by KV Rose
“What’s it matter?”
My mom’s green eyes, so like mine, narrow. Her jaw clenches. “Is it a boy?”
I roll my eyes, knocking my head against the door at my back as I stare up at the low ceiling. I don’t answer her.
“Ella, when I ask you a question, you need to—”
“Answer me,” I finish for her, dipping my chin to glare at her. “I know.” Her words remind me of Maverick. Except when he says it, it gives me a little thrill to know I’m pissing him off. Pushing his buttons. When my mom says it…I just want to slap her.
“Why are you such a little bitch?” she snaps at me, flinging her arms wide.
Here we go.
“You’re fucking ungrateful, lazy.” She jerks her head to the kitchen. “You’re probably sucking that boy’s dick for food, Ella. What is wrong with you?”
I don’t say a word. I just let the keys in my hand dig a little more against my palm.
Her lips press into a thin line. Her chest is heaving. “That fucking farm not teaching you any manners, I see.” She smiles, lines under her eyes creasing.
My chest tightens.
“I don’t think you need to go there anymore, Ella.” She stands to her feet. “Give me my keys.” She holds her hand out, a smug look on her face.
I think of Connor. Maybe he’ll give me a ride next week. But I don’t give her the keys. I like The Ark, just like I like Maverick’s house, because it’s not here.
“Ella! Give me my goddamn keys right now, you little bitch!” She shrieks, stepping closer to me, the floor creaking under her. She’s my height, but skinnier than me, and I think about what it would feel like to drag her by her hair and slam her head through the big box TV on the coffee table beside me.
She takes another step, her hand still flung out, her eyes livid.
“Who is it?” she snarls, switching tactics. “Did you meet this boy at the barnyard? Who is he? I’m going to tell him what a little whore you are. He’s never going to want to see you again.” She flings her hand toward the kitchen. “He’s gonna stop paying you in food, and what’re you going to do then? What’re you gonna do when I kick you out on your ass?”
She steps closer. I can hear her labored breaths. Feel her anger. I push further against the door at my back, gripping the keys so hard my hand hurts.
A light flashes through the window and the sheer curtain adjacent the front door, but I ignore it and Mom does, too.
Maybe he is paying me in food, but who fucking cares? We need it, you stupid bitch. But I don’t say anything.
She’s in my face now, her hands fisted at her sides, veins throbbing in her neck. “You bitch! You live in my house, you use my car, and you can’t answer me when I ask you a fucking question!”
I think I hear something outside. Gravel crunching. But I can’t look away from the hate in my mother’s eyes. It’s the only thing I’ve ever seen when she looks at me.
My breath catches, my blood boiling. I still don’t speak.
I can smell her putrid breath, see her yellowed teeth as she keeps screaming at me. “Give me my keys! You’re the reason no one ever sticks around, did you know that? You’re such a fucking weirdo, and then Shane.” She grabs her hair, screaming. “Then you had to ruin shit with Shane, offering your teenage ass like the fucking slut you are!” She shrieks, lifts her hand to slap me.
I don’t move.
I hear something behind me.
Her hand connects with my face and my head spins, hot pain mixing with the anger in my blood.
“You stupid bitch!” She grabs me by the hair, dragging me into the middle of the living room floor.
I feel the cold air drifting in before I hear it.
The door opening.
She’s still screaming, and I’m fisting the keys in my hand, lifting my hand up to cover my face when she suddenly stops, the insults dying in her throat.
Her grip in my hair loosens.
I stand up straighter, turning toward the door, expecting to see her boyfriend of the night.
I can still hear her breathing, feel her fingers still fisted in my hair, but when my eyes connect with Maverick’s baby blue ones, I don’t give a shit.
I lower my hand from my face.
His jaw is clenched, eyes narrowed as his gaze shifts to my mother, who is silent beside me.
In this trailer, Maverick is like a giant. His head nearly touches the ceiling, and he towers over both of us.
I see his hands by his sides. They’re loose, not curled into fists, but I see the tension in his neck, just above his skeleton bandana.
My mom is panting, and I don’t know if she’s horny or pissed or both.
In this moment, my mom and I might have one thing in common.
I hold my hand to my still-burning face, and Maverick’s gaze catches the movement, but he doesn’t look at me for long.
“Let go of her.”
My mother’s fingers tighten for one second, and then she drops her hand. Maverick takes a step toward her.
She takes a step back, wrapping her arms around herself, nearly trembling under his cold gaze.
“I could hear you,” he says softly. “I could hear you screaming from outside.”
My mom swallows, opens her mouth to speak, her lip trembling. She stutters something but can’t get the words out.
“I heard what you called her.” He keeps stepping closer, and soon, the back of her knees hit the couch and she’s got nowhere to go.
I watch them, silent, the keys still in my hand.
“Is that how you always speak to your daughter?” He cocks his head, his hands still loose by his side.
My mom shakes her head, forces a fake smile on her face. “N-no, we were just arguing. We were just… Who are you?” she asks, feigned politeness in her words. Her eyes flick to me. “Are you Ella’s…boyfriend?”
I suck in a breath.
I don’t want him to answer that question again. Now is not the time.
“Do you always hit her when you scream at her?” His voice is so soft, almost gentle.
My mom forces a laugh, her arms squeezing herself tighter. “I didn’t—”
“I heard that, too.”
Maverick steps so close to her they’re nearly touching. He lifts his hand, and his fingers curl around her throat as he pulls her up off the fucking floor. Her nails scratch at his skin, panic in her eyes as she tries, and fails, to speak.
“If you ever touch her again,” he croons, “if you ever hit her again, I promise you, I’ll fucking kill you.”
He doesn’t let her down. She’s still digging her yellowed nails into his skin, her feet kicking at the air beneath her. Her face is turning red.
I’m worried he’s going to make good on his promise right now. “Mavy,” I say softly.
His back tenses beneath the tight black sweater he’s wearing, but he doesn’t look at me.
“Mavy, put her down.”
My mom’s eyes are rolling back in her head.
He shoves her on the couch, letting her go. She falls to her ass, her hands going to her throat, her eyes wild.
He turns around and looks at me. “Let’s go.” Then he heads toward the door.
I look at my mom, see questions in her eyes, her face still red. I throw the keys at her. They land in her lap.
“Bye, Mom.”
I follow Maverick to the door. He yanks it open and it hits the wall. He kicks open the screen door, holds it open for me.
I press my fingers to the glass, walking out behind him.
“Ella,” my mom says hoarsely.
I don’t look back at her, but I still in the doorway.
“When are you coming back?”
Maverick stops on the porch, staring straight ahead, away from us.
“I don’t know, Mom.” I let the screen door slam closed.
“Is it always like that?”
I freeze, my hand in the popcorn bowl in my lap. We’re in Maverick’s bonus room, t
he lights off, the movie’s opening credits starting on the projector in front of us. I’m curled up on one end of the sectional under a blanket and he’s at the opposite end, legs reclined in front of him.
I take a breath. Shove popcorn in my mouth and stare straight ahead. I don’t want to talk about this. So I just…don’t.
He pauses the movie.
There’s just silence in the room now. I glance at the coffee table in front of the couch, a decanter full of amber liquid and stacked glasses. I want to pour myself a drink and dump it all down my throat right now.
But I force myself to chew the popcorn, kernels jabbing into my gums. I swallow, subtly wipe my hand on the blanket. I still don’t look at him.
“Ella.”
I don’t want to talk about this.
“Ella.”
I hear the impatience in his voice, but I don’t care. He doesn’t tell me anything. We don’t need to trade horror stories. I didn’t ask him to come save me from my mother. I’ve experienced far worse than that. Our fights are brutal. The night she hit me last, on New Year’s Eve, that might’ve ended up with both of us dead if I hadn’t gotten out of there, accepted Natalie’s pity invitation. It’s always over the same things: Money, food. Shane.
“Ella, I’m fucking talking to you.” He throws the flat rectangular remote on the coffee table where it skids to a stop by the decanter. The sound makes me flinch, and the tone of his voice has my stomach in knots, but even still…
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I finally find the words.
He snorts. “That’s too bad. I do.”
Anger rushes through me, hot and uncomfortable. I didn’t want to fight. I didn’t leave one war zone for another. Did I?
I turn to glare at him. He’s glaring right back, his eyes gleaming in the still frame of the movie he paused.
He sits up straighter, reaching around the side of the couch, putting the recliner back so his feet are flat on the floor. “Talk to me, Ella. Is it always like that?” he asks again.
I look down at the popcorn bowl in my lap. I’m sitting cross-legged, wearing a grey sweater that was pilled when I bought it from the thrift store two moves ago. I wonder if Maverick has ever set foot inside a fucking thrift store.
“I told you,” I try to keep my tone even, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Silence. He doesn’t say a word, but I can feel the weight of his gaze on me. He didn’t speak when we drove back to his house. Didn’t touch me. Just clenched his fingers so hard against the wheel I was surprised it didn’t break in half. I have no idea why he’s in such a bad mood, but I don’t really think he needs a reason. He’s just always angry.
How exhausting.
How…relatable.
Finally, he sighs. I hear him stand to his feet. He walks around the coffee table, comes to sit beside me, the sofa dipping with his weight. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together. He’s in tight black jeans, a black t-shirt that he had on under his sweater, and I can see all of the ink on his arms.
“Does she hit you often?”
I close my eyes, grip the popcorn bowl a little tighter. “I told you, I don’t want to talk—”
He grabs my chin, cutting off my words, yanking my head toward his. He leans forward, so his face is inches from mine. “And I told you, that’s too fucking bad.”
My breaths are shallow, muscles tight. I squeeze the popcorn bowl as hard as I can, the shiny plastic flexing under the strain of my fingers. “Get your hand off of me,” I snarl.
He smirks at me, his hand splaying over my face, my jaw. He digs his fingers in. “No. Not until you start fucking talking.”
I yank out of his grip, toss the popcorn bowl on the floor. It bounces, spewing the contents all over the wood floors as I stand to my feet, the blanket falling from my lap. I clench my hands into fists, chest heaving.
He leans back to take me in, something like amusement on his handsome face.
“Why did you bring me here?” I ask him, trying to keep my voice low, tone even, but my heart is hammering in my chest, my temper boiling. This is how it was before. How it still is with my mother. This is what I was looking for an escape from, in Shane. Someone to calm me.
Soothe me.
Fucking save me from myself; from that empty pit of self-loathing.
“Huh?” I demand, narrowing my eyes as he watches me calmly. “You bring me here to hit me, too?”
“I might have,” he says honestly.
I lick my lips, my mouth dry. I try to laugh, but it comes out all wrong, like an angry huff. “You fucking asshole!” I don’t know why I want to hurt him, but I do. I don’t know why I want to push him back against the couch and slap him until his face is red. Until his ears are ringing. Until he puts his hands up to defend himself. Until he apologizes for pushing me. For fucking with my head. “Why didn’t you fucking leave me there?” I ask, throwing my hands up. “Why were you even at my house in the first place?”
He still regards me with an infuriating calm that makes me want to break something. My eyes dart to the decanter and the glasses. A wild idea lodges itself into my head and I want nothing more than to throw those glasses against the floor and listen as they shatter.
But he sees where I’m looking, and some of his calm starts to fade. To give way to the angry fuck that I know he is.
“No, Ella,” he warns me. “You don’t want to do that—”
“You have no fucking idea what I want to do!”
He blows out a breath, scrubs a hand over his face and rests his elbows back on his knees, clasping his hands. “This why you’re at that school?” he questions me, condescension in his tone. “Because you’re a teenage bitch that can’t control her—”
I don’t let him finish that sentence. I snatch two glasses from the table and hurl them against the wall, beside the projector. They burst into pieces, glass shattering on the floor, the sound piercing in the room. But that’s not enough. That’s not nearly enough.
I reach for two more, but he reaches for me, standing to his feet and grabbing my upper arms, holding them still.
“Put it down,” he snarls in my ear, pressing my body against his.
“If you insist.” I drop the glasses, hard. His grip on my arm stopped me from throwing them, but he held my arms up, giving them just enough height to shatter at our feet.
His hands tighten around my arms at the sound. Glass sparkles on the floor around us in the lights from the projector screen. We stand there in near silence, the only sound his heavy breathing and my rapid pulse.
Then he throws me against the couch, one hand in my hair as he rips down my leggings.
“You little bitch,” he snarls, and I know there’s glass under his feet but he doesn’t seem to care as I grab the back of the couch. “Your mom ever whip you, Ella?”
My eyes go wide as I try to catch my breath. To take in everything I just did. “No, Maverick, no—”
“But you like being hit, don’t you?” He slaps my ass, hard, and my breath catches in my throat.
I try to twist around to see him, but he grips my hair tighter, my scalp burning.
“Answer me.” He yanks my underwear down to my knees, and I hear something that sounds like a belt being unbuckled, his zipper being pulled down.
“Maverick,” I say again, my throat dry, “don’t—”
“Oh, so you don’t like it?” he asks me. He pulls me by my hair down onto the couch, spreading my thighs apart with one hand and then I feel the tip of his cock against my ass. “Even fucking better.”
Part of me wants to give in. Part of me wants to come up on my knees, arch my back, let him have anything he wants. Part of me wants to fall to my feet, worshipping this beautiful, violent god. I knew the night we met in the forest he’d be the next Shane. The next one to make me fall fucking head over heels and I knew that he’d use and discard me too.
But right now, he’s still using me, and I want him
to.
Until he spreads me apart with his hands and his cock brushes up against somewhere I don’t want him to be.
My limbs lock and I shake my head, trying to push up on the couch. He presses his hand against my back, keeping me down.
“Maverick, no,” I say clearly, trying to let him know this isn’t a game anymore. That this is serious. “Not there, Mavy—”
He presses his chest to my back and reaches around for my throat, making me gasp. “That’s not my fucking name.”
He thrusts his hips, his cock still where I don’t want it to be, but without his hands helping him, he’s not getting inside my ass.
He seems to realize that, and he lets go of my throat, pulls back to spread me wider. I twist around to look at him, coming up to my knees, but that just gives him better access and he smirks at me.
“Maverick.” I swallow, locking eyes on him as he guides his cock to my ass. “No.”
“You want to talk now?” he taunts me, his eyes on mine as he stops for a moment.
I shake my head. “I don’t want you to—”
He presses his index finger against the tight hole, and I suck in a breath.
No. But I can’t say the word again. He wouldn’t. But I remember my words to him in the woods at Liber. Make it dangerous.
He pushes his finger into me, still holding my gaze.
“No.” It comes out in a hushed, shaky voice.
“Ella,” he says, his eyes darkening, “why’re you at that farm?”
I almost laugh at how he says it. But I don’t laugh. I don’t say anything.
He sighs, rolling his eyes and flexing his jaw. He pushes his finger further into me and it burns. “Ella,” he growls, “you don’t want to play this game with me. Not tonight.”
“Why is that?” I taunt him, refusing to give him what he wants as my entire body clenches.
“I’m in a bad mood.”
“Are you ever in a good mood?”
His jaw clenches and I can see it in his eyes, just how much he wants to hurt me.
“Talk to me,” I plead with him, tensing around his finger. “Talk to me instead of this. Why are you in a bad mood?” I try to reason my way out of this, try to use words and turn them on him. Make him talk.
