50. This bitch bites back – Aurora
50
THIS BITCH BITES BACK
AURORA
I reach out to the other side of the bed, my fingers brushing nothing but smooth sheets and empty space as I wake up. Sighing, I press my face into the pillows, inhaling the warm scent that I think will now be forever imprinted in my mind as Atticus .
There’s a whisper of shifting fabric behind me and I blink to clear the sleep from my eyes as I roll over and find him sitting a few feet from the bed. He’s pulled the armchair close, and he’s leaning over his knees, watching me intently.
God, how long has he been doing that? “What are you doing?”
There’s laughter in my still sleep-toned voice as I stretch again. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been sitting there watching me sleep.”
I can’t decide if that would be creepy, or kind of cute.
“Atticus?”
I prop myself up on my elbows, looking at him more closely in the warm orange glow of the lamp. His eyes flash like reflective stone, and there’s something between his hands. Hanging loosely from his grip. What is that?
Is that my cell phone on the arm of the chair?
I sit up, pulling the sheet with me to cover myself. My skin prickles as I swallow, casting my gaze around the room, trying to find what I’m missing.
The door is closed, and I don’t hear the guys in the house or Ellie. Atticus must’ve let her out. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
I swing my legs off the high king bed, looking for my clothes on the floor, but Atticus’s cold voice stops me.
“Stay there.”
“What?”
He inhales audibly, leaning back in the chair. As he moves, the object in his hand catches the light, and my heart stops.
“Why do you have that?”
“I have some questions,” he says in a dead monotone, angling the weapon atop his thigh so it’s pointed at me.
My skin flushes with heat, and I clamp my jaw, glaring at him. “What the fuck is this?”
His grip on the weapon flexes and his next words come out through his teeth. “That’s exactly what I’d like to know.”
I shake my head, scoffing as I get up to collect my pants from the floor.
Atticus is up in an instant, making me flinch as he stands over me. “Sit the fuck down.”
My heart pounds hard in my chest as I hold my ground. I don’t know what this is about, but he needs to check himself. I glare up at him. “Why are you being such an asshole?”
“As if you don’t know.”
When I go to grab my pants again, and he tries to block me, I duck and scramble out of the way, picking them up anyway.
His hand comes down on my shoulder, and I whirl with venom in my throat, knocking him off. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
I don’t know what kind of bullshit he’s trying to pull, but I am not interested.
“Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something? Jesus .”
I knew this was a bad idea. Why didn’t I just walk away last night?
Turning away from him, I drop the sheet and pull my pants on without bothering to locate my panties, searching the floor for my shirt. Atticus doesn’t stop me as I snatch it from the edge of the bed and pull it back over my head. He doesn’t stop me as I storm toward the door and go to wrench it open so I can get the hell away from whatever fuckery this is.
But the handle doesn’t budge. I try again, twisting harder, searching for a lock.
Beside the door, partially hidden behind an the ancient-looking bust I almost knocked over yesterday, is a fucking keypad.
Was this his plan all along? Get me to come down here so he could, what ? Hurt me? Keep me down here and have his way with me for as long as he damn well wants? I am into some kinky-ass shit, but I’ve never had a fantasy of being fucked by a total asshole while he holds a gun. I’m not one of his ‘playthings’ and I didn’t sign shit that said he was allowed to lock me in here with him.
“What’s the code?”
“Why are you really here?” he counters.
“Atticus, what is the fucking code?”
He steps forward, coming slowly around the bed like a shadow in the desert of his room. He adjusts his grip on the gun in his right hand, and it makes a metallic sound as it rubs against one of his rings.
“No one is going anywhere until I get the answers I want.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I want to tell him he’s scaring me so that he’ll stop, but I think he already knows. I think that’s exactly what he wants to do. And it makes me so angry I want to scream.
“Why are you here?” he repeats, stopping a few steps away, standing so still he could be a fucking statue. It’s unnerving.
I frown. “You brought me here.”
“But that’s exactly what you wanted,” he snaps back, agitation in the set of his jaw. “ Wasn’t it ?”
And I see what this is now. I recognize his expression. It’s one I’ve seen in the other men who’ve inserted themselves into my life from the time I was old enough to remember.
This is someone who’s already made up his mind, and nothing I say, no matter how rational, is going to change it. Not while he’s like this.
I could do what I always have—agree, apologize, and live to deal with another day… but to hell with that .
“I’m sorry, Atticus,” I sneer. “But you’re going to have to be a little more fucking specific with your accusations because I don’t speak jackass.”
He lurches forward a step, and I’m proud as fuck of myself when I don’t shrink back.
I clench my fists and lift my chin.
“You really had them fooled,” he seethes. “Shit. You almost had me, too. I actually thought…”
He laughs hollowly before his eyes narrow again. “Did he pay you extra to spread your legs for all of us, or did it just come naturally?”
Atticus ducks as the bust of some ancient philosopher’s head flies toward him and smashes into the wall, raining bits of ivory stone over the floor. My shoulder aches from the heft of it. I look at the pedestal where it just was and blink. I don’t even remember making the decision to throw the fucking thing, but you know what, I’m only angry it didn’t hit him.
Is that what he really thinks of me? That I’m some whore who’s only sleeping with them as a means to whatever ridiculous end he’s just come up with.
“You bastard ,” I seethe.
Atticus stares, gaping at the now half-faceless bust on the floor by his feet, slowly dragging his gaze up to lock back on me. My throat goes dry at the look in his eyes.
“That was from the third fucking century.”
I cross my arms over my chest and eye him down.
“Well, now it’s trash.”
He snarls as he storms over to me, getting right up in my face.
I clench my fists and jut out my chin, refusing to be cowed by his size. I’m calling his bluff. If he were going to hurt me, the fucker would’ve done it already.
“I never should have brought you here,” he shouts into my face, and I stand my ground even though it feels like it’s shifting beneath my feet.
I say nothing, and my silence only seems to rile the malice in his stare. He snarls as he pulls himself back and stalks to the chair to snatch my phone from the armrest, bringing it back to shove it into my hands.
“Open it.”
“What?”
“ Unlock. It, ” he says like he’s talking to a complete idiot who doesn’t understand basic English.
“No.”
I’m too slow to stop him before he gets his arm around me, holding mine down as I thrash against him.
“Atticus!”
He flips me around and my chest hits the wall.
“Atticus, stop! ”
He presses me harder into the wall to keep me pinned.
Panic rises in my throat when I realize I can’t move. He brings my phone up to my face where it’s squished against the wall, unlocking the screen and letting me go as soon as it’s open.
“ What the fuck? ”
I hate how my throat has started to burn. How speaking feels like pushing words through razor blades trapped in my windpipe. I shove him, and he doesn’t react. Doesn’t even shift on his feet. I shove him again, but he stops me, grabbing my wrists, spinning me into his chest to grip me tight. “I asked you nicely,” he snaps. “Twice.”
Managing to get my wrists free, I twist myself out of his grasp, dizzy on whatever chemical is making my world feel small and suffocating.
I force the air into my lungs. “Let me out of this room… now .”
“Tell me who this is,” he says, ignoring me, shoving my phone screen in my face.
It takes me a second to see the jumble of light and letters for what it is. A message.
Chris: Did you get in?
“Chris?”
Oh my god, what is this about? Is he…is he jealous ? Does he think Chris is another ex?
“Chris is my dad, you prick.”
He snorts derisively. “Your adopted father’s name is Melvin Davis.”
I never told him that. How does he know that?
“You know that it’s pretty easy to tell when someone deletes messages from their phone, and there are a lot of deleted messages in this conversation. In a lot of your conversations, actually.”
My mouth falls open.
“Oh, come on,” he says, waving the gun around in his hand like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “As if I didn’t look into you. It was the first fucking thing I did when you got here.”
My chest hollows, draining away the panic to make room for the rage to return.
He hacked my phone. I want to laugh at myself. Because of course he did. The guy I gave my phone to literally to check to make sure it wasn’t hacked in Paris was the one doing the hacking all along.
What else did he see? The messages between Jesse and me?
The video he sent me?
After Jesse and his goons fucking drugged me and watched while…
My stomach sours, and bile hits the back of my throat like boiling acid.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he says, patronizing. “You’re the one with all the secrets, aren’t you, Aurora— if that’s even your real name.”
He’s really fucking lost it.
I would feel sorry for him if I wasn’t so fucking angry.
“His name,” I start, shivering even though I’m hot all over. “Is Melvin Christopher Davis.”
I need to get out of this room before I do something I might regret. Before I set something into motion that can’t be stopped. Because I want to hurt him.
The feeling creeps over me like a living thing, rearranging my wires and filling my head with poisonous whispers.
It’s every time I hovered over Jesse with a pillow, ready to push down and hold until he stopped breathing.
But I already unleashed that part of myself in Paris and I don’t think there’s a way to get it back in its cage.
“It’s his middle name.”
Atticus’s brows lower, and he shakes his head. “I’m not buying it.”
“I don’t give a shit. Let me out.”
This time when he steps forward, I step back, giving him a warning look that I think the predator in him recognizes because he stops, cocking his head at me.
“Just tell me the truth. How long have you been working for him?”
“Working for who?”
“Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll let you walk out of here.”
I gape at him.
“Did Ambrose tell you to?—”
“ Ambrose ?”
“Don’t fucking play with me! I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
Hurt me? He can fucking try it.
Covertly, I scan my surroundings for a weapon in case I need one. If I’m fast, I can probably get to the acoustic guitar in the corner. There are pens on his nightstand that could also do some damage if they’re jammed just right into his jugular.
I decide to try reason one more time. Not for Atticus. He can suck a fucking dick. For Elijah and Seven, who wouldn’t condone this. I try because they care about him. I’m not sure why I ever thought I could anymore. Some people are too fucked up to fix.
“If I was working for Ambrose, why the hell would I have saved Elijah’s life in Paris?”
“He’s sacrificed dozens of his men trying to get to us. What’s one more to cement you as an ally?”
I roll my eyes.
“What about this house?”
“Not following.”
“You said he didn’t know where it was. So, how could I have been in exactly the right place at the right time?”
I’m shouting, but I can’t seem to stop. Can’t seem to rein in my fury.
Atticus recoils from the question, eyes shifting as he considers it. “I must’ve fucked up somewhere. Maybe the meeting we crashed was a setup and you tailed us all the way from Jonesville.”
I laugh derisively at him, and he doesn’t fucking like it, but that only makes me double down. “Now you’re really reaching, Atty .”
His returning grin is full of malice.
“Am I? Let’s call ‘Chris’, shall we?”
He tosses my phone to me and I catch it on instinct.
He gestures with his gun. “Go ahead. Call him.”
“Hell no. I’m not bringing him into whatever fucked-up delusion this is.”
“Why was he asking you if you got in?”
My face falls. Why was he asking that? I rack my brain, but it’s like trying to grasp at leaves in the wind. I can’t catch the thoughts before they’re carried away. God, why is it always like that when you’re on the spot?
But you know what? I don’t owe Atticus an explanation because I’ve done nothing wrong.
I’m not working for Ambrose, and if he opened his eyes for one goddamned second, he’d be able to see that himself.
“That’s what I thought.” Atticus’s tone turns deadly. “Call him.”
“ No .”
A vein in Atticus’s temple stands out blue beneath bronze skin as he clenches his jaw…and raises his gun.
“Make the call, Aurora.”
My heart hammers in my chest.
He wouldn’t.
“They’ll never forgive you.”
“Don’t!” he yells. “You don’t talk about them. Do you think you’re special? You’re just a warm cunt. Another backstabbing whore digging for gold in the Ashford coffers. I’m not fucking having it.”
The knife in my gut twists, opening a hundred old hurts.
Not good enough. Not nice enough. Not pretty enough.
Just another warm cunt.
I gasp when he twists his fist into the front of my shirt, shoving me back into the wall. I can’t fight him. I don’t know where the rage went. My body feels too heavy to move.
“Make the call.”
He shakes me, and the cool metal of the barrel presses to the bare skin where my cropped shirt ends, just to the right of my belly button. A bullet there will kill me slow. It’ll hurt.
With shaking hands, I lift the phone and find Chris in my contacts through the blur of the searing tears welling in my eyes.
I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.
When I hesitate too long with my finger over his name, Atticus takes the cell and taps the call button for me, turning on speakerphone as he pushes the barrel of the gun harder into my stomach.
It rings twice before the line picks up and a sob grows in my throat.
“There she is,” Christ says warmly. “How are you, kid? Did you get into that course you were talking about?”
I choke on another sob, remembering. I told him I was applying for an Intro to Music Business course in Boone so that someone would know where I was headed.
And I deleted the messages in case Jesse caught me. Like I deleted all the messages I didn’t want him to find and exploit against me.
Atticus taps me with the barrel of the gun.
“Yeah,” I manage, trying so fucking hard to make my voice sound normal. They don’t need to know how much of a screw-up I am. Not after everything they did to make sure I turned out differently. “It— uh —it starts next week.”
“You okay, hun?”
Atticus looks at the phone as if he doesn’t understand the meaning of the words coming from the speaker.
“Aurora? You sound like you’ve been cry?—”
He taps the button to end the call, and I sag against the wall.
“Must suck…” I mutter. “Being such a monumental fuckup.”
My phone buzzes with Chris calling me back, but Atticus doesn’t answer it, just watches it go to voicemail.
The sound of a door opening upstairs proceeds heavy footfalls and the tapping of Ellie’s paws on hardwood.
I bat his gun away from my belly and bang hard on the locked door before he can stop me. “Down here!”
Atticus gives me a hard look, and I swear to god, if he comes one more step in my direction, I will rip his dick off with my bare hands.
It takes seconds before the whole damn cavalry comes stampeding down the stairs.
“Aurora?” Seven’s voice comes through the solid metal pane and I want to cry when I hear it.
“Could you open the door?” I ask, swallowing the gravel in my throat.
There are four chirping sounds as he puts the code in on the other side, and the handle turns in my grip.
“Ro?”
I shoulder past him, unable to meet either of their eyes as I take the stairs two at a time to escape the terrifying version of myself that still wants to make Atticus hurt.
Ellie whines, trying to get my attention with little jumps that almost knock me off my feet as I trudge up the stairs.
“ Aurora ,” Elijah calls after me.
“What happened?” Seven demands, following me up the stairs.
When he tries to grab my hand to stop me, I rip it away. I don’t want him to make it better. I want fucking blood.
“Ask him .”
Seven’s blue eyes harden to ice.
“He’s the one who thinks he fucking knows everything.”