23. Lola
LOLA
The door swings open with a bang. He fills the doorway, skull mask looming in the dark. I sit up on the mattress, blanket clutched tight, forcing my chin high even though my hands are shaking.
He stomps across the room, all violence and silence, and grabs a chair. Dragging it across the floor, he sits, legs wide, elbows on his knees. Watching me.
“Get up,” he says. My heart thrashes against my ribs. I wonder how he is going to use me today. He points. “Sit there.” He wants me on the floor at his feet. I hesitate, but he tilts his head, voice dropping. “Now.”
I sit. My knees bump the chair leg, and he leans in, close enough to taste my panic.
“I want answers, Lola.” His voice is deadly calm. “Tell me about Marcus. Tell me what you do for him.”
I try to sound bored. “Why do you care? You’re the one who dragged me out here, not him.”
He ignores that. “How deep are you in his shit? Are you just a puppet, or do you help him with the dirty work?”
I force a laugh, but it comes out brittle. “You think I’m his partner? Please. I’m just a body he uses.”
He shifts, boots planted wide. “You’re not that innocent. I know you’re not.”
“Why do you even give a fuck?” I snap. “What, am I supposed to believe you’re some kind of avenging angel? You’re just a freak in a mask.”
“You want to know why I care? You want the truth?” His voice cracks, rage pulsing beneath it. “I care because Marcus killed my mother.”
I go still. All of his anger suddenly makes sense.
He’s breathing hard. “You were there. I know you were. He sent you. Or you let it happen. You were the reason she died.” The world tilts.
My mouth works but nothing comes out. I see his fist clench, the way his shoulders shake.
He lets go of my face but doesn’t move away.
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Lola. I want to hear you say what you did. ”
I swallow, fury and fear tangled, voice barely above a whisper. “You’re insane. I had nothing to do with your mother.”
He slams his hand down on the chair, making me jump. “You were there. The night she died. You. Marcus. All his fucking people. You know what happened.”
He’s losing it. I can see it in the way his jaw flexes, the way his breath stutters. He almost looks broken. Silence chokes the room. My heart hammers asI stare up at the mask, searching for answers in the black holes where his eyes should be.
“You’re going to tell me everything. Or I’ll make you beg for mercy.”
I hold my head high, but his words get under my skin like poison. I don’t dare look away. He paces, boots grinding into the floor. He looks huge, unhinged, dangerous.
“You think I don’t know a liar when I see one?
You always were good at pretending, Lola.
Always so fucking good.” He stops, looming over me, chest heaving.
“You know what Marcus did. You know how he works. You know how people disappear. You know who he destroys. So why don’t you stop fucking lying and tell me what happened the night my mother died? ”
The words cut me. I flinch, even though I hate myself for it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whisper.
“You were there. You think I’d forget? You think I’d let it go? You think I can’t see you in my head every night, the blood, the screaming?” He crouches, the mask inches from my face. I can feel his breath, hot and shaking through the holes.
“Why do you care so much?” I spit, desperate, angry, afraid. “Why does it matter what happened to her? Why does it matter to you—”
He jolts back, hands shaking. “Because she was my mother, Lola. Because your fucking family took everything from me. Because I loved you and you let them ruin me, ruin her, ruin everything. Because you’re the reason I wake up every day wanting to kill someone.”
His voice is splintered, wild, nothing like the monster’s voice at all. It’s a boy’s voice, furious, grieving, undone. My mouth goes dry. I know that voice. I know the shape of that pain. My brain tries to catch up, to make sense of the impossible.
He rips the mask off.
For a second, I can’t breathe. My heart stops, then slams back to life, too hard, too loud.
My Brody. The boy who used to look at me like I was his whole world. The boy I ruined. The boy who left.
“Brody?” I whisper. It barely comes out.
The room spins. I stagger back, but he catches my wrist, holds me captive in his stare. All the secrets, the pain, the obsession. It’s all right there in front of me.
He voice comes out shattered, “Now you know. You don’t leave until I get the truth. Not until you finally fucking pay for what happened to her.”
My whole world crashes down. Brody is here. My monster. My only salvation. My punishment.
And now there’s nowhere left to run.
“I don’t understand. You kidnapped me? You planned all of this? What the fuck, Brody?” I raise my voice and push at his chest. Now that I know who it is, my fear lessens.
But, he gives me a reason to keep feeling terror.
Brody’s face hardens when he takes my hands in his.
His grip is so tight, I am afraid he might crush my bones.
“How does it feel to be betrayed? Sucks doesn’t it?
I found out about you being taken. That wasn’t my plan, it was my father’s.
I overheard and intercepted. You’re mine, Bambi.
Mine to have, mine to ruin, mine to destroy. ”
There’s a pulse in my ears. Not even a heartbeat. Just static. I look at Brody and there’s nothing there except cold, savage hunger. Everything inside me curls, shrinks. My mouth is open, waiting for a scream or maybe a laugh because this has to be a joke. But Brody’s eyes are wild and furious.
I yank my hands but he doesn’t let go. My wrists ache in the clamp of his fingers.
“That’s not possible,” I say. “You’re not like this. You can’t be like this. You were supposed to be different.”
He laughs. He fucking laughs. Hands tightening until I feel bones grind. “I was never different. You just looked away.”
He’s too close. I can feel his anger. I can feel my own shame, rising off me like heat. His grip jerks me off balance. I tumble to the floor, knees banging against the edge of the cot. He stands over me, not even winded. Like it cost him nothing to wreck me. Like he could do it forever.
I try to catch my breath. “Brody. Please. Let go. We can talk about this.”
He crouches. “You’re not getting it, Bambi,” he says. Velvety, smug. “There’s no talking. You don’t get a voice anymore. You just get me.” A pause, like he’s savoring it. “Just like always.”
It’s too much. I want—I don’t even know what I want. For this to stop. For him to touch me and never stop. To kill me. To hold me. All at once.
I want my sweet Brody back.
He drags me to my feet by the wrists. My legs fold. He presses me against the concrete wall, harder. “This isn’t you,” I try again, softer, pleading. “I loved you. You can’t hate me like this. You can’t.”
“I told you. I don’t do half-measures.” His hand fists in my hair. He yanks my head back and I see stars behind my eyelids. “You ruined me, Lola. I’m just paying you back.”
I’m crying but not the normal way. No hiccups. No sobs. Just water leaking out of me, silent, endless.
He touches my jaw. Tender at first, then mean. His thumb rubs my bruised skin. “You’re scared of me?” I shake my head. Of course I am. He sees the lie and his smile widens. “You should be. I’m not the boy you remember. I’m what’s left.”
His fingers dig into my neck, just above the pulse. I can’t breathe. My legs kick but it does nothing.
He shoves me to the mattress, and the world stutters. I hit the mattress so hard my ribs shriek and the springs bite into my back. Brody stands over me, cloaked in shadows, nothing left of the boy from my past. Just a monster in a man shape, eyes so stormy they’re almost ice, almost dead.
I can’t breathe.
He’s on me in an instant. Hands on my wrists. Pinning me down, shoving them overhead like I’m a specimen and he needs every inch exposed. His weight crushes my knees open. My thighs tremble, heat and horror knot together in my stomach.
He leans in close. The mask is gone, but his face is a mask now. Blank and beautiful and ruined. “You remember how this feels?” His voice is a wreck. “You used to beg for it. Not so tough now, Bambi.”
I kick out, catch nothing but air. His knee jams my thigh, clamping me flat.
The hand not on my wrist slides down my bruised throat.
He traces the marks Marcus left, then bruises of his own doing.
He presses until I almost black out, then lets go, just enough to make the next breath sting.
He wants to murder me and fuck me at the same time.
“Why’d you let him do it, Lola? Why’d you let him wreck everything?” He shakes me like he wants to break my neck. “You should have fought for me. You should have fucking died for me.”
My whole body shakes under his weight. My body remembers him. Worse, I want him. I want his mouth and his hands, even as I want him dead.
He shoves my shirt up, tearing straight through the fabric, and exposing my skin, belly, ripped bra. I try to claw his hands but he pins me harder. My breath comes in wet gasps and his palm covers my mouth.
My nose flares. I choke, panic spiking. My nails scrape desperately at his arm, but he doesn’t flinch. He grinds against me, cock hard through the thin pants. I can feel it, hot where everything else is cold. I try to buck him off.
There’s no mercy here.
“Tell me the truth.” His words sink into my pulse. “Tell me or I’ll tear you apart.”
I want to hate him. I want to love him. I squirm. He likes how it looks. The choke in my body. The fear. The memory of old wanting, spoiled and left to rot inside me.
Brody drags his hand up my ribs, flat-palmed and mean. His thumb circles my bruised skin, the way a wolf might savor blood on fur. He waits for me to flinch. I always do. He grins, his mouth gleaming in the shadows. The same mouth I used to kiss, to dream about.
Now they’re just another monster’s lips, waiting to bite me in half.