1. Fae
FAE
The mattress sinks under her weight when she shifts and the pitiful springs beneath it groan like they’re tired of holding us.
When I first arrived, we only had one mattress between us.
For good behaviour, we got another mattress that actually has a bed frame.
Of course, it wasn’t actually for good behaviour, it was for Fisher to rape me easier without hurting his back.
He can dress it up how he likes but I know the truth.
Our bodies are maps of the cuts, welts and bruises that have been left behind by cruel hands.
The bed frame makes it easier to tend to them as best as we can.
It’s like some sick rota. One day it’s Robyn, the next it is me.
It does mean that Fisher doesn’t need to help us though.
We became our own nurses. On the days she can’t help, I do.
On the days I can’t help, she does. I’m sure a couple of my ribs are broken.
The pain every time I breathe in stabs through me like a knife.
I kneel beside her with a bowl of water that’s already gone pink.
It smells like antiseptic and iron, and the mixture makes me swallow a gag.
I’m nauseous all the time now. Robyn is shaking as I wipe more of her blood away.
Her whimper hits me deep in my soul and I silently wipe away the tear that escapes my eye.
“Hey,” I whisper even though there’s no one else here. “I’ve got you.”
Her lip trembles. It is the same one that used to pout at boys who didn’t text back fast enough. The one that used to grin at me across lecture halls as we shared a private joke no one else understood. Now it has been split open again. The gash never has time to properly heal.
“I’m sorry,” she chokes.
The words gut me. I press the fabric into her shoulder gently but she flinches. Her fingers fist into the thin blanket beneath her as more whimpers fall from her mouth.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I say, firmer this time. “Do you hear me? Nothing.”
I dip the cloth back into the water and wring it out slowly. I can’t rush. If I do, I will hurt her and I refuse to hurt her any more than the world already has.
Robyn starts crying, not the quiet tears from earlier.
No, these are the kind that break out of your chest like they’ve been trapped there for too long.
In one breath, I hate that she’s crying, in the next I love that she still can.
It means she’s not empty yet. It means my soft but loud best friend is still in there somewhere.
Even if she’s changed slightly. I move closer so my hip is touching the mattress and press my forehead to hers as I breathe her in.
“I look disgusting,” she whispers, turning her face away from me.
“You look like you survived,” I answer as my throat tightens.
“I don’t feel like it,” Robyn shakes her head weakly and sniffles.
I offer her a weak smile as I brush her hair from her forehead.
It’s matted with dried blood, and I clench my jaw at the new gash by her temple.
Robyn wasn’t lying when she said she looked disgusting.
Although disgusting may be the wrong term.
Destroyed is more like it. There isn’t an inch of skin that looks untouched to me.
I dread to see what I look like. The body parts I can see don’t fare well but it’s the itchiness of the welts on my back that I worry about the most. Bruises may fade but what has happened to us will scar our minds for eternity. I’d rather not have a visual reminder of it too.
“You remember first year?” I murmur because I need her mind somewhere else. Robyn stays silent so I continue, “when you hung those ridiculous fairy lights and I told you they were tacky?”
“You said pink should be illegal,” she chuckles out a half-arsed sound. It cracks halfway through like even that hurts.
“It should be,” I sniff. “It’s a passive aggressive colour. Orange is the only right choice.”
“Orange is designed to give people a headache.”
“Pink is designed for Barbies.”
Her fingers twitch toward mine and I catch them, threading our hands together carefully so I don’t press on either of our bruised skin.
My lips lift in a smile; it’s always been the same argument.
It wasn’t until she threatened to paint my room orange that I shut up and let her win.
Even I can’t cope with that amount of colour.
“I thought you hated me,” she admits and my head whips to face hers before wincing at the fast movement. My heart pounds at the memories of our first meeting, at how bubbly and full of life she was.
“I did,” I respond and she gives me the tiniest glare as I squeeze her hand. “For about six hours. Then you offered me half your chocolate bar and trauma bonded me for life.”
Her eyes close and another watery laugh falls out of her mouth as her tears slow.
“I don’t want this to be our story,” she whispers.
“It isn’t,” I respond immediately. “This is just a chapter angel; it’s not our ending.”
Robyn’s breathing stutters as I cup her face carefully to avoid the swelling.
She doesn’t know it yet but every time one of them comes in, I look for a route, a plan, a weak link.
I may not be at my best but it doesn’t mean I have given up.
If Roman isn’t coming, if Felix can’t, if Atlas or Riggs or Victor have given up then it means I have to do it for us all.
And I will.
Robyn looks at me as if she’s searching for the lie.
“They have broken us,” she says.
“They haven’t,” I state with conviction.
“Do you hear me, Robyn? You’re not broken; I’m not broken.
Our bodies are bruised, our hearts hurt but we are not broken.
The worst thing they did was put us together.
I am never, ever, letting this be the end of our story.
” My voice breaks. “Please don’t give up, I need you to fight for a little while longer. ”
A shiver racks through my body as goose pimples spread across every sensitive nerve.
The room is small and cold but it’s the warmth between us that I hold on to.
Robyn looks at me, I can still see that fire in her eyes as she gives me a gentle nod, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
I dip the cloth again and clean the blood from her collarbone as we fall into silence.
Each movement is deliberate. It reminds me of the way Roman touched me.
It’s the way you touch something you love and don’t want to damage further.
Another painful thud hits my heart as I remember the last thing I said to him.
Does he know I love him? Does he know I was just scared and thought I was protecting him?
Is he now safe or has the person Quinn was working for hurt him too? Is that why he isn’t here?
“Talk to me,” Robyn whispers as I’m pulled out of my musings.
It’s always better when we talk, when we think of happy moments or plans. It takes away the harsh reality of what we are living in. Taking a breath, I put the cloth back in the water before tilting my head and squeezing her hand.
“You once told me you wanted a cottage by the sea,” I murmur.
“With flowers round the door.”
“Obnoxiously happy ones,” I nod.
“And a dog,” she adds faintly.
“An ugly one.”
“Rude.”
“We’ll get the ugliest dog in the county.” I smile despite myself.
I lean forward to press my forehead to hers again.
I never realised how much I needed this from Roman until it was taken from me.
Every time he did it, it anchored me, made me feel safe and loved and after a few weeks without it I realise exactly how powerful it can be.
I hope I can give her that. Give her one small ounce of peace here like she gives me.
“You really think it’ll get better?” Robyn asks with a sniffle.
“Yes,” I respond with confidence. Not because I see the exact path but because she needs me to say it like it is a fact.
“Yes,” I repeat. “It will get better. We will get out of here. We will wear stupid dresses again. You will redecorate somewhere and I will complain about it. And we will sit on a kitchen floor somewhere safe and laugh about how dramatic we were.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
I know it is reckless to promise something you can’t control but love is reckless.
I feel it burning in my chest with such conviction it seems hard to believe another option is available for us.
I don’t need a man to save me; I just need to use my training to save ourselves.
Robyn lifts her hand weakly and hooks her pinky around mine as I hiss slightly from the broken bone in my left hand.
“Pinky promise,” she breathes.
“Pinky promise,” I gently kiss our joined fingers and then drop them.
For a moment, we’re eighteen again on our dorm room floor.
Surrounded by fairy lights and stupid dreams. There’s no concrete and there’s no blood.
Just Pizza Hut and cookie dough as we realise we won’t be in the same classes for second year.
It was the last pinky promise we made. I promised her no matter where she went, I would always be by her side.
I may have slightly messed that up but I won’t again.
Sighing, I pull back as I finish cleaning her. Her eyes are growing heavy by the time I pull the blanket higher around her shoulders. I climb in, making sure my body is closest to the door before she gently pretzels herself around me.
“Do you miss him?” Robyn whispers into the dark.
“Of course I do,” I murmur back automatically. “He’s my twin. I’ve never gone this long without talking to him. It feels… wrong.”
There is a tiny huff of laughter against my collarbone. “No,” she says gently. “Not Felix. Roman.”
“Oh,” the word leaves me on a breath.
Do I miss him? Yes. I miss everything about him. I miss how desired he made me feel, how safe he kept me. I miss his smile and his eyes. I miss how he would literally lift me off his friends so he could keep all my touches to himself. I miss his quirky food habits and the way he sang in the shower…
“So much,” I admit quietly.
A tear slips from the corner of my eye and disappears into my hairline as the confession scrapes my throat.
Robyn’s fingers reach out as she traces absent shapes against my wrist, the feather-light touch so much like Roman’s that it makes my heart pound.
I lift my achy arm and press a hand to it as I sigh.
“He’s looking for you, girly pop,” she murmurs and a broken smile tugs at my mouth.
“He probably gave up. It wasn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows when I left.”
“Impossible,” she whispers and there’s no hesitation in it. “You didn’t want to see what was right in front of you but we all did. That man has loved you for years. He has protected you when you are too drunk, he has fought for you when you weren’t looking. It just took you a while to see it.”
“You think?” I croak.
“I know, girly pop. I know.”
I let out a bigger smile this time as hope floods my chest. I haven’t admitted it out loud, maybe not even to myself, but I have been terrified since I left.
The thought of Quinn stepping into the space I walked away from, of her getting Roman’s soft eyes and protective hands, makes a bitterness twist inside me.
Some days it hurts more than the bruises.
Every night when I close my eyes, I see the last day I saw him. I convinced myself walking away from him was for his protection. I thought it was the easier choice. I thought Quinn was a safe option.
I was wrong.
He never tried to cage me or shrink me into something easier to hold.
He simply stood beside me, even when I pushed him away.
He made me feel safe, not weak or owned, but safe enough to lay down my weapons and trust they would still be there when I picked them back up.
God, I miss that. I miss the way his voice drops when he says my name.
If he is out there, if he is looking, I know one thing about Roman and that is he doesn’t give up.
“You didn’t close your eyes again.”
“Neither did you,” I whisper as my throat tightens and tears fill my eyes.
Robyn’s fingers twitch in mine, “Why?” she murmurs.
“Because…” I breathe, staring at the wall opposite like it’s something I can dismantle brick by brick if I have to. “I will never let you face the monsters alone.”
Silence settles around us as her weight presses into my side and the promise we made earlier burns in my mind like a live coal I refuse to let die. My ribs ache. My skin stings. Every inch of me is bruised and battered and bone-deep tired.
But I realise something.
They can hurt our bodies. They can bruise us, cut us, bleed us until the floor forgets its own colour. They can try to strip us down to nothing but skin and survival, but they will never understand the most dangerous thing about us…
We chose each other and that choice is stronger than anything they can take.