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Fallon

I wake with my heart galloping in my chest. I’m disoriented, my thoughts muddled, making it hard for me to piece together anything.

Sucking a full breath of air into my lungs, I exhale and swallow around what feels like a knot in my throat. My body aches as if I passed out or something. Sitting up a little more in my seat, I realize I’m in a vehicle that’s being driven down the road. I dismiss that altogether when I swallow once more and feel the sudden rawness in my throat.

Instinctively, I lift a hand to my throat, my fingers press against the tender tissue, and I wince. What happened?

Everything comes barreling into my mind in an instant.

The men breaking in. The woods. Markus wrapping his hand around my throat. Strangling the life right out of me.

Tears prick my eyes. I shouldn’t be surprised or let down. This is who he is, who he’s been all along. Ever thinking that I could trust him was my first mistake.

“I’m going to have to go back on my word. I told you I wouldn’t hurt you, but I’ve changed my mind.”

Markus is driving, staring out the windshield, his penetrating gaze focused on the road ahead. He’s white-knuckling the steering wheel just like he did my throat.

I want to say something, to lash out, but what good would that do me? It wouldn’t change what’s already happened? It wouldn’t fix any of this or make my sister safe. I’m spinning out of control, and I’m not sure anything will be able to stop me.

With each swallow, I try my best to ignore the throb in my throat, but it’s a reminder of what he did to me, of how everything he said was a lie.

I’m completely hopeless and afraid now. He told me he would never hurt me, and though he didn’t really hurt me, it feels like he did.

Like a statue, he remains motionless and silent. That only enrages me more. How can he sit there so calmly? It’s stupid to feel as angry as I do over this. I know that, but nothing he has done to me thus far has amounted to what he did earlier. I’ve never felt so afraid, never felt the real darkness inside of him, not until that very moment.

I half expected him to kill me. The coldness in his eyes… how uncaring he seemed, and how he took back his word on hurting me, truly hurting me.

The mere memory of it makes me shiver.

“How are you feeling?” His deep, robust voice cuts through the air.

I fold my arms over my chest. “Why do you care?”

“Honestly, I don’t. I don’t give a fuck if you’re mad at me. I did what I had to do. My options were slim, and you wouldn’t calm down. You should be grateful I didn’t shove your ass in the trunk.”

I refuse to admit it, but he’s right. I was too far gone to care about anything, and the only way he was doing to get me out of that house was the exact way he did.

Markus isn’t my main concern right now. My sister is. Thoughts of what that man back at the cabin told me circulate through my mind.

She’s being hurt and taken advantage of, passed around, and raped. Bile rises in my throat. By the time I get to her, she’ll be a different person, her spirit broken. How will I save her and myself? I feel like I’m trapped between two canyons that are closing in on me more and more each day.

The car slows, and Markus signals, taking the exit. I’m tempted to ask him where we’re going but press my lips together to stop myself from doing so. Whatever we shared back in that cabin ended there. It ended when he took back his word.

Off the exit, he pulls into a small diner that’s connected to a gas station. Markus parks the car and turns the engine off. He lets out a sigh and turns in his seat to face me. He’s a mammoth of a man, and the space inside the car seems smaller because of him.

“Here’s how this is going to work.” He pauses, and his cool amber-colored eyes briefly meet mine. “We’re going to go inside and eat. You’re going to listen and behave yourself. Ignore anyone who asks you questions. Believe me, you don’t want to know what happens if you fail to listen to me.”

“What, you’ll strangle me and kill everyone inside?” I scoff, and then realize how much of a reality that truly is.

“I’ll kill anyone who tries to take you from me, and I’ll punish you greatly for misbehaving. Now, are you going to come in with me and listen?”

“I hate you, and I don’t want anything to do with you,” I growl.

Markus rolls his eyes. “I saved your fucking life back at the cabin, and I’ve been protecting you when I could’ve just been fucking you. I’ve been kind to you, the only way I know how. I’m a fucking criminal, Fallon, in case you’ve forgotten. I bought you-paid money for your body. That doesn’t exactly say knight in shining armor, does it?”

I huff out a breath. “Fine, I’ll listen, but not for you. For the people in that restaurant because I’m sure they didn’t come to work today thinking they would die.”

Markus chuckles. “Of course, not for me. Why make things easier for me, or us?”

Us? There is no us. There is him and me, and we’re on opposite sides of the spectrum. I want to help save my sister while he wants to keep me chained to his side.

He climbs out of the car a second later and comes over to the passenger side. Opening the door, he grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet. My legs feel like jello and buckle beneath the weight of my body as I try to stand.

“I’ve got you.” His voice strokes my ear.

Leaning against him for support, I grow angry. I don’t want his help. I don’t want to feel the feelings I’m feeling for him. All I want to do is save my sister, protect her, and make sure she is okay, but I can’t even do that.

I’ve failed her and failed myself. Everything that is happening to her now is my fault, and I have to live with that. So no matter what Markus does to me, nothing will be worse than what I’ve already done to myself.

“I’m fine,” I snap. “I don’t need you.”

Markus takes a step back, and I almost eat the pavement but catch myself at the last second. “Let’s go.”

He tugs me forward, and I let him. Together we enter the diner, where the smell of fried foods and coffee fills my nostrils.

“Sit wherever you would like,” a middle-aged woman says as she pours a cup of coffee.

Markus obliges and drags me to a booth in the corner of the restaurant, away from the other patrons. He releases the hold on my wrist, only to shove me into one side of the booth before sliding into the other.This belongs © NôvelDra/ma.Org.