Page 45 of His Atonement

Then I drop the remainder of her things I'm holding onto the nearest rock, turn and ignore the voice inside my head telling me to go back, to go to her. I push it down deep and try to channel even the slightest bit of my asshole self so I may leave without that image in my mind.

"Be waiting for another gift, my darling girl. I'd hate to find you unprepared."

Thank the gods her tone is lighter; annoyed, but lighter when she responds. "I look forward to it!" Frankie calls after me. "It'll help me pass the time until your next photoshoot!"

My steps falter a little from that visual and Frankie laughs behind me, so I flash her a smirk over my shoulder. "I fear you do not understand what the wordsrevengeandpunishmentmean, my darling girl, because those photos are hardly either."

"Just a taste of what you want but can't have, baby. Torture comes in many forms and judging by the way you almost went ass over elbow, the photos are doing their job just fine!"

And all I heard was Frankie calling mebaby. Something that warms my heart, makes my dick hard, and pisses me off all at once. Much like everything this woman does.

I may have been wrong about Frankie being a him, but I was dead fucking right about the fact the she is bringing a great many complications to my life, complications I actually want to make time for.

A fact that scares me almost as much as the thought of anything happening to my darling girl as I leave her alone in the woods once again.

Maniacal, Manic, Maniac

Istomp my way to the target and yank the tomahawk from the fucking leg, then spin on my heel and march back to my spot.

Spot.

Spot.

Spot.

I grit my teeth, clench my jaw so hard I hear it pop, then wind up and chuck the tomahawk toward the bullseye only to send it sailing past it by a fucking foot.

"Son of a bitch!" I screech, my fingers digging into my thighs so hard I'm sure I'm going to draw blood.

And because I'm having an absolute shit morning, I kick the quiver of arrows at my feet, scatter them all over the lawn then pick up the bow and attempt to break it over my knee.

Which was fucking stupid because it's not made of wood, so all it did was hurt like a motherfucker and piss me off even more.

So I spin around and launch the fucker toward the bullseye like a goddamn shot put.

When I finally went to bed last night, hours after Zan ruined my skinny dipping experience, I had no idea I'd wake up the way I did.

Despite the unwelcome interruption and my inability to get back in the water because my OCD reminded me of the mess at my cabin, it wasn't a bad night.

I only had to clean the living room once, didn't have to pick up, then scatter the broken shelf or lens multiple times, just swept it all up and put it in the trash outside and that was that.

Two bowls and a quart of ice cream later, I reviewed my bucket list, didn't need to scratch off skinny dipping completely, didn't need to put anXnext to it and actually felt like it's ok to leave on the list to try again. Then I took a shower, documented my day, and went to bed, slept really fucking hard and woke up pretty loose.

But of course that's when my mood took a shit.

At first, nothing felt right.

The floor seemed warped so I had to create an entirely new path everywhere in my house and that took three goddamn hours because every time I stepped on an abnormality in the pattern of the wood, I had to start all over again.

The sink in the bathroom seemed smaller so I measured it repeatedly until I got an odd number every time the measurements finally matched.

Next up was my brand new refrigerator. I was convinced it was buzzing, convinced it was making some nonexistent noise, so I took everything out of it, unplugged it, cleaned it and repositioned it no less than five times before the imaginary buzzing stopped. Then I couldn't get my food back into it right, so I organized it in the most ass backwards kind of way, threw out what didn't fit even though it was still good and finally left it alone.

From there I had to make my toast seven times before it was the right color, had to brew three cups of coffee before it smelled the way it's supposed to, and by then I was so fucking angry I couldn't even eat.

I took a shower and that seemed to help a little, helped even more when I smoked two fat bowls, so I made a video, uploaded it, and decided since Allie is gone for another three days, I should work on my bucket list.

I settled on archery because I figured it was something I could handle doing alone for the first time, so I watched every tutorial on YouTube I could find, then got dressed and headed toward the range.