42. Riley
RILEY
The journey to the coast is a blur. My senses are alert, but my mind is too overwhelmed to process anything.
A bay marina. A boarded-up restaurant, an old relic from when this place was a tourist haven. Seagulls screeching, water lapping against the shoreline. Smell of salt and rot in the air.
Aron carrying me out of the car. Shouting and confused voices. Aron threatening people, his muscles clenching. Cold dread detonating in my chest. My heart, galloping away underneath his fingertips.
“Not you, Riley. I don’t mean you.”
His words register, but their meaning does not.
We pass Daria on the gangway—that pulls me out of my stupor. She is being dragged out by two men in black balaclavas. Her eyes meet mine in a flash of green. She winks at me, like she still thinks it might all work out in her favour somehow. Her lips curl in a faint grin.
“Aron.” A pot-bellied, bearded man who smells like fish and sweat greets us on board.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” Aron tells him.
The man dismisses him with a simple “Don’t mention it. You saved my life more times than I can count.”
A stampede of feet, people—crew and passengers—rushing across the deck.
And then, before I know it, the cabin door shuts behind us. The boat pushes off the shore, swaying lightly on the waves.
The cabin is small and cramped, but comfortable. There’s plenty of light from the big, round window—that’s all I need. There’s a chest of drawers with fresh clothes, and bottles of water and sandwiches arranged on top, alongside fake documents and some money.
“Alright.” Still holding me in his arms, Aron turns on the spot a few times, like he’s unsure what to do. “Let’s get you cleaned up, sweetheart, how about that?”
My stomach turns, fear coiling inside me, twisting tighter and tighter. I can’t take any more. Any more pain, any more suffering, any more fear. And definitely not any more uncertainty. I just want to go to sleep and never wake up.
A part of me feels the way it has felt with him for weeks. Safe. But that part of me is a fool. That part of me is a liar. He told me himself. Every gesture of kindness, every seeming sign of affection ... it has all been nothing but a ruse.
I’m not safe with him. He’s only biding his time until he hurts me again.
The bathroom is barely big enough to fit a shower stall, a toilet, and a sink equipped with two plastic-wrapped cups and packaged toothbrushes.
Aron sets me down, holding me firmly around the waist like he’s worried I might collapse to the ground.
Which he’s not wrong to be, I realise as I stumble, catching the side of the sink to stabilise myself.
A hollow-eyed ghost stares back at me from the mirror.
I reach for the toothbrush, unwrapping it with shaking hands, suddenly all too aware of the vile tang in my mouth. The minty toothpaste tastes like a touch of heaven.
When I’m done, Aron reaches around to undo the belt slowly, like he doesn’t want to spook me.
“Let me help you. You might get dizzy.”
He turns on the stream, adjusting the creaking faucet.
I don’t protest when he pulls the robes over my head and leads me into the stall, his hand on the small of my back.
Warm water falls over my head, and with it, my sobs break free, my whole body quaking.
He stands behind me, hands on my waist to make sure I don’t fall.
“It’s alright,” he keeps saying. “He can’t get to you anymore.”
He doesn’t have to, I think. You’re here to break whatever’s left of me.
ARON
I lead towel-wrapped Riley out of the bathroom. The tips of her damp hair leave wet trails across her shoulders whenever she turns her head. She smells of shampoo.
The feel of her between my hands is monumental and daunting. I could so easily have lost her. I have so nearly lost her, before I even realised that losing her would mean losing absolutely everything.
She isn’t saying much. It hurts her to speak. Her voice is hoarse from screaming down there with nothing to drink. It will pass. It has to pass.
I tuck her into bed, hand her a sandwich and convince her to take a few bites. She sinks into the pillow, closing her eyes. I wish she would fall asleep, but she barely rests for a minute before looking straight at me, her eyes tired and full of pain.
“Aron, please ...” When she tries to speak, it sounds like there’s a live crab lodged in her throat.
My own throat constricts in sympathy.
“What? What do you need?”
I reach for her face, and she flinches for about the tenth time today, squeezing her eyes shut and whimpering. She settles when I cup her face gently.
“Do it now.” Every word is an ordeal.
I chew my cheek, and copper fills my mouth.
I want to get angry. I yearn for the comforting oblivion of my wrath, for the familiar shield of my rage protecting me from this guilt, this regret, this helplessness.
But I resist it. Not only is it a mercy I don’t deserve, but I need to hold it together for Riley.
And I will. I will not expose her to my fury—definitely not now, and not ever again if I can help it.
“Do what now?” I ask her softly, and I lay my hand on top of hers.
“Punish me,” she replies simply in her pained, raspy voice, holding my gaze in something much worse than a challenge. A defeat.
My face catches on fire, shame searing through my body and right into the depths of my black soul.
“I ran. I knew what would happen if you caught me, and you did.”
Her features contort, sobs racking her body, but her eyes stay dry—she’s still too dehydrated for tears.
“All I’m asking is that whatever you want to do to me, do it now,” she continues. “I just spent hours, days waiting to die in a tomb. Please, Aron. Hurt me all you like. Just don’t make me wait anymore.” This is the most she has spoken since the rescue, and it triggers a coughing fit.
“Riley, the last thing I want to do is hurt you,” I assure her when it stops.
“It’s all you’ve ever wanted. You made that clear. You’re just fucking with my head again. Every word, every touch, it’s all a trap. A lie. You are lying.”
“I was lying, Riley. Was. To you and to myself. But not anymore.” I reach out to tug a stray strand of damp hair behind her ear, my touch reverent. “I’m sorry it took me so long to realise. But I swear to you, you’re safe with me.”
“Safe with you?” she repeats more forcefully.
“Safe with you? My best friend is dead, I had my worst fear come true, and I’m exiled.
All because of you.” Her eyes lock into mine, the look in them forceful, accusing, damning.
“All because you chose to be hateful when you could have been kind. Vengeful when you could have shown forgiveness. All because of the choices you made.” Her nostrils flare.
“You’ve already destroyed me, and it’s still not enough.
It will never be enough. Why do you have to be so obsessed with me? ”
Grief explodes in my chest, suffocating me. Killing me.
“Because I love you, Riley.”
She gasps.
“I love you more than the life I could have had. Because of you, I’m at peace with the world going to hell. I’m at peace with all that’s happened, and all that’s going to happen. I’m at peace because I myself would have burnt everything and everyone to the ground a thousand times over for you.”
She closes her eyes. A soft crease appears on her brow, and her chin wobbles.
“You destroyed me, Riley. I was once a principled man, following my precious set of rules the way night follows day, doggedly and without fail. Hiding from a world that no longer made sense to me behind a mask of blind, unfeeling hatred. Until you came along.” She whimpers when I lean over her to plant a soft kiss on her forehead.
“A salvation I never asked for but needed all the same. You saw and saved the man behind the mask, and for that, he belongs to you now.”
Finally, a tear slips free and rolls down her cheek. My relief at seeing her body resume its normal functions overshadows all else, drowns out all thoughts, dissolves all other desires.
Maybe she’s right. I haven’t brought anything but destruction to the world for so long that I can no longer trust myself to bring anything else.
When I had to choose between her and the last remnant of the world as I knew it, the choice was clear.
But when the choice is between her and the man that I am, the man I have let myself become?
“Don’t talk like that,” she begs me. “Not now. It’s too late. How can I trust you? What could you possibly say to prove you aren’t just manipulating me? Priming me so that it will hurt all the more when you finally strike again?”
The answer to that question rests right on the tip of my tongue, rushing out before I can stop it from tearing me apart.
“I’ll let you go.”
Her breath hitches, her eyes like a window to a half-forgotten dream.
“If you never want to see me again, then I promise I’ll let you go when we reach the shore. I won’t make you stay, and I won’t plead with you. How could I? Why should you take mercy on me when I had none for you when it mattered the most?”
Another tear slides down her cheek, and then another.
“I was blind, Riley. But you made me see that all I ever did was let my precious principles become more important to me than the things they were meant to protect. You showed me that I was waging a hollow war for all the wrong reasons.” I lean over to kiss her tears away.
“You are my freedom. I would die fighting for you. If I have lost you, I will spend the rest of my life trying to win you back if you let me. But most importantly, I will do anything to protect you. Anything, even give you up.” The taste of her tears mingles with the threat of my own.
“I promise, you are safe now. From everything and from everyone. Even from me.”