Max takes several long strides across the room. He stops at a safe distance, I assume for my benefit, and faced with the sheer size of him, I can’t help but wonder what that huge body would feel like as it pinned me on this hospital bed.
“I know all this must be terrifying for you but I gotta say, I think you’re incredibly brave.”
I smile coyly. “The big, bad New Yorker cop thinks I’m brave?”
“Yes, ma’am. I really do.” He sits in the chair Stahl occupied only moments ago, but Maximus dwarfs it completely.
“I don’t know anyone buthim,” I whisper. “Everyone tells me Doctor Flynn is my father, but I see no familial resemblance. I have a dead mother, a father I don’t remember, and a fiancé I’ve never met.”
“You know me.”
I smile. “I know you’re here more than you should be. I know you must be single, because no girlfriend or wife in their right mind would allow their man to spend as much time here as you do.”
“I’m married to the job, and right now, the job is helping keep you safe, and to put assholes like the one who did this to you away.”
“What if I liked the things he did to me?” I raise my head and meet his horrified gaze. And there it is—the surprise, the furrowed brow, the disbelieving expression that says there’s something wrong with me.Well, you don’t need to tell me that, Officer Torres. I already know. I’ve been a bad girl.
Tears pool in my eyes, and he clears his throat and leans forward, placing his large hand over mine. The contact feels so strange, alien, but it’s nice too. With the exception of the nurses and doctors, no one has touched me since Maximus found me in the middle of Times Square and ushered me into his police vehicle. I stare at his hand on mine.
“Sorry.” He retracts his hand, but I grab it and interlock my fingers with his.
“I-I liked the things he did to me.”
“There’s a word for that, Camille. It’s called—”
“Stockholm syndrome, right? I know that’s what everyone is thinking, that my head is all fucked up, and maybe it is, but not about this.” Tears spill over my lashes and run in fat, lazy droplets where they fall off my chin, dampening my pajamas.
I loved him, and he let me go.
“Hey, it’s okay to be confused. It’s okay to feel as if your whole world has been turned upside down—that happens more often than you might think. We’re gonna find him, Camille. We’re gonna find him and put him away for a very long time.”
I withdraw my hand from his and cover my face as my tears fall. They don’t stop.They never fucking stop. Ares let me go, and he’s out there, probably training another slave, making them fall in love with all the things he does to them, making them fall in love with him.
He let me go.
And I hate him for it.