Bella is in my bed.

The same place she has been every night for the last three weeks. She came to me on her own, and I could not bring myself to ask her to leave.

Even though I know it makes me weak. Even though I still question at times if it’s real, or if she is even more skilled than her father at trickery.

She continues to come here, night after night. Curling her body into mine and wrapping my arm around her. She wakes in the morning and cooks breakfast, humming pieces of new music every day.

She seems happy. And this was not the way it was meant to go. This was not the way at all.

But when she kisses me this morning and looks up at me with sleepy eyes, I think that perhaps I never really stood a chance as far as Bella was concerned.

I think of Ray, and he seems like a distant memory now. My Bella does not speak of him. And I often wonder if she thinks of him. If she misses him, still. If it’s true, she doesn’t say.

Each night, I go to bed with a new resolve. That tomorrow, I will punish her. That tomorrow I will make her pay. But each dawn, my resolve is gone all over again.

My pulse hammers in my throat when she looks upon me. When she touches my scars and does not recoil. When she begs me to fuck her.

I do not know what she is doing to me. She is poisoning my mind. Ruining my plans. Making me forget my revenge. I should be furious with her for doing this. But instead, the contempt I feel is for myself.

I know that it cannot last. I know that my own mind is playing tricks on me. That given a choice, Bella would leave me. Because I have conditioned her to be this way.

It is an illusion. A temporary illusion. And in time, the spell she is under will fade away, leaving only her bitterness and her own desire for revenge.

If we continue down this path, I would let her take it. I would let her take my life to satisfy the inevitable darkness that lies buried in her heart beneath the lies. Because Bella cannot ever truly care for me. That was not the way this story began, and there’s no changing that now.

She is a weakness. One that only metastasizes over time. And this is why I must act now. Before it is too late.

Today, I decide, is the day.

There is no other choice. I can no longer give in to the temptation of her. Which is why I climb from the bed before she can say a word. Before she can touch my lips, or ask me sweetly to be inside of her.

I tell her there is something I must do before I dress and leave the room.

I wait in my office until she is up and about, moving around the kitchen. And then I text River my instructions. When his reply comes through, I retrieve my toolbox and move to the entryway.

The window is stiff, and it must be pried from the place it has rested for so many years. It groans loudly, and I do not have to look to see if she is watching.

I can feel her eyes on me. Curious. I can almost hear the questions in her mind. And it is exactly what I wanted. So I do not know why I feel so ill. I do not know why I hesitate to answer when River’s call comes through exactly as I asked.

I want to look at her. I want to see her one last time. But I don’t. Because I know it will only make me change my mind. It will only make me weak.

With a stiff greeting, I answer River’s call. He mumbles into the other line, asking me what’s up. I tell him to hold on. I shut the window, but I do not lock it.

Bella is watching. Thinking I’ve become complacent. That I am comfortable. Perhaps even forgetful. Silently rejoicing as I walk to my office and close the door.

I ask River to give me an update on his end of the search for Ray so that I can use the time to think. To listen quietly to the sounds outside the room.

I can’t bring myself to check the camera. Watching her come to terms with her decision before she slips away. I can’t watch her leaving me because I will chase after her. I will want to punish her and lock her away again.

But I can’t. It has to be now. I have to let her go. So she can no longer poison my mind. My heart.

“Javi,” River says from the other end of the line.

“What?”

“You aren’t listening to me. What is going on over there?”

“Nothing,” I tell him. “It’s nothing.”

Silence greets me on the other end of the line. A long, painful silence. I know it will not last, and it doesn’t.

“I knew this would happen.”

“What would happen?” I ask.

“This girl,” River snarls. “She has made you weak, Javier. She has poisoned you. Crippled you.”

“No.”

I don’t sound convincing even to myself. And I do not deny what he says next either.

“Have you have fallen for her?”

The quiet is tense, and I do not possess the energy to argue with River right now. I can only think of my Bella. My Bella slipping further and further away from me.

It will take her twenty minutes to get to the main road. And from there, only a few minutes to the nearest gas station. She could be back home by noon.

“She does not love you, Javier,” River tells me. “You must know she does not love you. It isn’t real, whatever she thinks she feels. Whatever tricks she plays on you. They are the same we have been taught ourselves many times. You must know this.”

“I am aware of that,” I reply.

“And what of your revenge then?” he asks.

“My revenge will still be had. The past cannot be changed. I have damaged her, just as I set out to. I have tainted her. And when Ray comes home, he will see for himself.”

“She does not look so damaged to me,” River remarks. “Walking around your home as she pleases. Wearing clothing and doing whatever she feels like. You have gone soft.”

It is true, so I do not dishonor him by telling him otherwise. But I do try to reassure him.

“It is done. It has already been done.”

He is silent again, for several moments. Taking his time to gather the right words as River sometimes does.

“Do you remember how they tricked us?”

The memory of his fake murder still plays on repeat in my head. Every day, it has haunted me. The way they deceived me. The way they used River as a tool in my training.

They took everything from me.

I believed he was dead, for so many years. For so long, I had nothing else but the thought of my revenge. And River knows this too well.

“You were my only friend,” he tells me. “My first friend. Do you remember that, Javi?”

“How could I ever forget?”

“They took you away from me,” River says. “Ray took you away from me.”

“I know.”

“They tortured you too, Jav. Brainwashed you.”

“I know,” I say again.

“But what is the worst of his offenses?” he asks.

I do not answer. Because I do not have to. River already knows.

“Ray lied to you. He told you he believed you. But they chose you specifically, Jav. They turned you into a killer because they believed you were predisposed already. He tarred you with that brush, and he didn’t care if it was true or not. He made you what you are. He destroyed you.”

I close my eyes, and Bella seems so far away.

The rage is frothing inside of me, and River won’t stop.

“They printed it right in your file, Jav. Those vile words about your mother. Have you forgotten so easily?”

The flashbacks wrench me back in time, swallowing me whole.

“Enough,” I say.

But River does not listen. He speaks of my training with a level of detail that nobody else can. Because he is the only one who knows of my confessions. He speaks of the torture. The waterboarding. The burns. The mind games. The deceptions and punishments that followed.

He speaks of the blood I spilled. Repeatedly. The tests. And I tell him to stop, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t stop until I have smashed the phone against the wall and red is the only thing that I see.

Hatred. Rage. Hell.

The door crashes against the wall from the force of my adrenaline. The vein in my neck throbs and my footsteps ricochet down the hall as I stalk towards the kitchen.

She will be gone. She needs to be gone.

I wait for the cool air. The air that will inevitably linger from the window where she has escaped. The breeze that will carry her scent as she runs fast and far away from this place. From me.

I expect quiet. The peace that I desire so badly. But I do not find those things. Instead, I find my Bella, still at the kitchen stove, her eyes wide as she watches me come down the hall.

“Javi?” she whispers.

“Why are you still here?” I roar.

She backs into the counter and hugs herself, shaking her head frantically, but no words leave her mouth.

“You should have left when you had the chance!” I sneer.

I chase her around the counter and grab her arm, and she pleads with me as I drag her from the room.

“Javi, please. No, please. Whatever just happened, don’t do this. I’m begging you.”

Her words fall on deaf ears.I block out everything around me and focus on the red. The pain. The revenge.

I am no longer weak. Nothing can break me. Not even this girl and her trickery. This is what I tell myself. This is what I believe. Until she speaks again.

“Javi,” she whispers. “Javi. I love you. Please. I love you.”

I freeze. And I stare at her. This girl with the pale blue eyes, more venomous than even her father as she spills such lies from her lips.

I tell her so, and she tries to deny it.

“It’s true,” she says.

Tears track down her cheeks. And this time they do not make me weak. They do not make me want to fuck her either. They fill me with wrath all over again.

“You are a liar and a fool,” I tell her.

“I am not a liar,” she cries. “I may be many things, Javi. But a liar is not one of them. I will prove it to you. I’ll do anything. Anything. Just tell me.”

This time, I smile. And I feel like my old self again.

“Anything?” I ask.

“Anything,” she replies.