Marked: Chapter 18

The room is dark when I wake up. We’re not at my apartment anymore. Zack packed for me, and when I was ready, he walked me down to his car and we left my place, my life, behind.

I can’t go back there.

Not ever.

I don’t even want to be in the state.

I roll over in this massive bed and curl my knees up to my chin. I’ve never been so comfortable while feeling this miserable before.

Zack drove us over an hour away from home, to the city. We’re in a building with a doorman. The elevator needed a security code to get us up to the apartment. Only in movies have I seen such luxury.

I don’t know how he got this place for us, and I’m not sure I want to ask.

Blinking the sleep from my eyes, I push myself up to sit against the headboard.

My head feels like it was used to bowl a perfect game last night. It goes well with the burning and dryness of my eyeballs.

Crying gives me the worst hangovers.

I grab my phone from the nightstand where Zack left it for me while he’s out.

There are two messages. One is from Zack.

Don’t open the door for anyone, little bird. I’ll be home soon.

And one is from my mom.

Hey, hun, thanks for your help yesterday. That Zack guy is pretty cute. Where’d you say you met him? Anyway, I thought we could meet up for lunch tomorrow?

I stare at my mom’s message.

Lunch. She wants to have lunch.

Anger rolls through me, and I drop the phone onto the bed, shoving it away from me.

Ten years. I’ve spent the last ten years weighed down by guilt over my mother picking me instead of Quinn. I’d felt like I may as well have been the one who pulled the trigger.

Mom had said my name. She’s chosen to give me life over Quinn. I’d always justified my mother’s actions, that there hadn’t really been a choice. They would have kept hurting us.

Me and Quinn.

Not her.

Just like Artie’d said. He’d been adamant about that point. They’d never hurt Mom. She’d been made to watch at the end. She’d been in the room some of the time they were messing with us, but they’d never put a finger on her.

Even when they dragged her out of the room, and we thought they were doing horrible things to her, she always came back clean and untouched.

“Harley!” Zack calls to me, probably searching this massive place. But I’m exactly where he left me.

In this bed.

Wallowing.

She’d wanted me to die.

And then she pretended it wasn’t so, that she hadn’t made that choice. She acted like she mourned Quinn because she hadn’t chosen her, but it was because she’d been tricked.

“Harley.” Zack pushes the bedroom door open. “You’re still in bed.”

I roll over to face him.

“I like this bed. I may never leave it,” I tell him and pull a pillow over my head.

A second later, it’s yanked away, and his steely gaze pins me. “I brought food. Come eat.”

“I don’t want to eat.” I try to grab the pillow back from him, but he tosses it across the room.

Why won’t he just let me melt into the bed? I’m unwanted.

“If things had happened the way you thought you remembered them, and Quinn had survived, what would you tell her?” he demands. There’s no softness here. He’s all authority now.

I see the Marine in him with his set jaw, his battle stance.

Are we at war with each other, or the world?

“I have no idea.” I lift my chin. “That Mom had to make a choice. But she didn’t, did she Zack?” Shoving my elbows into the mattress, I push myself up and swing my legs around. He moves back just in time as I jump off the massive bed.

“We don’t know the full story yet. And there’s a chance that this memory isn’t completely right, either. You’re just starting to get more of them back. We don’t know everything yet.”

“We know my mother’s not innocent. We know she’s been pretending to be a loving, supportive mother for the last ten years, when in fact she was regretting that the wrong daughter lived.” I stomp off to the attached bathroom and slam the door behind me.

He doesn’t deserve my anger, but she’s not here and I need it to go somewhere. I need the pain rolling through my chest, stealing away my breath, to come out. It’s going to suffocate me if it stays in.

The vanity in this insanely sized bathroom has six drawers. And not a single one of them has a razor, or a pair of scissors, or even nail clippers. Who doesn’t have nail clippers?

I yank open the linen closet and find everything I need. Even a first aid kit to clean up after.

The bathroom door bursts open, banging off the wall and Zack’s in here with me. Shoving the closet door closed and aiming his fierce gaze at the nail trimming kit in my hand.

“What do you think you’re doing, little bird?” His chin is buried into his chest, and he’s looking up at me through hooded eyes.

My breath catches as he taps a finger onto the plastic box in my hand.

“I need a minute,” I tell him, some of the bravado slipping from my voice. He advances on me.

Step by step, he walks me across the bathroom until my back hits the wall. One hand slaps the wall to my left, another to the right. I’m neatly caged inside his storm.

I raise my chin, ready to take him on.

This isn’t his pain to work through. It’s mine. All mine.

“Are you afraid of me, little bird?” He levels me with his glare. Heat pools inside me when he stares at me with his darkness. “Are you afraid of what I will do to you?” He arches his left eyebrow, and it reminds me of the first time I saw him.

He’s challenging me.

“No.” I shake my head a little, my grasp loosens on the nail kit. “I’m afraid of what you won’t do to me.”

His other brow lifts. A smile tugs on his mouth until he’s grinning like a proud papa.

“Give me the nail kit.” He grips the box. “Let go, little bird, and I promise I’ll make the outside hurt better than the inside.”

I swallow back the sob threatening to break free. How can this man know me so well?

He sees the dark demons dancing, and instead of running away, he turns the music louder.

Closing my eyes, I release the box, and he takes it from me.

“Good little bird.” He kisses my cheek. “Now, get rid of those clothes.” He takes the box to the vanity and places it on the counter. He opens it up and looks at the tools inside.

My hands shake as I pull off the clothes I slept in and drop them into a pile beside the shower.

“Come here.” He holds out his hand to me. In his other hand, he holds the pointed nail file.

His touch is warm when he wraps his hand around mine, leading me to stand in front of him.

“Up here.” He pats the countertop, but before I can hop on, he grabs me by the hips and hoists me. The marble is cool against my ass.

“Zack,” I whisper his name.

“Not yet, little bird. I’m playing.” He pushes my knees apart and stands between them. “Now, your thighs are already pretty, let’s work on your chest.”

I dig my nails into my knees, readying myself for the bite.

“Eyes on me. Never look away.” His orders are harder to obey now. Such fierceness shouldn’t wet my pussy the way it does, but I can already feel myself dripping onto the counter.

“All right,” I agree with a nod.

Placing the tip of the file just below my collar bone, where it won’t be seen when I’m dressed, he pushes it into my skin.

At first, I don’t feel much. It’s not very sharp after all. But then he pushes harder, and harder still, until pain blossoms, spreading heat all throughout my chest, down my belly.

“Ahhhh.” I fight the urge to pull back as he drags the file downward. Barely half an inch, but it’s getting deeper, and the pain draws a fog in.

“Such a good girl.” He lifts the file and brings the tip of it to his mouth. There’s a tiny drop of blood, and he licks it away.

“More.” I arch my back, offering him my body.

He grins like he’s been given the keys to the kingdom.

The file digs in again, this time deeper right away. He’s pushed through the skin, and I hiss from the instant burn. Blood trickles from the cut he’s made, but he’s not finished.

Carving my skin, he drags the tip across, then down and across again.

My toes curl.

The fog rolls in, thicker and sweeter.

“Is my girl happy yet?” he asks, wiping the trickle of blood off my skin with his middle finger and brings it into my eyesight.

“It feels good when you hurt me,” I say, eyeing his bloody finger.

“I feel good when I hurt you, too.” He brings the finger to my mouth, pushing past my lips, and I suck until the metallic taste goes away.

“More?” He poises the file over my chest again.

“Please.” I nod and lean back, shaking my hair behind me to be sure his canvas is free of any obstruction.

He moves his eyes to my chest, leaving me to stare at the top of his head as he continues his work.

More carving, up, down. Over and then up, down, sideways.

I lose track of the direction of the file, as my chest fills with warmth. My body clenches, no longer in pain, but in want.

When he’s finished, he brings his eyes up to mine. Light shines in the middle of the darkness.

“Do you want to see?” he asks, dropping the file to the countertop.

I nod, too aroused, too needy to open my mouth lest I’ll beg him to fill me with something other than pain. And he’s not finished playing.

I won’t steal his joy from him.

He opens the top drawer in the vanity and pulls out a hand mirror. Aiming it at my chest, he angles it so that I can see the beauty he’s created.

Z + H

He’s carved our initials into my chest. Tiny pearls of blood bead up from the cuts in some areas. He catches a drop as it starts to roll down over my breast, and brings it to my mouth. This time he smears it across my lips, painting them as if it were lipstick instead of my own blood.

“You were so pretty with it before, I wanted to see it again,” he admits, putting the mirror back in the drawer and dropping it. “How do you feel?”

I spread my legs more.

“I need you.”

“I need you, too.” He grabs at his belt, yanking at it until it opens and he’s able to shove down his jeans and boxers. “I’m not going to be gentle, little bird. My cock’s never been harder.”

“No. Never gentle.” I inch closer to the edge of the counter.

“I’m going to make it hurt,” he promises, and my pussy weeps with joy.

“Please. Always.” I suck in a breath when his hand sinks into my hair and he yanks my head back.

I can’t see him. Only the ceiling as he thrusts his cock into me.

“Fuck you’re wet.” He bites down on my neck, twisting his hand in my hair until the burn in my scalp makes me whimper.

But he promised not to be gentle.

He vowed to make it hurt.

And he never lies to me.

His teeth drag across my collar bone, then up to my neck, where he bites into my shoulder.

“Zack!” I wrap my arms around him. “Oh, god!” I scream, pulling at him. And he doesn’t disappoint.

He gives me everything I never understood I needed.

Wrapping an arm around my waist, he holds me steady while he plows into me relentlessly.

The edge of the counter digs into my ass, but it only drives me closer to the edge.

“Fuck,” he groans, biting my earlobe.

“Oh! I can’t…oh…” I throw my head back just as the storm crests and my body spirals with pain and pleasure. A dance so erotic, so sweet, it shoves me over the cliff, and I’m left panting and screaming his name as the waves of it all attempt to drown me.

“Fuck, Harley! Fuck!” He lets go of my hair, using both hands on my hips to pull me to him, driving full force into me again and again, until he stills. Unleashing his pleasure into me with a roar worthy of a warrior.

How fitting.

My warrior.

Moments later, he’s carrying me back to bed. I’ve been washed and my cuts have been tended to. A small bandage covers our initials.

“I’m going to clean up in the bathroom. When I’m done, you need to be dressed so you can eat what I brought for you.”

“You’re being bossy, Zack,” I say, leaning back against the pillows.

He touches the bandage covering our initials.

“You’re mine now, little bird.”

He walks back to the bathroom.

You’re mine now.

I’ve never been so thrilled.