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He starts with the larger cut just under my thumb joint.

"Sweet mother of god, that's uncomfortable! Fuck!"

"Be quiet, Teagan," he says.

I put my head down on the table and breathe through it. Minutes go by before I finally feel him tying it off.

"Finally," I say.

"There's one on your finger, too," he says. "It's going to be worse."

I almost hear the smile in his muffled voice. I wouldn't think things like him—without homes or faces or labels in their clothes—would smile, but I know they laugh when they mock me. They must smile, too.

"Holy fuck!" The needle digs in right where my finger bends and he's right—it's worse. With my other hand, I reach for anything, and it ends up being his thigh. Except it's not his thigh…it's his hard dick. I almost move my hand away, but I stop myself, instead running my thumb over the thick tip in slow circles while he works.

"You like hurting me?" I ask, stroking it slowly now from tip to base.

"Yes," he says calmly. "Did you like killing those men earlier?"

"I liked the blood; I liked the sound it makes." I grit my teeth as he threads the needle through the skin again, instinctively tightening my grip on his dick. "Sinking a blade into someone over and over again. I don't think it'd be the same using a gun. It reminds me of fucking; it scratches a similar itch."

His cock jumps in my fist, and when he speaks again, his voice is a little huskier than before. "I didn't expect such an honest answer."

"Normally, I wouldn't be—not even with myself. But Declan said it was poetry—taking what I wanted, just because I can. Hesaid it made me better than everyone else, and I believed him. And you're the kind of monster who slides his dick into girls' pussies while they're sleeping, so who are you to judge?"

"I take what I want just because I can, too," he says. "And that's not all I did to you while you were unconscious on that bed. I stood over you, jerking my cock until I came on your face, and you didn't move, so I slipped my hand into your pants and sunk my fingers inside your pussy. It was so wet and tight, and you started squirming and moaning in your sleep, and it made me hard as a fucking rock again. Killingislike fucking…if you had a big thick cock to sink into someone's guts over and over, listening to them scream and beg…for more, for god, for it to stop. They're different sides of the same coin." He ties off the end of the thread and sets the needle aside. "We're all just animals, Teagan. The only difference is some of us are content in a cage, and others need to know what it feels like to tear flesh with our teeth and howl at the moon."

"Well, I just spent three months in a cage. I think I'm owed some flesh."

I climb into his lap and grab the hemline of his hoodie, lifting it with my fists. He quickly rips them away and pins them behind my back, bending them in a way that's painful.

"Ah!" I shout. "I just want to feel your skin. I haven't touched anyone in so long."

"No," he says, pushing me off his lap and onto the ground. I fall on my ass on the sealed concrete floors, knocking the air from my lungs. "Don't ever fucking do that again."

"Okay," I say, catching my breath. "I won't."

"Say you're sorry."

"I'm so—"

"No," he snaps, cutting me off. He pulls a knife from his pocket and drops it at his feet. "That's not how I want you to apologize.Take off your clothes, then get on your knees and pick up the knife."

I slip off the shirt and boxers and then pick up the knife from the floor, flipping it open.

"Write it in blood," he says.

"Where?" I ask.

"Wherever you want. Just make me believe it."

I drag the blade across my left wrist, applying only enough pressure for blood to pool in the wound. And when it does, I set the knife aside and use my right index finger to paint the wordsI'm sorryon my lower abdomen, right above my pussy.

Then, I draw a heart around it.

"That's cute," he says.

I rest my head on his knee and look up at him with my best 'fuck me' eyes. "Do you believe me?" I ask.