Chapter 38 #2
But I think of the way Sullen immediately surrendered to his father when Stein mentioned giving me to Klein. The way he sounded so broken. Afraid. For me.
What have you done to my monster?
A scream leaves my lips and I dig at his skin, my nails driving into the scars, ridged beneath my fingertips.
This is his cue, too.
He closes his hands around my throat, his nostrils flaring.
I dig into his eyes, trying not to think of Cosmo.
And when I begin to pop one out by putting pressure along the inner corner, scooping my thumbnail as if my life depends on it—because it does—he cries out and his grip loosens. I take down deep breaths and arch my hips in an attempt to throw him off me.
He seems to go limp, a groan leaving his lips that sounds sexual.
I think I am going to throw up, but I manage, by some miracle Writhe does not deserve, to edge out from beneath him. I flip onto my stomach and start to crawl, his body still over my calves, but I am nearly free. With the candlelight flickering along the dirt and grime beneath me, I see the gun.
My gun.
I stretch my fingers as far as they will go. The bruises along my shoulder blade lights up and everything hurts, especially as Klein digs his fingers into my ankle bones, but I keep stretching to the point it feels as if I may separate my own ribs.
My fingertips graze the gun.
Another scream leaves me, this one frustration.
I dig one hand into the dirt and use it to elongate my body further as I kick back as hard as I can, my foot connecting with some part of Klein.
His grip loosens.
Yes.
I get to my knees and I crawl as fast as I fucking can and grab the gun. It is only in my grip a second when Klein’s hands come around my calves again and he tugs me down in the dirt.
I use one palm as leverage to flip myself beneath him, because this time, I have a weapon. When I am on my back and staring up at him, I press the barrel to his temple.
His nostrils flare.
He has hands on either side of me, pinning me down, and he is on his knees above me.
I hate him, more than I have ever hated anyone.
“Why did you do it?” I want to know. I need to know. “How could you?”
A horrible grin stretches his lips. Broken teeth, crooked and yellow in his mouth. “How could I not?” His voice is rough. “When Stein promised me immortality, it meant nothing. But all the victims I wanted? How could I say no?”
I narrow my eyes. “No one will miss you.”
His face smooths out. No smile. A void. “My mother,” he whispers.
I snort a laugh. “I knew you had mommy issues, you sick fuck.” But just as I apply pressure to the trigger, I hear someone say my name.
Cold. Crisp. Clipped.
Klein goes rigid once more, and he looks up, beyond me.
He is like a dog on his knees, ready to obey his owner. And I know before he speaks again who it is behind us.
“I would not, if I were you. If you want to let my mutilation of a son get his pathetic hands on you again, I would not pull that trigger.”
I lift my chin, arching back to see.
And everything feels dizzying.
Out of control.
The rage is gone.
Fear remains.
“It is better, if there are two to torture, Gates always said. A boy and a girl. Both parts. Two hearts. Duplicity, in the archaic sense of the word.” He has his hand on Sullen’s throat, and the gun to his head.
Sullen is staring at me.
In his father’s hands.
“Now drop the weapon, and stay on your back.” Stein flicks his gaze to Klein and jerks his chin. “Up,” he says, as one might to a dog in training.
And Klein obeys without hesitation.
He has decided Stein is a god.
Stein controls his fate.
And so, Stein controls him.
“Did you not wonder why he didn’t kill you when you fled?” Stein continues, smiling pleasantly at me as the heat from Klein leaves me and he backs away.
The gun in my hand is heavy.
I lower my arm.
I start to flip myself, but Stein clicks his tongue at the same moment he smashes the gun against Sullen’s skull.
I gasp.
Sullen does not so much as wince.
“Drop the weapon, or I’ll do it again.”
I release the gun immediately.
Stein smiles, and he keeps speaking. “We need you both. Two hearts enamored are more powerful to debase than one empty.” He seems to be repeating something, quoting Burbank Gates if I had to guess.
I remain still.
My heart races. My limbs feel numb. I need to get to him.
I need to move.
I do not look away from Sullen Bram Rule. He anchors me. He always has.
“I am going to lay him beside you.” Stein runs his nose along the side of Sullen’s face and Sullen’s complexion turns green.
“Then you two will be allowed to fuck one last time.” He glances at Klein.
“While we watch, of course.” A grin twists his face.
“The final ritual. The end of the experiment begins with carnal lust.”
My stomach bottoms out.
Sullen looks blank, as if he is not here.
“Maybe he will impregnate you. It will be interesting to watch you grow, while we torture you.” Then he shoves Sullen away from him, and despite his awful words, I can breathe a little easier.
“Lie down beside her, my dear child, and you will get the release you so desperately need. She is gorgeous, I will give you that. Much more than you deserve, you pathetic vermin.”
Sullen seems dazed.
He is closer to me, but I know, by looking at him, that he is far away.
How did my friends let Stein get so close to him? Frustration mounts, but then again, here I was with Klein.
“Did he hurt you?” Sullen’s first words. Hoarse and broken and far from here.
He means Klein.
“No,” I tell him honestly, smiling despite the fact I think we will die here. “No, baby, he didn’t.”
Sullen blinks, as if he hears me. Sees me.
His head is angled down.
His eyes are locked with mine.
Stein says, “Oh, well that won’t do.”
Before I can tear myself away from the bottomless depths of Sullen’s eyes, there is a force inside my chest that makes my entire body ball up.
Sullen is running, my ribs feel as if they are broken, and it is only when I look up and see Klein breathing hard before me that I realize what happened.
He kicked me. In the chest. With his boots.
Tears prick behind my eyes.
Sullen is on his knees, throwing his body over my own. “No,” he whispers, but he sounds robotic. The pain is blinding.
I am crunched up, my knees to my chest as Sullen hovers over me, so much bigger than I am, so much more beautiful in his depths.
I have been so shallow. He has loved me to hell.
“I don’t deserve you.” It is the only thing I can think to say, my hands over my chest, splayed there where ache agonizes me. It is hard to draw breath. “I never have.”
Sullen shakes his head.
I realize he does not have a bandana around his throat, and he did not at the table, either.
Pride surges.
Love.
Raw and deep and aching.
“We deserve each other.” He gingerly nudges his nose to mine. “We belong to each other.”
Yes.
Yes.
My bottom lip trembles.
“This is gorgeous,” Stein says with coldness. “Now, fuck her.”
And a gunshot explodes too close to my head.
I flinch into Sullen’s arms and he cradles me, bowing over me, holding me so close, his hands beneath my head in the dirt, his body a living, breathing, beautiful shield.
No one was hit, I realize.
We are still alive.
“If you don’t fuck her like the animal I know you are, I will do it myself.” Stein’s growl.
Sullen does not move, but I do not consider Stein’s threats worthless.
“From behind,” I whisper through the pain in my chest, my lips against Sullen’s hoodie. “Fuck me from behind.” I say it louder, so both men watching us can hear.
Sullen is rigid.
I push against him, letting my wound go. Everything hurts, the pain shooting down into my ribcage, my abdomen. But when Sullen looks down at me, I keep my gaze locked tight to his.
“Fuck me from behind so they can see better.”
His eyes flash.
He starts to tremble.
Stein laughs. “I see what it is you enjoy about her, don’t you see, Klein?”
Klein murmurs something as Sullen stares at me like he has seen a ghost. As if I am not real. As if I have betrayed him.
A gunshot from above our heads—in the house—rings out.
I flinch, but force myself not to think of my friends. Isa, Von, Cosmo, the others. They can handle this.
“If you are especially good, you can fuck her until she stops breathing,” Stein says.
Sullen closes his eyes.
I shift beneath him, turning my body under the cage of his.
“Karia.” He gasps my name.
I am on my hands and knees.
I look over my shoulder, biting back my wince.
Our eyes lock.
“Fuck me,” I whisper, arching into his bigger body. “I’m yours.” Then I turn to look up through my lashes at Stein. “Get behind us, if you want to see my pussy.”
Sullen’s hand comes to my throat and he squeezes hard, trying to silence me.
Despite his rage, I smile.
Stein mirrors it, and he slowly walks around the perimeter of our bodies. “I like your mind, Karia Ven.”
Then I drop my eyes to the gun I released, still there, in the dirt, because Stein Rule is not half as clever as he believes himself to be.
“Take her clothes off,” he says crisply. “All of them. I want to see everything.”
“Do it,” I snarl, my words for Sullen.
And he obeys me. He fucking obeys.
His hand comes to my waistband.
And at the same time, I lunge for the gun, spin onto my back, aim, and shoot.
Stein goes down with a scream louder than the gun. What a fucking coward.
I lower my weapon and fire again as Sullen drops his head and throws himself over me without obstructing my view. Protecting me, shielding me, but letting me shoot.
Klein drops his weapon and his knees into the dirt.
As one, Sullen and I move. He unravels to his full height, offers me his hand. In a heartbeat, we’ve spun around, facing the men before us.
Stein still has his gun. His face is pale, complexion ashy, blood seeping into the gray suit he wears, right near his fucking heart.
Klein is holding his thigh, which leaves no room for his weapon.
And as Stein raises his own with a shaky hand, I shoot again, into his kneecap. He can hold on no longer.
Sullen moves quickly, kicking both guns away from his tormentors.
No longer his worst nightmares, not in my mind.
That’s me, isn’t it, baby boy?
Sullen squats down before Klein, who lifts his head, dark and gray hair falling back from those eyes that are too like Cosmo’s.
If Sullen hasn’t seen Klein’s face before, he doesn’t show it. He does not seem surprised by the scars.
Instead, he slowly peels his gloves off, tossing them in the dirt, and reaches out with a bare hand to trace one down the whole of Klein’s face.
Klein blinks rapidly, flinching.
“Do you remember when you saw my infection from the F on my thigh?” Sullen asks softly, tracing a scar over Klein's lips now. “How you curled your nails into it and breathed against my ear, your erection pressing into my back?”
I gag.
I cannot hold it back.
Stein’s eyes lift to mine. He is not smiling now as more blood pumps from his wound, soaking his blazer, causing it to stick to his skin.
“Do you remember how you pressed the candy wrapper in my arm each time you drove a stitch into my body, like your own personal music box, humming as you did it?”
Klein whimpers.
It sounds beautiful.
“Do you remember when I got the scalpel?” Sullen tilts his head. His shoulders shift with the movement.
Fuck, I want to fuck him.
I squeeze the gun in my fist to stop from moving.
“When I did this,” he cups his entire hand over Klein’s scarred face.
Warmth spreads in my tummy, and this time, it’s pleasant. He is the reason Klein is disfigured. I cannot bite back my smile.
“Is that the same night he crossed his own lines and stuck a needle in your cock until you cried like a child into your pillowcase, legs spread, body exhausted?” Stein’s words.
My smile falls away.
I aim the weapon at his head.
Sullen turns to his father and without warning, he slams his fist into the wound on his chest.
Stein groans, and I watch as he bows his head and blood bubbles up through his nose. His mouth.
“I thought you were meant to be immortal?” I say, stalking closer, gun in hand. I stare at him as he lifts his cloudy eyes to mine. Then I spit on him, mingling my saliva with his blood. “You look an inch from death to me. Where is your god now?”
Sullen slowly turns to stare up at me. There is a spark in his eyes. But he says, “Do not put any more of your bodily fluids on him, Karia.”
Like a warning.
I grin at my lover.
“Whatever you say, Daddy.”
His brows jump, but even he cannot fight his smile.
Something loosens in my chest.
We are going to survive, and I am never going to let him go.
“I only wanted to protect you,” Klein whispers, voice ragged.
Sullen turns to him, as if under a spell. He needs an apology. A reason. He needs something I know will never come.
“If it wasn’t me, it would be someone worse. Kill him, but spare me, Sullen Rule. Your mother, she had mercy.”
Sullen is frozen.
I wonder if he is thinking of it, what happened to Mercy Rule, inside his precious head now.
“Your mother would forgive me. Your mother would—”
Sullen shoves his fingers—both hands—inside Klein’s mouth.
And he begins to rip his jaw apart.
Klein tries to struggle away, but on his wrecked thigh, he does not get far.
Sullen shoves him backward, so Klein is in a reclining hero yoga pose, if I remember them correctly from my brief foray into yoga classes, and Sullen is over him, his fingers ripping at his mouth, tearing through bone as Klein screams.
The sound is gurgled.
Sullen retracts one hand, reaches back, snatches up Klein’s gun, and uses it as leverage, helping to tear his jaw apart. Sullen’s broad back obscures much of my view, but I hear it. Tendons snapping. Teeth, too. Bones popping. The strangled scream of a dying man.
“You fucking traitor. You fucking idiot.” Stein is hunched over, one hand on the ground, another over his chest as he tries to crawl to his doctor.
“Release him,” he snaps, breathless. “Release him, you pathetic piece of shit. You sorry excuse for a human being, let alone a son. You are worthless. Worthless, do you hear me?!” He is screaming now.
“You are nothing but a pathetic piece of—”
I aim at his head.
I squeeze the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times.
His head explodes at the same time Klein stops making any sound.
Sullen is bowed.
His back rises and falls.
Then he turns to glance at the remains of his father.
Then me.
And he smiles.
His dark eyes spark.
Silence settles in the ringing in our ears.
I drop the weapon.
And we run toward one another.