49. Nell
It’s been a few days since I came home, and I’m only just starting to fall back into a routine.
Routine matters.
It gives structure, something solid to hold onto.
Without it, things unravel—fast.
Cameron’s helping.
He got me some Valium, said it was safer than cutting me off cold turkey.
We don’t know exactly what they were dosing me with, but from what I described, he suspects it was something close to diazepam.
That would make sense, he said.
Honestly, I don’t understand the science behind it—and I don’t really need to. He knows what he’s doing, and I trust him.
I’m just glad I can keep taking it.
It softens the edges.
Helps with the pain.
Helps me forget.
Helps me not feel what I felt when I saw what they did to Lea.
But the nights are still hard.
When the terrors come—when the images press in and the screams echo—I need him there.
He has to hold me until the shaking stops, even now.
Boomerang meows at my feet, winding between my legs like he used to, tail flicking with impatience.
The sound is comforting and familiar.
It’s good to know his presence hasn’t changed, even if everything else has.
“Okay, okay, I’ll feed you,”
I sigh, giving in as I shuffle through the kitchen for his feeder.
He chirps approvingly, hopping up onto the counter like he owns the place.
And maybe he does now.
Cameron must like him more than he lets on.
While I was gone, he bought Boomerang a new scratch post and a plush bed that’s twice the size of the old one.
Now he parades around like he’s royalty, padding across the hardwood like the house is his kingdom.
It makes me smile—just a little.
But the rooms are still so quiet.
That creeping kind of quiet that gets under your skin.
The kind that reminds you of how much space grief takes up.
Cameron’s been locked in his office most days with Talia, planning God knows what.
She stayed with me while he was out the other night, dressed in an all-black suit, an outfit that is almost as good as the combative gear.
She said something about an auction—but I tuned out the moment the word landed.
It’s too soon and far too familiar.
It echoed in the worst parts of me, brought up too many images I wasn’t ready to face.
He’s trying to fix it all.
That’s what I tell myself.
That’s all I need to know.
But something’s shifting inside me.
Until now, I’ve avoided the memories—kept them buried in some locked vault in the back of my brain.
But I think I’m ready to open it.
I think it’s time Cameron knew what they did to me.
Not so he’ll look at me with pity—I can’t stomach that—but so he’ll understand the shadows I’m dragging behind me.
The ones that started long before the auction, long before Lea died.
The ones that have been with me since I was a child.
I want to tell him everything.
The floor creaks softly behind me, and I turn just as Cameron steps into the room, measuring my dose of liquid Valium down to the millilitre.
His focus is a calmness I crave at the minute.
But when he looks at me, his eyes soften—like he can already tell I’ve changed.
“Time for your dose,”
he says gently, offering me the tiny vial.
I take it without a word.
“Come on, let’s get you back to bed,”
he says, guiding me gently up the stairs, his hand warm against the curve of my back.
But I falter, one foot hovering mid-step as the Valium begins to take hold.
The world softens at the edges, but something inside me stays sharp.
“I need to tell you something,”
I say, steadier than I expected. The words land with weight.
He stops at the top, turning toward me, brow lifted, gaze curious but cautious. “Okay?”
“I need to tell you what happened.”
There’s a beat of silence, thick as molasses.
“Okay,”
he says again, gentler this time.
“But in five minutes, you’re not gonna make much sense. Tell me when you wake up, yeah? I’ll still be here. You know that.”
He’s right. He always is. He knows how I unravel when the drugs hit full force—knows not to leave, not to drift even a room away.
I nod, but the ache doesn’t fade. Not the one curling inside me when I look at him.
God, is it possible he’s more beautiful now?
The scar cleaving through his cheek and across his eye should horrify me—it’s a jagged reminder of everything we lost, everything he endured because of me. That milky white eye, once warm and alive, now distant, ghosted. But it doesn’t lessen him. If anything, it deepens the infatuation.
He’s still infuriatingly perfect.
Olive skin stretched over sharp muscle. A frame sculpted by years of grit. That dark stubble dusting his jaw—rough and unapologetic—makes him look like he was born to survive chaos. And maybe he was. Maybe we both were.
How does a man like that ever look at a girl like me and still want her?
My body feels foreign. Violated. Not mine anymore. And I wonder—does he not think about how many hands have touched me? Does he not feel the taint of it when he sees me now?
But then when he does look at me, it’s not pity, nor with doubt. Just that steady, anchoring gaze like I’m still his whole world.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.
He steadies me with a firm hand until I’m settled in his bed—his bed, because it’s where I’ve ended up every night since I came home. He doesn’t question it, doesn’t push me away. He’s simply allowed it, like he understands this is where I feel safest.
As the warmth of the Valium starts to seep through me, I reach for him, dragging him down beside me with shaky hands and a desperate kind of need. My thoughts are hazy, but the ache is sharp. I want him. I want to feel what we used to be—before everything broke.
I’m not thinking—I’m reacting.
I kiss him greedily, in that scattered sort of way—my mouth roaming, my fingers tracing every line of his skin. I want him to help my body forget. I want his touch to rewrite the damage.
“Easy, trouble,”
he murmurs, holding himself just far enough away that I can’t quite wrap myself around him.
“Slow down.”
“I don’t want to slow down,”
I mutter, trying to draw him closer.
“I want you.”
A low growl rises from his chest, deep and conflicted. For a moment, he gives in—his lips capture mine, his fingers tangle in my hair, and his hand slides down to my hip—
And then he stops.
Right when I need him most, he pulls away.
“This isn’t the time,”
he says, his forehead pressing gently to mine.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
His restraint is sharp. Painful almost. And something flickers inside me that’s far darker than I remember, an unfamiliar addition to my undoing.
“I want you to hurt me,”
I whisper. The words sound foreign, but not false. Maybe if he hurts me, the pain I already carry will feel less… sharp. Less real. Maybe it’ll overwrite everything else.
He stills, watching me with quiet intensity.
“You don’t understand what that means,”
he says softly.
“You’re high. I’ll talk to you about it when you’re sober, if it’s still what you really want.”
He’s patient. Gentle. But part of me wonders—does he not want me?
The drug starts to pull me deeper, but I fight it, just for a moment longer.
“You don’t want to?”
I ask, eyelids heavy, vision swimming. Three of him blur together, his expression twisted with confusion—and something else.
His body drops lower, hips grinding against me with a pressure that allows me to feel all of him, every hard goddam inch rubbing against me with a visceral need.
“Of course I want to,”
he growls in my ear, nudging my face to the side with his to clear a path to my throat.
“Can you not feel how much I want you?”
To drive his point home, he pushes against me with one, long, agonising roll of his hips.
I’m losing my words. They tangle behind my teeth, heavy and disobedient, but I refuse to let go—refuse to let the haze claim me fully. I reach for him again, clutching at his shirt, my body arching in a silent plea.
“Then do it,”
I whisper, lips barely forming the shape.
The words stumble out with far less force than I feel.
My mouth is working against me—slurred, half-coherent—but my intention is clear.
I don’t want him holding back anymore.
I try to say it—stop fighting me, touch me like before, make me forget—but my voice is a mess, collapsing into broken syllables and incoherent sounds.
Heat burns beneath my skin, anger or desperation or both, twisting with the ache in my gut.
I want him.
I want him to erase everything that came before.
His expression hardens as he pulls away, sitting up with me between his legs.
He scrubs his hands down his face, jaw tight, breathing shallow.
“I don’t fuck unconscious girls, Nell,”
he mutters, the words clipped and final.
“Sweet dreams.”