Page 57 of Her Wicked Knights (Their Hallowed Queen #3)

Marley

Things have been rocky since Logan pushed my boundaries well past the point I gave him permission to go to.

And while the sex was fucking phenomenal that night, partly because I wanted to choke him with my bare hands while I rode him, I feel like what he did in the name of progress actually took me two steps backward.

Things have been turbulent, and my mind has been a mess.

I'm exhausted, unable to sleep, sure that I'm losing my mind more now than ever, and things have stayed weird.

It feels like someone is always watching me, and yet, I've never felt so alone.

The connection I had with Logan is breaking, fractured by his betrayal, and everything we've worked so hard for over the last few years feels like it went up in smoke.

And rather than being understanding about that, he's chosen to be a dick.

"You're not even trying anymore." He accuses, shaking his head at me. "How can I help you if you won't even help yourself, Marley?"

I glare at him since that's all I can do with the tape he put over my mouth.

"I just don't understand. We were doing so good. You were making such progress. What happened?"

I have to assume that's rhetorical. He knows what happened.

Even before he took things too far, he hasn't exactly been a champion for supporting me.

.. not since that first time I would swear I saw someone in my apartment.

He acted like he cared; he got defensive and territorial the way I would expect a boyfriend to, even though we never gave each other titles.

He stayed over for a few days, but then he seemed to decide it wasn't real.

The rest of the events he wrote off from the start as products of my imagination, which, I suppose, is valid since he is also my therapist. But telling me in one breath that I'm going crazy and imagining all of these things and then in the next claiming that he's fixing me when nothing seems to be helping anymore is just making things worse.

It's been almost two months since he got me out of the psych hold I ended up in after I woke up from a daze to find I'd cut myself.

I'd never done that before, but I must have that time.

I don't remember doing it, but I don't think anyone just broke into my apartment to cut weird patterns that look like geometry problems into my arms. They weren't deep, but they bled enough, and considering it came from nowhere, I didn't know what else to do.

If Logan had answered his phone, I wouldn't have taken myself to the ER.

But he didn't, and I didn't know what else to do.

I couldn't trust myself anymore; when they told me they were going to hold me for analysis for a few days, it had been a strange sort of relief.

Because if I was crazy and they could prove it, we could fix it, surely.

And if I was there for a few days, at least nobody could break in to see me, to stalk me, to spy on me.

But then Logan showed up and somehow worked his magic.

He took me to his place, instead, and treated me like a freaking prisoner he expected to try and stage a coup against him.

And now here we are. My uniform from the diner is on the floor, my hands are above my head wrapped in tape and tied to the ceiling fan, and I can do nothing except listen to him.

The worst part is, I don't hate it. On some level, though, I think I hate him.

I hate him for making me feel like I'll never be fixed.

I hate him for making me like being broken, even just a little.

And I hate him for this endless cycle we're in, the back-and-forth dance.

That may be the most exhausting thing of all.

"I know you're trying, baby. I know you are. But why doesn't it feel like it? Am I too easy on you?"

He hasn't been easy on me about anything, ever.

Sure, being with him has been simple, given that we have tried so hard to keep it informal.

For a therapist who's supposed to make me focus on my feelings, he's done a lot of work to keep me from focusing on how I feel in any way other than the physical.

Re-routing the panic has worked, and it's why I've been okay with taking things further, testing boundaries, trying new things.

But right now, my anger is fighting for control, trying to survive the flames that Logan is trying to extinguish.

He stops pacing and turns to me, shaking his head when he sees I'm still glaring at him. What else would I be doing? It's not like I could move.

Logan moves toward me fast, and I half expect he's going to tear the rope keeping me barely on tip-toes and let me down. Instead, he wraps his arms around my waist and falls to his knees, burying his face in my thighs as he sobs.

The sudden reaction is so shocking that I don't know what to do... but I suppose that doesn't matter since I don't have an opportunity to do anything, anyway. Instead, I hang there, confused and a little terrified by the sudden onslaught of emotion.

"Why can't you love me?" He sobs. It takes a minute for the words to sink in, and even then I'm not sure I heard him right. "It's all I want. All I've ever wanted..."

When I say nothing, because I already learned that trying to speak into the duct tape is useless, he clutches me harder, sobbing harder and making my shoulders strain to support my weight and his.

When he told me to strip, this is not how I expected this to go.

In over four hundred sessions of therapy, multiple a week and after hours, it's never gone like this.

And why would it? He's never shown the slightest interest in me like that.

.. not in a way like anything I know love to be.

He's talked about our future together, and when I was in school to become a lawyer he liked to mention how amazing we would be together.

But he's never mentioned kids, never mentioned wanting to grow old with me, never mentioned feeling anything for me.

Why would he love me? And more importantly, why would I love him?

At some point, his sobs taper off, and he stands, grabbing the knife off his desk... the one he put there when he told me to undress. The one he ran over my flesh before he tied me up like a pinata.

For one horrible second, I think this is how it all ends.

He's never told me he loved me... never even given me that impression.

But he has told me he needs me, that he can't live without me, that he'll never let me go.

Our co-dependent relationship has always served me so that I've not even questioned those statements.

They sure sound different when they're coming at me while I'm perfectly poised like a pig for slaughter, and he's just had his own breakdown.

"It's all going to be over soon." He assures me, his voice eerily calm despite the turbulence of thirty seconds before.

Now, all of a sudden, he's calm. And that is somehow more terrifying than the madness he let me see seconds before.

If he can slip so easily from being on the brink to pretending everything is fine, what else is he capable of?

I'm not sure I'll ever find out. "I can feel it, Marley. Can you?"

I shake my head, because it's all I can do. Even if there wasn't tape on my mouth, I'm not sure I could speak around the tears flowing down my cheeks.

But the thing is, they're not entirely from fear.

I don't want to die... but I am not so sure I want to live that badly either.

Really, what is there to live for? Everything has fallen apart this year.

After fighting to try and get some control over my life, it all just unraveled, leaving me to dangle here like a loose thread.

And that realization, that I've become a ghost in my own life? That's fucking sad.

"What do you think will become of me?" Logan asks, his eyes following the subtle curve of the blade in his hand. "Of all of us, in the end?"

It's funny, in a way. I sought Logan out because I needed someone to help me get over my trauma from what happened the last time a psychopath had me at his mercy.

Whoever it was in that mask, they could have killed me.

They didn't, even if they ran me out of town after.

I don't expect to be spared twice. And suddenly, I realize something I forgot years ago.

I'm not sure when I forgot it, if it happened all at once or gradually.

But I am sure that I forgot it, and now that I remember, I can't let myself forget again. Because I want to live.

Logan's so focused on the blade that he's not really paying attention to me.

He doesn't see me kick out at him, but he surely feels my foot connecting with his balls.

The knife falls from his hand as his eyes widen in shock.

It takes a moment for him to double over, falling to the floor and groaning in pain.

I take advantage of his shock and agony to swing my feet over him, so that I stand on his back to get enough slack to make the rope jump half an inch over the blade of the fan.

Something tells me when he tied me up today, this wasn't the plan.

He didn't intend to murder me, or he wouldn't be doing this in his office.

But the look in his eye is unhinged, and his words about what will become of us in the end are clearly homicidal, maybe even suicidal. I can just imagine being a headline.

Final girl murdered by her own therapist.

Deranged therapist murders his patient in a fit of obsession.

Fuck that. I've been there and done that with the headlines.

I had people whispering about me, suspecting me, thinking they knew me because my best friend died in front of me and yet I was set free.

I didn't like it then, and I won't let that be what becomes of me after death.

I won't let Hadley live to be the girl whose entire family was murdered.

Logan doesn't make any move to try and stop me from escaping when I slip the rope free of the ceiling fan and fall to the ground on top of him.

My knee catches him in the rib, but if he wanted to, he could reach out and snare me.

He just lets me go as I scramble up, rip the tape off of my mouth, and kick the blade with my foot, sending it skittering away from him, where it slides under the filing cabinet.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, you fucking psychopath?

" I growl, finally able to use my tongue to let free all the words that have been sitting there, waiting to be let free.

"You're fucking deranged. I should have known.

" I laugh, because I really should have known.

I mean, a therapist who takes a client while his secretary is on her knees giving him a blow job is probably not qualified to help me unpack my trauma, but I trusted him for some stupid reason.

"Marley..." He shakes his head, pushing to his knees, but I'm not done.

For the better part of two years, I've let him use me.

Fuck, I've let him abuse me, because it was better than feeling nothing.

And maybe he didn't hurt me, but he abused his power.

He abused the trust I foolishly gave him.

And he abused the limits I asked him to respect.

While I've enjoyed the things we do, the way they make me feel, that doesn't make them okay.

That makes us sick. Toxic. Fucking wrong.

And the thing is, it doesn't even feel right anymore.

"No!" I snap. "You listen this time. I'm not your fucking puppet, Logan! You don't get to pull my strings anymore."

I'm not sure what about that strikes him as funny, but he laughs. He actually fucking laughs.

"You were never my puppet. You were my muse... my obsession. All from that first kiss."

"You're not supposed to become obsessed with your patients." I tell him, as if that isn't the first thing you would learn in school. I mean, I don't know for sure, but it seems like fairly common sense that you would need healthy boundaries with your patients; that's something we've never had.

"You were so much more, Marley," He shakes his head, and when he catches my eye, I'm shocked to find he's fucking smiling.

I make quick work of dressing, leaving the top and bottom button undone in my haste.

"You're fucking sick, Logan. I think you need help."

"Nobody can help me." He sighs, pushing to his feet. I take a step toward the door, just in case he gets it in his head to come after me. Instead, he sinks into his chair, all of his exhaustion evident as he practically collapses. "Not now. I have to pay for my mistakes."

I wonder, for a minute, if he's talking about legal justice.

I don't have any plans of turning him in to the police.

They already think I'm insane; there's no need to go tell them that I've been my therapist's sex toy for the last two years and I just let him do it.

There's surely got to be a board of some sort to oversee ethics, and his license to practice could probably be revoked if I seek them out to report him.

But I don't feel right reporting him when I'm just as culpable here.

"I'm not going to report you anywhere." I tell him, sliding my shoes on. "But I'm not going to keep doing this with you."

"It's over." Logan says, and he sounds so sad that some tiny part of me wants to take it all back, to tell him I overreacted, to admit that I need him as much as he needs me and I don't think I can go without him.

Instead, I swallow all that and nod.

"It's over."