I grab the key and button up my jeans, remembering the heat of Lex’s touch. I want to leave. Well, a part of me wants to leave. The rest of me is torn. My instinct should be to run, get away from him as fast as I can, but I walk slowly, with hesitation in every step.
My instinct is dull.
Go.
Stay.
Go.
I argue within my mind. I play back everything that happened. The initial carjacking, Lex almost selling me for a piece of plastic, and Lex commanding my husband to fuck me. But I also remember when Lex killed the men for laying hands on me. I remember all the times he pushed me outside my comfort zone and made me feel better than I’ve ever felt. I’ve been so alive since the moment he got into my car and told me to drive.
I have a decision to make. And I have to make it now. I grip Lex’s pistol and grab the door’s handle.
* * *
Lex
I patthe mound of soil with the shovel and breathe in the humid night air. I carry the shovel back toward the cabin and try to reflect on everything. Do I want Selena to leave? Absolutely not. Do I think she should? Yes. I used to think she wasn’t safe from everyone else, the other people who are poised to hurt a woman like her, but those aren’t the people who’ve hurt her.
It’s been me. Time and time again.
I abducted her. I tried to trade her for a fucking ID. I ignored every no and pushed her until it became a yes. I’ve made her kill for me and commit robberies. I’ve almost killed her on so many occasions while trying to protect her from the monsters of the world...but I’m the biggest monster of all.
I need her to go. She needs to escape and be a rabbit—blissful, happy, and running free. She doesn’t need to be in my cage any longer. She has what she needs to survive now.
To escape the biggest predators.
I lean the shovel against the back porch and head inside the dark cabin. Before I even get to the living room, I see that the tabletop is empty. I release a breath of pained relief. She finally left. She opened her cage and escaped.
The pain in my relief comes from how fucking lost I am without her. She’s been all I’ve known since I escaped prison. I felt things for the first time in a very long time, maybe even my entire life. I had happiness with her.
But I’m not allowed to stay happy. I don’t deserve it.
While I escaped the prison for my body, I couldn’t escape the prison in my mind. That’s a life sentence, and I’ll never have freedom from that, even as the most freeing thing lies beneath me. There’s no way to turn off who I am. Even for her.
I send a fist through the wall by the back bedroom, and then another. An animalistic scream laced with the frustration I deserve to feel bursts from my throat. I thought I could let her go. When I told her to hate me in the woods, to leave me, there was a part of me that knew she wouldn’t, but now she’s gone, and I can’t handle it.
The anguish turns into anger. Lexington rears his ugly head, trying to blame Selena for what happened. There’s no one to blame but him.
Me.
All I can think about is grabbing my gun. I don’t know what I’ll do once I have it in my hand, but I don’t want to do any of this without her. I can’t.
The moment I walk through the living room, I hear the sound of the slide racking on my pistol. I turn toward the sound and see Selena behind the silver barrel, staring at me. There’s a sharp breath of relief when I see her, but it’s short-lived when I take in all the anger on her face. Her eyes are hard and foreign. Her lips are a tight line.
“What is this, rabbit?” I ask as she puts her finger on the trigger. This girl has never handled a gun, and I don’t fear she’ll willingly shoot me; I fear she’llaccidentallyshoot me while trying to puff her pretty little chest.
“I’m fucking sick of how you treat me,” she snarls.
This isnothow normal couples have this argument. But we aren’t normal.
“You aren’t going to shoot me, rabbit.”
I go for the barrel, but she aims it away from me and pulls the trigger. I don’t jump, but she’s not used to hearing gunshots and nearly leaps out of her skin at the sound. Splinters of wood break away from the hole in the wall and flutter to the ground.
“You aren’t a killer,” I say with a laugh.
Her hands shake as she puts the gun back on me. Her finger trembles on the trigger. This girl is going to fucking shoot me in the head on accident. I can’t even grab the barrel because she’s so damn shaky.