Chapter 5
Piper
Idon’t know what’s wrong with me.
My entire body has turned into a vat of incomprehensible emotion ever since I woke up convinced Quill had shot me.
I believe by now that he didn’t. I believe that he didn’t kill my parents. I believe that he didn’t tell his friends to rape me.
I believe a whole lot of things after having seen the look on his face when I accused him of them.
But accepting what he didn’t do also means accepting what he did do.
It’s like I’m finally having to deal with all the shit he’s put me through over the years.
From the hardcore bullying in high school that I’d conveniently forgotten all about the moment he first kissed me.
To the way he treated me after dumping me, all while stalking me and going after the people I dated.
Even if I had cheated on him, I wouldn’t have deserved all of that.
People cheat on each other all the time. How many of them get choked in back alleys while getting fucked with a gun and called a worthless whore?
But the hardest thing I’m having to accept is my own reaction to it all. Because if he’s a criminal, then I’m definitely fucking complicit.
He called me a whore, and I begged for more. He watched me while I slept, and I asked him to fuck me when I awoke. He aimed a gun at me, and now I’m on a forty-hour fucking road trip with him.
And even after all that, it takes all the energy I have not to give in to him. The truth is, I have given in, twice already in just one day, each time trying to convince myself that my feeble protests meant I didn’t want it.
Fuck, am I pathetic.
It takes forever for me to fall asleep, and when I awake hours later, it’s with a pounding sinus headache from all the crying.
Between my still-teary eyes and my shitty vision, it takes me a while to find my glasses on the bedside table. Another moment to put them on, and still longer to realize that…
I’m alone.
Okay, what the fuck?
I jump up, suddenly realizing I’m still stark-naked, and hurriedly hunt for some clothes in the suitcase. Jeans, a shirt, panties. I don’t bother with the bra, which is a size A anyway. I pull up a pair of socks and some sneakers, whip my arms into a sweater, then rush over to the door and open it.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, it’s locked.
What’s going on?
Did Quill just leave me to be found by the people who want me dead? Or was he taken himself?
That thought is a lot more terrifying, oddly, and I grab the doorknob and start to rattle it as hard as I can. Then I heave my entire weight against it, even though I already know it’s useless. There’s no way I could ever break it down.
But I still ram my body hard into it, until suddenly it gives way, and I’m ramming into… someone’s chest instead.
“Fuck!” growls a voice, as I feel burning hot liquid splash down.
At once a hand grabs my hair and yanks me back, and I only get a few drops on myself. The rest lands on… Quill.
Thank fucking God. I try to rush to him, but he’s still holding me back by my hair. My eyes widen as I realize he’s gotten black coffee all down his front.
By the look on his face, I’m guessing it wasn’t exactly at room temperature.
“Did it burn you?” I breathe.
He’s still holding me by my hair, the pained look in his face quickly hidden under an annoyed one. “It’s fine,” he says at last.
But through the now-transparent shirt, his chest with its tattoos I saw yesterday for the first time is definitely growing red.
“You should put water on that,” I say, aware that he’s still holding me by my hair.
I try to take a step toward him and it feels like my hair is about to get ripped out by the roots, because he doesn’t loosen his hold.
“Lukewarm water first, then slowly make it colder and colder, until it’s freezing… ”
“Piper. I said it’s fine.”
“But the longer the coffee is on your skin,” I protest, my eyes watering from how roughly he’s holding my hair, “the more it’s burning you! You’re still being burned as we speak!”
“Piper.”
“Maybe we have a first-aid kit with cream? I think aloe vera works well with burns. Let me look.”
“PIPER! Are you going to shut up or do I need to stuff your mouth with my cock?”
I freeze at the crude harsh language. I spent all day yesterday trying to rile him up, and though after a while it turned into me hoping he’d give me a punishment fuck, it started out with me trying to find the old Quill in him.
The cruel Quill of these past few years, so I could remember exactly why I needed to keep up a wall between us.
But yesterday, no matter how annoying I was, he never did anything but show me a tender side of him that I had all but forgotten even existed.
And now, in this first moment that I show him I care, he turns right back into the cruel, hateful Quill that every part of me has been telling me to run far away from.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, tears stinging at my eyes.
He’s suddenly looking just as miserable as I feel. “No. I’m sorry.” He’s so gentle as he lets go of my hair that some part of me hopes I just dreamed this. Only I know I didn’t.
“I’ve had a rough night,” he mumbles, grabbing the suitcase. “There’s your breakfast. I’ll wait for you in the car.”
He walks toward the door, grabbing the suitcase. I call out to him just before he opens it, and he waits stiffly.
“Quill… is it safe for me? To be all alone here?”
Secretly, I’m hoping he’ll say that I’m right, that it isn’t, and stay. But instead, he mutters, “I’m right out front. It’s fine.”
With that, he closes the door, leaving me with a lump in my throat that makes breakfast feel very unappetizing.
It’s an everything bagel with cream cheese and a tall chai latte, which would definitely be my dream way of starting the day at any other time. But I’ve never felt less hungry.
I hurry to the sink, brush my teeth, scrub my face, and don’t even try to tame my curls. I shove them into a ponytail and gather up the toiletries. I take the chai latte in one hand and the paper bag with the breakfast in the other, in case Quill wants it.
Then I walk out to the car and slide into the passenger seat. Quill turns on the ignition and then drives out onto the state road.
“Where’d you get this food anyway?” I ask, my voice strained as I try to talk normally.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me for being a bitch yesterday when Quill was so apologetic, and saying sorry and trying to connect today when he fell back into his old cruel ways.
I guess the only explanation is that he’s really done a number on my self-esteem. One more reason to get the hell away from him. Nothing has ever felt more impossible, though.
Quill nods at the Starbucks sitting right out on the road, about five minutes from the motel by car.
“So Logan told you to keep such a close eye on me that you wouldn’t give me privacy to pee, but you’re leaving me alone to go to a Starbucks,” I can’t help but taunt him. Then the next minute I’m biting my lower lip. “Sorry.”
I turn away from him, hating myself for the second sorry I’ve just said to him today.
He pauses for a beat before saying, “There aren’t cameras in the woods.”
Right. Of course he set up cameras in the motel room while I was asleep. Typical.
I keep my eyes glued to my window for a while, and when I turn back, I nearly jump as my eyes meet Quill’s. He looks like he’s been staring at the back of my head for a while, as though trying to read my thoughts through my skull.
“Shouldn’t you be, uhm, looking at the road while you’re driving?” I question him.
He ignores my question. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Apologize when I’m being an asshole to you?”
“Oh.” I shrug. “I don’t know.”
I turn back to the window, hating how awkward and lonely I feel right now. I’d give anything for him to take my hand again, but I don’t have it in me today to provoke him. This morning’s scene has made me remember just how cruel he can be.
It feels like it’s taking forever for us to get to our first stop. I assume we won’t stop before lunch, and Quill will probably take the opportunity to get gas then. It’s not much later than seven now, so that means a very long stretch of time ahead of us.
Quill doesn’t speak a word, his face shut down, looking like he’s lost in his thoughts.
Meanwhile, I don’t have the heart to speak, and even if I did, this morning has made me nervous.
I really don’t want him to carry through on his threat.
Not that I don’t like sucking him off, but it was the way he said it that hurt.
Even when we were together, and he requested a blowjob by teasing me about how I talked too much, it wasn’t the same.
It turned us both on, back then. Maybe being reminded of how talkative I was did mess with my head a bit, but I knew his intention wasn’t to hurt me.
His words didn’t have that harsh, cruel edge meant solely to demean me.
I settle back into my seat, keeping my mouth busy by taking sips of chai latte and occasionally nibbling on the bagel, even though I’m not hungry. But at least it’s something to do.
Then I doze off, and I awaken just as Quill pulls up to the lunch spot.
Thank fucking God. Though I don’t see what being in a restaurant as opposed to a car will change. Still, at least the setting is different.
I’m about to open the car door when Quill says abruptly, “Can you do me a favor, Piper?”
“Huh?”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say that word before—favor.
“Uh, sure. What?”
He swallows as if speaking is demanding a special effort of him. Which it probably is. “I think you were right. I’m in a lot of pain. I must have been burned pretty badly. Can you see if there’s a first-aid kit in the suitcase?”
My eyes widen. I can’t believe he’s asking me to help him. To take care of him. And telling me I’m right, too. Has he got a fever or something, to be acting so weird?