Page 142 of Heartless Heathens

This was for him.

But it was for me too.

We both needed this. He craved my surrender, my submission, and now that I was here with that rope around my neck, I knew I craved all of those things too. His possession, his control, his protection. They were one in the same.

“Pull the knot down, so it’s nice and tight around your neck.” He mimicked the gesture with his own hands, showing me how to tighten the rope.

“Carmine.” Corvin growled out and Sonny bared his teeth briefly in annoyance.

“Jump, Pet.”

“No!”

“No!” Both Escuras screamed, lurching forward at the same time but I stepped off anyway.

I hovered.

Dangling.

All the sound gone from my ears.

The burn of the rope around my neck came before I had a chance to notice I wasn’t breathing. The sharp pain around my throat and the pressure in my eyes lasted only a second before I felt the rope around my neck loosen and my feet touch the ground.

I scrambled backwards like a crab, pulling the rope off and filling my lungs up with air. It was obnoxiously loud but I couldn’t control it. It felt like my chest was hollow and would never be full again. I looked over at him, his hands trembled with the cut end of the rope.

“I'll be the one who gets to decide when you die, Romina. Not Frollo, not God, no one else. I’ll bear the burden of your fears, your hatred, your sorrow. Not just your happiness. You’re safe with me because I’m the one who names that day, because it’ll be the day I choose to go too.” My lungs still burned desperately for a full inhale. “I wanted to tear you down, to rebuild you inmyimage and destroy everything that Frollo’s hands had a part in building.”

“You’re fucking insane! Are you kidding me?” Felix shouted, but we both ignored him.

“I was just as bad ashimfor it. I was wrong. You’re perfect exactly how you are.” He was crouched down to my eye level, but he was a few feet away, keeping his distance.

“I don’t like you, Pet,” he told me again, and I tensed from the wound he kept picking at until it threatened to fester and rot a part of me. “Because liking someone is an immature feeling. It’s simple. There’s nothing about you that’s simple Romina Black. Like doesn’t come close to how I feel about you, you fucking stubborn little shit.”

“I’m fucking lost over you. I don’t know who I am when you’re not around and I’m so addicted to you that you’re all I dream about. You’re all I fucking think about every second of the damn day. I fucking loathe your existence more than anything in this world because there’s nothing that scares me more than the idea of waking up and you not being there anymore. That this was all just some dream. And I’m supposed to just hope this is forever? Live off the faith that you won’t just wake up one morning and go back to the only thing you’ve ever known? Go back to that monster? That’s fucking terrifying Romina. You’re all I fucking want. You’re all I have.” The room went quiet.

I didn’t even blink.

I don’t think any of us could have.

It would have been too loud, and the spell would have been broken.

Because Sonny’s words were the kind of magic that was so rare that if you missed it, you might never get to experience it again.

I pulled my knife out of the holster and bit down on the handle of the blade, crawling to him slowly on all fours. He eyed me suspiciously once I’d gotten so close to him that he was forced to lean back on his elbows.

Was he scared of me?

An amusing thought.

I crawled on top of him and wrapped my wrist around his throat, pushing his back down to the ground. I pulled the knife out of my mouth. “You’re all I have too,” I said to him before looking up at the twins still standing back. “All of you.” I dragged the knife through the middle of his shirt, ripping apart the buttons and exposing his chest.

“Why does it hurt so much?” I asked, a tear falling from my eye onto his chest.

“That’s how you know it’s love, when it’s painful to exist outside of that person. When breathing becomes a chore when they aren’t around,” Felix said from the side and I looked down to find Sonny’s eyes blazing into me.

Those clear blue pools somehow brighter than they’d ever been. I grazed my thumb over the vertical scar in the center of his chest. The one that had been there before me. It felt electrifying to the touch and a heady type of energy filled me from the contact alone.

“Why would anyone want to feel this way?” I asked, digging the point of the blade onto the half of Sonny’s chest that was already scarred by my hands.