Chapter 17
Wren
I was disgusting.
He couldn’t even look at me anymore.
He loves you. I pushed the thought out of my head. No one could love me after knowing that. I had been taken against my will time and time again, and my body had liked it sometimes. I had tried to fight it, but I couldn’t.
I closed my eyes and tried to fight off the wave of nausea that overcame me whenever I thought about it.
“I love you.”
And now I was hallucinating. My brain was really twisted because I swore Maniac had just told me he loved me.
“Wren, open your eyes.”
I shook my head and clenched my eyes shut. I couldn’t open them and see the look of disgust on his face. When I left here, I wanted to remember Maniac looking at me with love in his eyes, not this.
His fingers grabbed my hands, and I tried to pull away. “Please don’t do this, Maniac. You can leave. Don’t think you have to stay.”
“Open your fucking eyes,” he growled low.
He was upset. I should have known. Maniac wasn’t the type of man you lied to. “I’m so sorry,” I sobbed. I opened my eyes, but the tears glassed everything over. “I’m so sorry,” I repeated.
He gathered me in his arms and pulled me into his lap. I couldn’t fight him. My sobs racked my body, and I couldn’t stop crying.
“Shh, Wren. You gotta breathe for me, darlin’.”
I shook my head, unable to get any words out.
He held me in his lap, rocking me gently.
I curled into his embrace, knowing this would be the last time he would touch me. I needed to soak it all in and live off this memory for the rest of my life.
“Wren, I love you. You gotta get a grip.”
I ignored his words. He was just trying to get me calmed down enough so he could leave. He was a good guy who wouldn’t leave me sobbing on the floor. He loves you, Wren.
That wasn’t possible.
“You didn’t like what they did to you, Wren. That was just your body responding, but you didn’t like it.”
“But, but…why did I feel like that?” I hiccuped.
“You didn’t feel what you think you did.”
He didn’t understand it. There were moments where it felt good.
“Did you love any of them, Wren?”
What? “Of course not.”
“Did you even remotely like any of them?”
“Not at all. They… I didn’t want to have sex with them.”
“Then you didn’t fucking like it.” He ran his fingers through my hair. “You’ve got it twisted in your head, darlin’. That was just a reaction that your body liked.”
I hiccuped again and buried my face in his neck. “You can’t love me.”
“Too late.”
I shook my head. “I thought I was doing good. That they didn’t have any control over me anymore.”
“They don’t have control over you, Wren. Everything you are feeling is normal, and by getting it out, it’s helping you to heal.”
“Why are you such a good guy?” Guys like Maniac didn’t exist. They were only found in movies and books where the virgin, untouched girl falls into the arms of the hero. This wasn’t a movie or a book. This was my fucked up life where the happy ending wasn’t in my cards anymore.
“I’m not a good guy, Wren, except for when it comes to you. You’re ashamed of what happened to you, but there are things in my life I’ve done and will do that are just as bad. And the thing of it is, I chose to do those things. You didn’t choose any of this for you.”
I let his words sink in. I had screamed no a hundred times, each and every time. I had pleaded and begged for them to stop. There hadn’t been anything else for me to do. “I didn’t want any of it,” I whispered. Realization dawned on me. I tilted my head back to look at him. “I didn’t want it.”
He brushed back my hair. “I know, darlin’, I know.”
I laid my head back on his shoulder and sighed. “Well, that really ruined the mood.”
His body shook under me. “We’ll get the mood back another time. I think we needed to get that out of the way.”
And we did.
A weight had been lifted off my shoulders. There wasn’t anything more to tell Maniac. It was all out there, and he hadn’t turned away or pushed me away. I had given it to him, and he had made it better.
I didn't ask for any of this. I wasn’t at fault for it.
And I was still worthy.
*
Maniac
Her chest silently rose and fell.
It was three-thirty, and she had fallen asleep hours ago.
Telling me everything had exhausted her. She had given me everything now, and while she was healing, I was raging.
The Hell Captains didn’t know what was about to hit them.
They had messed with the wrong woman.
Now I was coming for them.
*