower. Alone.”
“ I ’ m coming.”
“ No!” He snaps. “ I... I need to be alone with my thoughts.” He walks past me, grabbing the bathroom door and shutting it in my face. Click. The locks sound.
I ball my fist and look around his room until I stare at the door. I should leave, so why am I walking to his bed with my bag?
I sit down, pull out a pair of new pointe shoes, and begin to sew the elastic on. He showers longer than normal. I get up and wiggle the doorknob.
I know he ’ s scared; he has to be. What would Dash do if the roles were reversed? He ’ d break this door down and drag the fear out of my body.
I step back and then shove my left shoulder into the door.
Shit! It didn ’ t even rattle! I ’ ve never felt so insignificant.
I don ’ t think as I walk to his desk, grab the chair, then swing it against the door.
Okay, swing is a generous word to describe the semi-lift into the air. But it does hit the door, only to fall out of my hands on impact.
“ Fuck!” That ’ s heavy. I grab the chair again, struggling to raise it high, and then, bam! It hits the door right as it swings open.
“ What the fuck!” Dash shouts as the chair falls into the bathroom. Steam billows out, masking his face in fog.
Dash strides out and scans the room, placing me behind him. Protecting me. He whips around. “ What are you doing?” He looks at the chair and then at the door.
“ I ’ m doing what you would have done.” I slap my hands on my hips, rather proud I got him to emerge. Then what I did settles in.
Dash didn ’ t emerge; King did. And he ’ s seething. Completely naked as droplets drip down his flexed muscles, rolling down his torso, over his abs, lower and lower.
His exhale is more growl than a breath. I glide my eyes up. Slowly. “ You ’ re. Not. Me.” He hisses. His chest heaves and trembles like a moth banging against the windowpane. I know when I speak, my choice of words will either free the creature inside of him or settle it.
The power is in my hands.
I choose to free it. Attempting to fly alongside it by opening the window and giving chase. “ You said I was a predator, too.”
His neck pulses. “ Not the kind that fights. You hide.”
The heat from the bathroom coats my skin, causing a sweat on my brow to build. “ That ’ s not a predator,” I mutter.
He shakes his head, releasing the water from his hair. The strands fall loose and wild over his forehead. “ I never said you didn ’ t strike.” He looks down at my silly attempt to break down his door. “ You have poison, not claws.”
“ Has it touched you?”
His jaw clenches. “ You should have left when I told you to.” He turns, slips into the bathroom, and grabs a towel. “ Get in the bed.”
He shakes his head knowing what I’m thinking. “ We ’ re sleeping.”
“ I ’ m not tired. I don ’ t want to sleep.” My eyes look at him with hope. Just sleep with me already! Why won ’ t he cross that line when he has erased every other one?
“ Too fucking bad. I am.”
“ Why won ’ t you let me do more?”
“ You ’ ve done enough.” He grunts. He turns the lights off, then joins me in bed, turning his back to me.
“ Dash,” I begin. “ I just want to help.”
“ I told you I don ’ t need your help anymore.” He hits his pillow, trying to get comfortable.
“ I know you ’ re scared.”
No reply.
I watch his back rise and fall as the moon climbs higher in the sky. I grab the sheets and tug them high, ensuring they cover both of us.
“ I ’ m not scared of dying in The Cleansing.” He whispers.
My heart sings. This is his way of apologizing. It ’ s his pattern. After he lashes out or traps me, he offers me a look inside his dark soul. He did it after we first made our deal, when he revealed he felt as dead and trapped as I did.
“ What are you scared of?”
He shifts, then shocks me as he turns to face me. We lay there for a few breaths, just looking at each other. Only the moonlight touches us, lighting up the curves of our features. “ I just want to keep the people I care about safe. I can ’ t do that if I die. But sometimes, I fear staying alive is what is killing them.”
“ That ’ s not true,” I reply quickly. I slide my hand under the sheet, hugging him closer to me.
“ Who I love is a target. As long as I ’ m alive, those I care about will be prey to others.”
“ We ’ re all prey to someone. It wouldn ’ t change if you were living and breathing over them or dead in the ground. But being alive helps make their lives more bearable, Dash.”
“ I don ’ t know why you do that?”
“ Do what?”
“ Try to make me feel better.”
“ Because I…I…” Four letters almost slip out, but the look on Dash ’ s face halts them before they can roll off my tongue.
How can my four letters spell love, but his would spell hate?
Dash shakes his head, “ Don ’ t ruin it, little fox. Save that word for someone who deserves it.” He reaches out and tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear.
“ What if you do?” Why can ’ t I love you?
“ I don ’ t deserve those words. I don ’ t deserve you. I trapped you. A hunter shouldn ’ t be praised. He has one duty, and that ’ s hunting and killing. That ’ s how he survives.” He removes his hand and grabs the sheet instead.
“ What about release?” Why can ’ t he hunt me and then set me free so we can run away together?
“ That ’ s not truly a hunter; that ’ s a monster who tortures for thrills.” He rolls onto his back and looks up at the ceiling.
“ I know you think you trapped me.”
“ I did.” He swings his arm up and tucks it under his head.
“ I chose it, Dash. I could have run from you and denied you. I didn ’ t.”
“ Because I offered you something in return. It was bait.”
“ Why do you insist on making yourself into the bad guy?”
“ Because I am!” He snaps as he kicks his legs out from the sheets.
“ Not to me!”
A few moments later, I inch closer to him, pressing my cheek over his chest until his heartbeat calms. “ Not every monster is a beast,” I whisper.
We don ’ t speak for a long time. My eyelids begin to feel heavy.“You ’ re not so little anymore, are you, fox?” He mutters as his hand slides down, cupping my ass. He rolls into me, tucking my head under his jaw, and then he pulls the covers up over us both.
“ I ’ ll always be your little fox,” I whisper, against his chest, then I kiss it.
He grunts a depressed sigh, like the final tune of an instrument that survived the drum line of war, but now it ’ s too battered and bruised to be played again.
“ When you die, what do you want people to say about you?” I ask him.
“ You think I ’ ll die in The Cleansing?”
“ No. I know you won ’ t.” I clarify. “ I mean, decades from now.”
“ I don ’ t know. Go to sleep.” He pulls me closer.
“ I want them to say I loved my family. I don ’ t care about what I accomplish. All that matters is that the people I loved know it.”
His breath catches. “ What if your family isn ’ t worthy of love?”
I press myself closer, nudging my leg between his so we are as entwined as possible. “ Then find someone who is Dash. Keep searching till you find them.” I close my eyes. The sound of his breathing and his gentle rubbing of my lower back help lull me to sleep.
“ I don ’ t need to search.”
I smile; I know I ’ m dreaming now. My broken prince wouldn ’ t have admitted that out loud, would he?