by Fox, Logan
Father died believing the devil had possessed him. I might even be inclined to believe that one day when I’m older and less bitter.
I know for a fact his condition had nothing to do with the crushed Morning Glory seeds I slipped into his Vermouth at night.
Oh, the beatings he laid on me were spectacular. The pain took me into a different dimension—one where I was loved and cherished like the goddamn son of God.
But a healthy man soon became an ill one.
It took less than a month for him to experience his first psychotic break.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Clover
Present Day.
What’s happening? I used to understand the world around me. Shapes, sounds, colors. Things used to make sense.
They don’t anymore.
I’ve never tripped before. Heroin was my drug of choice, and I never had hallucinations. I had body highs that dulled my aches. Mental lows that made thought impossible.
Everything I ever wanted in a drug and more.
The past didn’t exist when I was high.
Neither did the future.
The present was where it was at and that stretched to infinity. I was calm. Warm. Satisfied. Rich. Intelligent. Loved.
Until I came down, and that was when the opposites were undeniably true.
I tried ecstasy once, but it felt like I was having a panic attack.
Meth made me feel like God, and I knew I didn’t deserve something that grandiose.
I’m only alive today because of heroin, despite the fact that it almost killed me countless of times.
I laugh. The sounds splinter into a kaleidoscope of colors—every one in the rainbow and then some—until I squeeze my eyes shut.
Trust me, Clover.
My eyes open.
Hunter stands in front of me. The fire illuminates him, and burns at his silhouette. His hair is made of snakes, and they’re slithering down his neck.
He takes off his sweater.
A bare torso confronts me and demands explanations I’m powerless to provide.
I squeeze my eyes shut. I can barely think, let alone explain myself.
Where is the Dark?
All I see is light. Yet I know it’s there. It’s hiding. Lurking. Waiting for 8:45pm.
I don’t wear a watch because I can’t.
The mere sight of my wrist watch anywhere near 8:45 would make me fold into myself like an origami hedgehog.
Twice a day.
Twice a fucking day.
I began avoiding clocks, time, numbers in general. Lucky for me, you don’t have to be a fucking physicist to get someone into bed. If you don’t have money, you never have to do any calculations in your head.
You can’t divide zero by zero. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.
His hand is by his buckle.
I’ll be deaf if I put my fingers in my ears. But I can’t, because I’ve gone lame.
I whimper, but only because I know I’ll be forced to listen to the sound of metal against metal. The whisk of leather against fabric. That penultimate clatter of a metal tongue against wood.
“Trust me, Love.”
And then what? Obey?
According to my body, yes.
Most fucking unfortunately.
My captor has complete control over my body. I don’t have a choice but to obey his command. I know his next command will be for me to spread my legs.
It always is.
He’s slimmer than I remember.
But I’m fucked in the head, so maybe he’s not.
He kneels on the bed. He’s still wearing his underwear, but I can see his penis right through the fabric. It’s not like it’s a chastity belt.
He’s not the Dark, but he might as well be.
If I wanted to say no, I couldn’t.
If I wanted to move away, I couldn’t.
Whatever he fed me has turned me into a vegetable.
Except…
He steps over me.
His weight dips the mattress. I roll an inch against him with no choice in the matter.
A hot arm, warm fingers, slides over my waist and draws me near.
He’s the sun.
His touch burns me, sets me alight, wakens me like grass after a forest fire.
If I could have gasped, I would. Instead, I huddle against him.
There’s a slab of heated flesh against my back. He’s a magnet and I’m iron. When he exhales, so do I.
We’re one.
But I’m my own.
He’s stolen nothing from me, and for that, I’m grateful as fuck.
Nothing yet, anyway.
* * *
Instead of warming her body, she’s turning mine to ice. I shiver violently and press tighter against her.
There’s a fire.
This cabin is sheltered from the cold, but I’m losing her.
Not only that—she’s taking me with her into frozen purgatory.
I deserve nothing less. I know that on an intrinsic level. But I can’t help her if we’re both in hell. One of us has to live to pull the other through.
I cling tighter to her frozen body. She’s shivering. I have to take that as a good sign. An excellent sign, in fact. I can feel the air warming around us as the fire takes root in the logs.
How could I have been so wrong?
I’d calculated every variable I could think of, and still I’d never anticipated this resolution.
Me, naked. Her, naked.
I’m her guide, yet I feel compelled to take advantage of her weakness.
I’m nothing but a predator, like the person—or persons—who broke her all those years ago.
Or I’m not human at all. Neither is she.
At heart, we’re all still animals.
We take advantage of the weak.
We prey on the innocent and we sure as shit don’t ever make amends for our transgressions.
Clover shifts against me, and I harden. An animal response, no doubt, but that only brings my attention to the fact that despite my degree, despite the honorific of doctor I insist on, I’m nothing but a primate.
She was never my patient, was she?
She was always my prey.
I’d watched her grow fat and complacent in the environment I myself captured her in, so fucking eager for the day she’d break free for the chase.
I have her in my clutches.
Weak.
Vulnerable.
Exposed.
I can do anything I want with her.
Just like Father thought he could do anything with me because I was his son.
He’d made me. He owned me.
Anything.
Fucking anything.
* * *
Before, I was trapped in a storm. But that storm stranded me on an island of serenity. The feeling is familiar, yet strange.
My fingers are tingling. My toes, too.
Every inch of me is coming back to life, and it’s because of the man pressed to my back.
I’m warm. Safe. But as warm and safe as the defendant in a court room.
I have rights, but they’re muddy.
There are boundaries, but they’re as flimsy as tissue paper.
What I fear the most is yards away from me, and yet I’m supposed to feel safe.
Arms tighten around my chest. They drive those dark thoughts from me. I can hardly breathe, but I don’t want air.
I want forgiveness.
I want respite.
My heart starts pounding as it always does this time of night.
It must be close to nine.
Dreadful anticipation overwhelms me although I’m already in the Dark’s arms tonight.
But this is different.
Those arms are tight, but safe.
That body warm, but comforting.
I gave no consent, but nothing is being taken.
Instead, all I’m given is heat. Comfort. Safety.
Love.
&nbs
p; The fire spills over the grate. By now, I know I’m hallucinating, but that doesn’t change anything. Knowing something isn’t real, isn’t right, doesn’t make it change.
Good is good.
Evil is evil.
People wear masks, but that doesn’t change who they are underneath.
For the first time in a long time, I let out a sigh of relief. Those hands close tighter around me.
I read once that a boa constrictor does that. It contracts its muscles every time its prey releases a breath. Eventually, the lung capacity of its victim isn’t enough to keep the animal alive.
It suffocates with a hug.
That’s not what this is.
Hunter’s grasp is fierce but not fatal.
I shift a little.
Fuck, I can move!
I’d been trapped in dead flesh. In a doomed body. My mind held captive by someone who’d decided there was no reason to keep fighting.
But now?
I furiously wriggle fingers and toes.
“Better?” The voice comes from behind, and I stiffen at the sound.
I manage a nod, and somehow Hunter feels it, wrapped in his arms as I am.
“You will start warming up.”
His voice conveys absolute authority. He’s lived this, hasn’t he? But that makes sense—a fuck load of it.
This was all too precise. Too carefully planned.
My teeth chatter hard against each other as I reluctantly release the hold on my jaw.
“Did you?”
He tenses against me, and the sensation is both obscene and comforting. I never realized how hard his muscles were. How lithe he was. In comparison, I feel bloated.
“Eventually,” he says, his lips right against my ear. “It took a long time, though.”
“How long?”
Now that I can speak again, I don’t feel inclined to stop. I don’t care that he’s the trickster to blame for all of this. All I care about is that I’m no longer alone, and not just here in this forest.
Was this what I felt the first time I brushed his hand in that limo? That, despite our education, our upbringing, our genders, or social status, that we shared something.
We were nothing alike, and yet, we were twins at heart.
He understands me and, now, I understand him.
“An hour.” His voice drops. “I’m not sure.”
The question that’s been top of my mind for the past few hours surfaces. “What did you give me?”
It’s like the question sets Hunter on fire. He grips me so tight I can’t breathe, and presses his lips to my earlobe. Every word sends a shudder through me, but he doesn’t seem to notice his effect on me.
He commanded me to trust him and I did, because that’s what I do.
But this is different.
I want him to command me. I want him to take away the pain. I know he can.
Because if he can’t, what the fuck’s the point of living?
“Did you love your mother?” Hunter murmurs in my ear.
The question sends shards of painful memories spearing into my mind.
My mom, kissing a scrape on my elbow.
The smell of snicker doodles filling the kitchen on a miserably rainy day.
Her hand around mine as she led me from the principal’s office.
Somehow, I always knew I’d be okay. She’d be angry, but she’d still love me.
When she died, I never felt that again. That overwhelming, unprejudiced love.
Which is less than I deserve. After all, I was the reason she died.
A sob wracks my body. Hunter’s grip around my waist tightens, but his warmth buffets me.
I killed her.
She made assumptions about me that didn’t sit well, and instead of talking to her, instead of letting her explain herself…
I told her I hated her. I told her I wished she was dead.
And then I ran away.
Leaving her to die a slow, painful death alone.
For months, Gail let me stay with her. Her own family was defunct—busy lives and even busier minds. Gail had money. She had contacts.
We’d both lose ourselves to heroin’s dark, charismatic embrace. And, often, we’d wake up without knowledge of the past twenty-four hours.
I can’t count how many times I visited the clinic. Methadone, HIV tests.
I was a fucking regular, and I didn’t care.
Because I thought my mom didn’t. If she had why would she have told me I dress like a slut? After all, she made it clear that the only way to gain a man’s attention was to display whatever pathetic assets you had. Tits, legs, cunt: in that order.
I had all three, and I used them to my advantage from the age of thirteen.
After all, isn’t this what men wanted?
Eventually, reluctantly, I’m drawn back to Hunter’s question.
Did you love her?
“I never stopped,” I spit out.
I grab his wrists, digging my nails into his flesh. “But she did.”
“Before she died of cancer?”
The world swims until I blink. Cool tears track the curves of my cheeks.
“She gave me to him like a piece of china.”
“Who?”
My breath catches.
Who?
Him.
I will not summon Satan to my bedside by calling his name. Because although Lucifer and I go way back, it’s not in a good way.
“Doesn’t matter. He’s dead now.”
“How?”
“How?” The word ratchets from my mouth like a missile. “Heart attack.”
“Natural?”
“Aren’t they all?”
“Deserved?”
“Obviously.”
A memory flails like a dying animal in my mind. Hunter’s voice. Insidiously probing at the heart of the rotten tooth.
What happened when you were sixteen?
Stuff that would turn your expensive hairdo gray, Doctor most-eligible-bachelor-three-years-running. In fact, forget the fact that I was ever sixteen.
I have.
“Then I’m glad.” The statement is a seductive murmur in my ear, but I’m not having any of it.
I draw pinpricks of blood from his wrist. Blood that reeks in this intimate, confined space.
“You’re just glad we’re the same. You’re glad you can cure me. That’s all you’re glad about. You don’t care about me. You don’t give a fuck about Clover Vos.”
He tightens his grip around me with each subsequent sentence until I can’t speak because I can’t breathe anymore.
“You’re wrong,” he growls in my ear. “I want to help you, Clover. I want to—”
“And what about the other nineteen people in my program? I don’t see them here.”
His body grows even tighter against me.
“They’re not you.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Hunter
The fire pops. My eyelids squeeze shut on instinct.
In my mind, a wolf falls.
The other nineteen don’t matter.
I didn’t choose them.
I chose you, Clover Vos.
I chose you.
So don’t you dare disappoint me.
Don’t dare presume this choice was anything but in the interest of science.
Then again, I handled this wrong.
I’m trying to approach her awakening like a scientist when I know better. She needs a guide, someone who will show her the way.
Which means releasing her. Which means abandoning her to the ice invading her bones. But just for a moment.
I untangle myself. Climb off the bed.
I feel the need to explain myself. But when I turn to her, she has her head burrowed in a pillow, still nothing but a ball of shivers.
That man—the brute that saved me—he knew nothing about Ayahuasca. I don’t think he knew anything about life. Survival was the only thing that mattered to him.
Yet…
When I was with him that night, he stuffed a crudely carved wooden pipe into my mouth filled with the worst ditch weed I’ve ever smoked. When I couldn’t smoke it, he blew it over me, as if we were both partaking in some kind of ritual. It wasn’t enough to get me stoned, but the trip changed. If was red before, it became green.
When he changed the tune he was humming.
My trip escalated.
He was my guide, whether he knew it or not.
During an Ayahuasca ceremony, shamans blow smoke over their participants. It’s used to calm them, to send them deeper into the trip, to unblock them.
The brute did all those things that night.
If I plan to be Clover’s shaman tonight, I must perform my duties to the highest standards attainable by mortal man.
Else I would be the only person to blame if this trial doesn’t succeed.
I hunt around in my backpack until I find the pouch I’m looking for. It takes me less than a minute to roll a joint. I climb in behind Clover’s quaking body, recoiling before I can force my own warm flesh to touch her.
She’s carved of ice.
My ice queen.
I press the thought away and light the joint. I hand it to her, but she doesn’t take it.
I shake her shoulder.
Nothing.
She’s unconscious again.
Shit.
I take a big hit and blow the smoke over her naked back. It puffs between us, obscuring her as if to retain some modicum of decency.
Another hit, more smoke. This exhalation piles over her shoulder like fog over a mountain.
A last hit. This one covers her face, and she coughs so violently that her back arches against my chest.
I extinguish the joint in the candle holder and slide my arms around her, willing her flesh to respond to my warmth.
Instead, my flesh responds to hers.
I should pull away. I should—
She needs my warmth.
She’s partially unconscious, anyway. It’s not as if she’d know that—
Clover’s breath catches in her throat. She fumbles, and I’m convinced she’ll begin struggling again. Instead, she finds my arms and clings to me as if I’m the only thing between her and a precipitous drop.
Maybe I am.
