Chapter 12 #2
Those words make him soften. Gage shakes his head, looking at her pleadingly.
“You’re not ruined, Minnie. I know you’re still hurtin’, because I’m next to you every mornin’ you wake up afraid.
I feel responsible. I wish it had never happened to you.
I wish it never happened at all. But I was a stupid shit into some bad things back then, and I fucked up bad.
I regret it. And I regret that my choices back then harmed you. ”
None of it is what she expected him to say to her. A part of her expected him to lie to her, to try and deny it all. Somehow, it hurts worse, hearing him admit to it. Hearing him regret it. As if she were something that could be regretted.
Her insides are cracking like glass. She wishes it hadn’t been him.
“Why did you do it?” She sounds like a mouse again, and she hates herself for it.
Why can’t she just be a lion? Why can’t she just be the type that comes out with fists swinging and a broom in hand?
“I know you grew up in a bad situation. But why choose to do what you did?” Minnie grew up in a different world; she wants to understand how someone could make such a horrible choice.
“You went beyond petty crime. Armed robbery?!”
A choice that would end up ruining her life.
Looking sick, Gage presses his head against the doorframe, eyes closed.
He groans as if agonized. “When I was young, I needed the money to eat, because my mother spent it all on her poison. When she was dead, I simply needed the money. Me and the guys, we used to shoplift. We had a system. When we got older, we graduated to bigger heists. Robbing banks. In Harrow’s Row, you either dealt drugs or did other crimes to get ahead.
We just so happened to be good at stealing money and cars.
It wasn’t personal.” His sharp face twists with anguish as he shakes his head in memory.
“You should have never been in that fuckin’ car. ”
I beg your finest pardon? Eyes narrowing, Minnie’s hands clench, shaking. “Are you blaming me for the hostage scenario?!”
He rocks back on his heels, eyes flashing with dismay.
“No. That’s not…that’s not what I meant.
Fuck. I’m bad at words, Minnie.” Gage rubs a hand down his face roughly.
“You were not part of the plan. There was never any intention to harm you. But your car was chosen and you were in it. Now, here we are, in the fuckin’ fallout. ”
Swallowing thickly, Minnie stands with her jaw beginning to ache. She can feel a tension headache beginning to claw at her temples. There’s so much anger and disappointment in her that she doesn’t know what to do with it.
With her emotions boiling like water in a hot kettle, Minnie finds herself focusing on something lurking in the darkest corner of her mind.
An image from her nightmares, a haunting whisper of her inner torment.
It takes her a moment before she can speak the words, but when they spill out, they taste acidic.
“Which mask were you?” Her voice is tight, as if she is squeezing the words out of her voice box bit by bit.
This is, perhaps, the question she fears the answer to the most.
Which man was he? On that horrible day, which of her hostage-takers was he?
The blood seems to drip from Gage’s naturally tanned face, leaving him ghostly.
“Don’t ask me that,” Gage says, his voice absent its usual strength.
He takes a step back from her, stricken.
He shakes his head, expression pleading.
“Minnie. Don’t do this. Don’t do this to us. Knowing won’t make you feel better.”
How can he ever understand that she needs to know? Now that the smoke and mirrors have been done away with, it's time to reveal the wizard behind the curtain.
There is no going back from this. Minnie cannot go on without knowing which tormenter in her dreams he is.
Be the lion. The gazelle. Something that isn’t a mouse!
Make him answer to you, Minnie. “If you ever claimed to care for me, you will answer me.” Minnie’s voice drops low, hoarse with emotion. “Which. Mask. Were. You.”
The Evil Clown.
The Ghoul.
The Wolf.
The Grinning Skull.
Something shifts in him, as if stealing the light from his eyes, leaving an empty look on his face.
Something Minnie isn’t used to seeing. Gage straightens up to his full height and looks down at her.
He reaches a hand forward and carefully covers her eyes, uttering in a rough voice that drops an octave, “Princess. Don’t you already know me by now? ”
The temperature in her body changes, first hot, and then ice cold as her heart drops to her toes.
The tone washes over her, a nightmare from another life.
That voice that she can never forget, the one in her darkest dreams. Of course, she knows exactly which mask he wore. She just wishes she didn’t.
She can practically feel the chill of the gun sliding against her face, down to her jugular.
Minnie remembers the gloved hand of iron will on the back of her neck.
A vile part of her wonders if subconsciously, she knew all along.
Sniffling, Minnie crumbles internally, violently shoving his hand away from covering her eyes.
Her vision settles on the black ink at his neck, where a grinning skull with sharp canines sneers at her.
When she speaks, her voice comes out in a snakelike hiss.
“You were Skull Mask.” The pain inside of her grows sharper, insistent.
The reality of the knowledge solidifies.
Emotional agony becomes a storm, and her lips tremble.
Minnie looks up at him in distress. Suddenly, anger is hard to wield as it falters, leaving hurt in its wake. “Y-you held a g-gun to my head.”
The man in front of her listens, eyes dark. The self-loathing oozing from his gaze is a stain on her heart. He doesn’t speak a word; he just continues to let her vent her pain.
“You th-threatened to k-kill me in front of all those p-people.” It feels as though she can’t get enough air. Black spots dance across her vision as her legs go unsteady. Minnie turns away, her vision tilting, needing an escape-
The world spins.
“Minnie. Oh, shit,” Gage says sharply, catching her when her legs seemingly vanish. He has her in his arms before she can even touch the ground in a near faint. “Breathe slower, dammit. Please?”
It’s hard to slow her breathing, but after a moment, the stars vanish from her vision, and Minnie can see again. Unfortunately, her physical shock has given him an excuse to enter her home with her in his arms.
“Put me down,” Minnie says caustically when she comes to her senses again. She doesn’t want his arms locked around her. She doesn’t want to be cared for by this man who once caused her such pain. “I didn’t say you could come inside my house.”
“I was supposed to let you fall and crack your pretty head?” He retorts with a scoff as he kicks her front door shut with his boot. “I don’t think so.” He carries her into her home, not taking his boots off, considering his hands are full and he can’t undo the laces the way he normally would.
Minnie’s face crumples, and she feels tears on her face. “My floors!” It seems trivial, but she hates it when people wear their shoes in her home. The situation isn’t helping any.
“I’ll wash them if you want me to.” He gently sets her down on the couch, kneeling in front of her. “I will fucking vacuum.”
The audacity of him, to destroy her world, dirty her floors, and then offer to clean them. “I don’t want you to clean my floors, I want you to leave me alone!” Minnie snarls, throwing a pillow at him in a fit of renewed anger. Red flashes in her vision. “I never want to see you again!”
When the pillow drops to the floor after hitting Gage square in the face, his expression is distraught, eyes panicked, his mouth in a firm line. “You don’t mean that.”
“Oh, but I do.” She can barely stand to look at him. How had he become everything to her in so short a time? This wicked man with his wicked past?
Desperate to make her listen, Gage tries to hold her hands, saying, “Minnie, you have to know that I hate what I did. That I’m not that man anymore. I would do anythin’ for you. And I lo-”
A fear so great slashes through her guts. Minnie leans forward and covers his mouth with her hands, urgently saying, “Don’t you say it! Not now. Not…not now.” Her voice cracks.
He patiently waits for her to stop caging his words. Then, “Minnie, please. I-”
She doesn’t want to hear it, perhaps she isn’t capable of it right now. Her emotions are running wild, anxiety pushing at the edges of her nerves.
“No, I don’t think so. I’d rather talk about what a farce this has been.
” Betrayal is sour on her tongue. “How long did you know? That I was The Abducted Girl? Was it before or after I told you? Did you come to my library, knowing I was there, just to torment me?” Getting off the couch, practically crawling out of her own skin, Minie begins pacing in a circle.
She utters hoarsely, “…and your dastardly friends figured it out. Chase and Marlin may not have said anything, but Red certainly had no problems mocking me directly. God, I’m such a fool-”
“You’re not a fool,” Gage says desperately, trying to stop her frantic movements in the room.
He finally gets hold of her, enclosing her in his arms again.
His familiar scent breaks her heart because it soothes her.
And it shouldn’t. “I didn’t know until you told me that first night we…
the first night you came home with me. I swear, I never knew.
I felt there was something familiar about you, but I didn’t…
I didn’t realize…I didn’t recognize you and put two and two together.
I certainly didn’t seek you out, trying to hurt you in the first place. ”
His utterance of those words momentarily calms her. The panic and humiliation settles into a persistent ache, but nothing she cannot handle.
A large hand strokes through her hair, trying to pacify her. He kisses the top of her head.
It feels nice, so for the moment, Minnie allows it. She allows him to hold her, because the moment he lets her go, she knows she’s going to want nothing to do with him again.
“I need you to leave me alone right now,” Minnie says against his chest, wanting to vanish. She sniffles pathetically. “I need to process this new level of mental trauma you’ve unlocked for me.”
He sighs and bows his head in reluctant acceptance. Slowly, his arms drop away from her person, leaving her cold and empty once more. “Is this your way of telling me to fuck off?”
“Yes.”
“For good?”
Minnie can’t meet his gaze. That’s what her father wants; he wants her to get rid of Gage for good. A part of her wants to never see him again. The other part simply wants the hurt to stop, the past to vanish, and for him to just be a man that she loves.
She’s not ready to give him up. “For…now.”
Gage nods, looking as though he wants to kiss her goodbye, but wisely decides against it. “Okay. That’s. Um. Well. You know where to find me.”
Minnie crosses her arms over her chest, hugging herself tightly, trying to self-soothe.
The heavy sound of his footsteps walking out her front door meets her ears. When she hears the door click shut, she falls apart.