Chapter 7 Confession #5
Once wasn’t enough for us. We were hungry to feel safe, and it was addicting to finally feel it.
He pressed himself into me, his mouth finding mine with urgency, granting me hard kisses that tasted of freedom.
Even when we could barely move, our bodies done, we stayed tucked together, Rafe filling me.
I would fall asleep with my legs around him, and I didn’t care if Thorne and Kane found us that way in the morning. Rafe remained. He always remained.
Tears wet on my cheeks, I brought his hand to my mouth.
“I love you,” I whispered, my voice cracking.
It was terrifying to say something like that in hell, but I didn’t want to further damn myself by letting him think I didn’t.
I loved Rafe Creed, I think, since the very first second I saw him, but it was impossible to let myself feel something I knew would eventually kill me.
With Thorne, it was survival. The kind of free falling desire every teenager finds at least once.
With Rafe, it was inevitable. The kind of love that consumed and strangled, never letting go.
Rafe froze when I spoke the words. His cheeks were as wet as mine when I cupped his face and kissed him gently.
"I love you," I repeated, softer and aching, letting the words breathe between his lips with every press.
He nodded in the dark, tapped his finger four times against the hollow of my throat, in time with my heartbeat.
I love you, too, the taps told me. He repeated it across my skin.
Four kisses to my face—two beneath each eye to catch my tears.
Four squeezes to my wrist, pinching it between his forefinger and thumb as he placed my arm up and around the back of his neck.
Then three—I love you—strokes of his tongue when his mouth took mine.
It was an all-consuming the kiss, the kind of thing movies would get a close up shot of, our hands bracing each other's faces, and our sobs echoed across our tongues.
I came again, squeezing around his length, and Rafe pressed a firm kiss to my dented-in temple.
I don’t even know how to say what came next, so I’ll keep it simple.
When I didn’t get my period, we pretended it was ours, the thing growing inside me.
Rafe and I had no way of knowing if it really was, but after we first gave in to each other, there wasn’t a night I went without being in his arms, his mouth on my body.
The week went by, we passed the drills, and Creed had several bids from Buyers—all of them triple what we’d been valued at as Viktor’s children.
Rafe tried to protect me, jumped in front of me if a commander tried to kick me in the stomach or throw me into The Tank to drown for his amusement.
But I knew the thing inside me was as dead as I was.
I remember Thorne and Kane’s faces when they realized why Rafe kept taking my beatings.
For the first time in a long time, they hugged me when we got back to our cell, and when they pulled back, Thorne was crying.
He took my face between shaking hands and kissed my forehead before whispering softly, breaking me further, “In another life, I bet anything you created was a wildfire, Arden Creed.”
It happened the day after that.
Soldiers dragged me from Rafe’s arms to Dr. Davidson.
Pregnant one minute, a corpse again by the second.
Halden had her remove my ovaries, sedating me only enough to keep me from going into shock—a punishment I guess for trying to create life among death.
I felt every pull, tug, and dull stab of something sharp and medical, and I watched myself bleed everywhere, watched it bleed everywhere.
I'd been far enough along that it couldn't have been Rafe's, and honestly, it was shocking it was only the first time.
Halden never provided me with pills like Viktor always had, and maybe that was on purpose.
He wanted the day to come when he could take more from me after I thought there was nothing left that he could.
I don’t remember how I got back to the cell. I must’ve passed out, because I awoke to Thorne. He was sitting on the edge of my cot. I immediately searched for Rafe, but he wasn’t there. Thorne pressed a firm hand to my shoulder, making me lie back down.
“They took him and Kane to see a few of the Buyers and discuss contracts with Halden,” he explained.
My gaze fell to my bandaged stomach, the top of my grey uniform folded and pinned up just below my breasts. My chin trembled, and Thorne released a shallow, sad breath.
“Arden,” he whispered.
I lifted my tear-filled gaze to his. “It didn’t burn, Thorne. It bled. Just like us.” A sob cracked out of me, and he leaned down, wrapping his arms around me as if he could suffocate the pain into submission.
“That doesn’t mean the wildfire is lost forever, little flame,” he said against my ear, smoothing my hair with his palm.
I cried harder into his shoulder, clutching him. “They took it all,” I said. “There’s nothing left. Nothing.”
He jerked back and looked down at my stomach, his skin paling further when he realized what I meant. He rubbed at his mouth and shook his head.
After that, I didn’t help Rafe anymore. I could barely look at him without feeling myself splitting in half.
Florence tried her best to help him in class, and she did, for the most part.
By the end of that first year, Rafe Creed could finally speak but he chose mostly not to.
He only used his hands to sign during drills.
Occasionally, I caught him signing in my direction, trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t bare it.
I was…done. I didn’t care if I died. I didn’t care if I was sold, raped, and murdered.
I didn’t even feel as if I was part of my body anymore.
It moved of its own accord, like muscle memory, through drills.
Halden had finally gotten what he wanted from me.
I killed, and I killed without remorse, blood splattering over my face and my heart thrumming a dull, nearly lifeless beat.
I no longer balanced at the threshold of death; I was death, and I was expensive.
The others fell into line, too. No one touched.
No one talked unless necessary. Kane stopped joking.
Thorne quit checking on me. Rafe stopped trying to talk.
We had lost all fear of death, all want for life.
We were Creed. Fully. Entirely. Corpses had no hope, and weapons lived for targets.
That’s all we were, and through Halden’s efforts, it became all we wanted to be.
For Rafe, they provided a sniper rifle. Kane—nothing. He didn’t need anything except his mind and his fucking fists. Thorne they sat in front of their computers and gave his sly hands digital things to steal: information; money; unarming federal facilities. And me?
Halden finally gave me my lighter back.