Twenty-Nine

 

Liv

 

I stayed up most of the night, trying to figure myself out. The last few weeks had happened in a crazy blur, and I felt like a different person. I watched Remy sleep next to me, and I tried to find it in me loathe the guy. It’d been so easy to hate him in the start. I tried to go through the same memories. I tried to tell myself he’d disrespected and violated me, but as I said those things in my mind, I didn’t feel the anger that should have accompanied them.

Had I become weak? Wasn’t this what Shane warned me against?

When I woke up the next morning, I found Remy gone. I threw on my robe, jumped out and checked every room, eventually following the cool breeze that came from the deck backing the living area. I saw him straight away. He was leaning over the railing, staring off into the jungle. It was raining quite heavily. He was drenched head to toe, but he made no move to leave.

I wasn’t sure if I was disturbing him. I saw his profile, saw the frown on his face. Something was wrong. I stepped out despite my better judgment. I pressed a hand against his back and he stirred, turning to look at me. He’d been out here a while. He felt cold.

“Remy,” I said, quietly. “Is everything okay?”

“Tryin’ to answer that myself,” he replied, looking off.

“Talk it out with me.”

“I shouldn’t have taken you,” he declared, shaking his head.

My brows furrowed. “Why do you say that?”

“Look where you are.”

My laugh was empty. “Look where I could have been. Locked in a room by that sadist –”

“You’ve been locked in a room here.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?”

I looked at him carefully, trying to understand what exactly the point of this was. “It happened, Remy, and we’re here now. Do you regret that?”

His face fell. “I don’t know.”

My heart dropped. “You don’t know?”

“At least you knew your enemy,” he said.

“I know you better.”

His eyes narrowed. “No, Olivia, you don’t know me at all,” he bit out, angrily. “You think because I’ve had my hands clean these last few weeks that I’m not like those others, you’re wrong. I’ve killed people with my bare fucking hands. Think about that for a second.”

I shrugged. “I just thought about it, Remy. I get it.”

“You get it?”

“You think my father doesn’t have a kill count? Or Shane? This is our world now, Remy. I’ve lived it the last sixteen years. Just because people whisper about what they’ve done behind closed doors, doesn’t mean I didn’t hear. I heard everything.”

“Is that the life you want?”

“What fucking choice did I have?” Honestly, was he seriously asking me this?

“I can give you a choice. If I said to you that you can leave and live your own life, what would you say?”

I scoffed, bitterly. “You can’t say shit like that.”

He turned to me, towering over me. His anger was palpable. The water cascaded over his face, over his lips. He looked like a dark prince. “I just did, Olivia. Would you leave?”

I swallowed hard. “You’re regretting the marriage, Remy? Is that it? Have you tired of me already that you’re willing to kick me off the boat and have me swimming in shark infested waters, because that’s exactly what’s waiting for me if I leave this life. We have enemies. Everywhere. If you’re trying to get rid of me, do it like a fucking man.”

“I ain’t trying to get rid of you,” he snapped. “I’m trying to give you a fucking life. No more of this constant moping bullshit of how you had it so fucking bad growing up!”

I took a step back, stung. My lips trembled. “Is that what I’ve done? I didn’t realize I was such a whining bitch.”

“Did you ever stop to think about the things your father did for you?”

“Now, you’re being funny.”

“Am I? He gave you a roof over your head, you had the best education, and you lived a lap of fucking luxury. What the fuck didn’t you have, Olivia?”

“Freedom!” I yelled out, eyes burning with tears. “You wouldn’t fucking get that, would you, Remy? It all sounds like such a fucking opulent life when you’re surrounded by people who look at you like you’re a fucking insect, but I guess I sound like a victim to you, don’t I? I’ve heard it all before. Because that’s what they did when you spoke up about something you didn’t like. They called you a victim, an attention seeker, a spoiled princess.”

“Wasn’t it better than the streets?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to know? The only taste of freedom I ever got was on those streets and I was seven years old. Think about that for a second.” I shook as the tears fell hard now. “You know what’s funny, Remy? They say you can’t remember much at that age, but me? I remember everything. I remember the sun on my skin. I remember the look on people’s faces when they waved at me from that window. I remember the days cold in my mother’s apartment. I remember begging her to play with me. I could still tell you what we had in the fridge, and that I pissed myself almost every night because I was frozen cold and too weak to leave the bed! But I was free. I could feel. I wasn’t stuck in a prison of apathy. What prison would you be in?”

“You could have ended up dead,” he said quietly. “Or into drugs. Or turned into a fucking hooker on the side of the road.”

“Maybe.”

“So then have your freedom, Olivia. Go, if that’s what you want. I can make it safe, even.”

I pointed at him, angry now, not sure where this was coming from. “I never said I wanted that. You brought it up! I don’t even know why we’re talking about this! You act like you’re fucking responsible –”

“You’re miserable here–”

“How would you know?”

“You looked broken in that room every fucking time I went in there! I spent every night sitting on the other side of the door. Did you know that?”

My heart hiccupped. “No, but I looked out every day searching for you.”

“Well, I was right there the whole time. I heard you talking to yourself. I heard you pacing –”

“Because I was alone.”

“No, it was because of what those fuckheads did to you for those short seven years of your life. Imagine if they robbed you of more years. If you hadn’t been plucked out of that life, away from fucking Bogeyman, imagine what would have happened to you.”

“We’ll never know, Remy –”

“That’s not my fucking name anymore, Olivia,” he snapped, sharply. “You don’t know that person and you never will.”

Fucking ouch.

I nodded once, hurt. Then I turned and hurried inside. He called after me, a hint of remorse in his tone. I ignored him. He followed me, right on my heels. “Olivia! Stop.”

I hurried into the bathroom and slammed the door shut, quickly locking it just as he turned the knob. He knocked. “Olivia,” he said, “please, open up.”

“Go away,” I said, swallowing back my emotion.

“Olivia –”

“Go away, Reaper.” I said his other name like it was poison.

“I’m sorry.” His head banged on the door. “Olivia, I’m sorry. I was in a destructive spiral.”

“Brought on by what?” I questioned.

He sighed. “I’m out of my depth here. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I felt nothing either for the longest time. I…I was just so angry. I obsessed about power, and now that I got it…it’s empty. It’s meaningless. And I’m tired. My soul is tired, Olivia. And then this happens – you happen – and I feel…good. It scares me that it feels good. I keep waiting for it to stop. I keep waiting for you to run.”

My heart squeezed, pained by the distraught I could hear in him. He was opening up. Feeling a sliver of hope, I unlocked the door and opened it, staring up at him. Soaking wet, eyes raw. I let out a long breath. I couldn’t be angry at him. Not when he looked like he was hurting.

“Come on,” I said, taking him by the hand. “You’re cold. Let’s get you warmed up.”

“Olivia, about what I said –”

“Look, Remy, I understand your side of it, okay? You know, you’re right, I got it better than most people. I would have probably chosen the same if I’d seen a kid living that way. I know that. Every time I talked about it out loud, I was just expressing myself. I’ve never told these things to anyone, except you.” I looked down, holding back another wave of emotion.

His fingers went under my chin, pulling my face up to look at him. “I’m sorry,” he said, the apology clear in those deep brown eyes. “You did nothing wrong. I like when you talk to me. I like knowing everything about you. Don’t stop.”

He was getting under my skin fast. It was hard to breathe.

I nodded, trying to appear fine. “Let’s just shower now.”

I undressed him, and he undressed me. We were rebuilding that intimacy. He gave me a pleading look not to talk. He had opened up enough. He wanted the silence. He wanted the touches and the stares. I nodded, giving him it.

Under the water, I wrapped my arms around his neck. We kissed softly, languidly under the water. He dropped his hands to my thighs and picked me up. He made me feel like I weighed like a feather. There was no struggle, no heavy breaths. He pressed my back against the wall and slid his length straight into me. Then he kept himself there, deep inside me, watching my face react at the way he filled me.

“Say my name when you come,” he whispered in my ear. “I like when you say it.”

“Remy,” I said to him, to be sure.

He pressed his forehead against mine. “Yeah, I want to hear that name a little more often.”

Meaning, he wanted to feel like his old self a little more often.

That broke my heart a little more.

He looked at me like I was perfect. Like I was his. Then he captured my mouth and fucked me slowly against the wall, until we came groaning each other’s mouth.

That evening he wouldn’t talk, but he kept me by his side, determined not to let me go. I kept waiting for him to say something. To let me know something real was happening.

Remy was still fighting.