CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
REVELATIONS
The blow to my gut interrupted the sweet reverie of memories from a place so far away from where I was now. A gasping cough erupted from somewhere within me, and if I'd had anything in my stomach to expel, I would've retched all over myself and the enraged man standing above me.
“You pay attention to me when I'm in here!” he screamed into my face, his spittle landing on my cheeks and lips.
“Dude,” I wheezed, turning away as best as I could. “Invest the few bucks and get a toothbrush.”
He grasped my chin in his grip, wrenching my face toward him again. “What did you say?!”
“Seriously, Benny, your breath reeks.”
“You will shut your fuckin' mouth before I stuff something in it,” he threatened through a sneer. “And I promise you, you won't like it.”
“Oh, because I've just loved our time together so far, right?”
Benjamin tipped his head, challenge blazing in his wicked gaze. “Boy, you're askin' for it, huh? You want my cock in your mouth? You gonna swallow for me?”
“You put your dick in my mouth, Benny, and I swear to God, that'll be the last thing you do before I bite it off.”
He must've sensed that I meant it because he took a step back. Standing over me at his full height now. It made him feel powerful, to look at me like this. Naked and helpless. Bound and bruised and bleeding.
“I gotta go,” he announced abruptly, turning toward the door.
It was pathetic how I loathed the time he spent in my cell, how often I begged the universe to let me fall asleep and never wake up, only to wish he'd stay longer.
He gave me nothing but pain and agony and a humiliation I barely recognized anymore, but, oh God, I hated to be alone in the perpetual darkness, never knowing when someone—either him or the man in black—would return.
But I didn't ask Ben to stay this time. Him leaving meant the man in black would come, and his company was much more welcome, even if he had kept his promise.
I hadn't heard his voice again.
He took care of me though, as if I were a pet to feed and water, trapped in a cage much too small for a man my size.
I thought more about Meg to pass the time. I thought about holidays spent with our joined families. Locking my keys in the car and laughing in the rain. Unsuccessfully installing a bathtub and having to call our fathers to help before we went to sleep angry—her in our bed and me on the couch.
Nights watching shitty movies, cooking failed dinners, and bickering over interior design choices. Nights I'd once thought meant little in the whole of our relationship, in the great tapestry of life, but I realized now that they had meant everything.
I would give anything to bicker with her right now over drawer pulls or doorknobs, and dammit, I would again.
But I couldn't do anything, still chained to this bed.
How long has it been? I wondered.
Time didn't pass the same in this room. My brain was confused, discombobulated, and unsure of everything. Ben had told me a while ago that it'd been a few days … but how long ago had that been?
And where was the man in black?
There was only so much thinking I could do with my eyes glued to the ceiling before I dozed off again, and when I awoke, the light of day streamed through the window once again. And the man in black never came during the daylight hours.
Did he come while I was sleeping? I wondered, but … no. His ministrations were impossible to perform while I was asleep, and blood had crusted, dry and sticking, between my thighs and against the bed. He wouldn't have left me that way; he never did.
He never came.
What if it's all been a lie?
What if it’s all exactly as I believed it to be—a game?
They're working together, him and Benny. And they've been playing with me, giving me hope and taking it away, over and over and over again.
Tears sprang to my eyes at the thought. That I’d put my trust in that man in the plague doctor mask, just for him to rob me of all hope in the same way Ben had robbed me of my dignity.
They’re going to kill me.
And if that was the case … if, in the end, I was going to die anyway … then maybe … maybe …
I knew what I had to do.
I had to piss Benjamin off enough to finish the job.
And I had to take that loose cannon … and it was up to me to light the fuse and find the thing he had once promised he’d give.
Mercy.