Page 25 of Not Her Day to Die

He still doesn’t answer me.

Either he’s ignoring me or he isn’t here anymore. Except the purple light is still present, leading me further inside the house.

Annoyance and anxiety intertwine in my chest, rising to my throat, constricting my airway.

Maybe he’s just being an asshole.

But surely Axel would know better than to fuck with me like this. After everything we have gone through.

“Axel?” I’m at his bedroom door now, the light shimmers in the center of it, pulsating. I raise my hand to it, but pause.

I’ve never actually been in his room before.

Instead of knocking, I twist the handle and push the door in. I don’t see Axel but the purple is no longer in front of me.

My attention flashes around the dark room. My breath stutters and I walk further inside in a trance.

One of the walls is covered in pictures.

Of me.

But they’re not all recent; some were taken while Axel was in prison, some before that, some after. Different angles, different days, different outfits. Some I remember being taken, but others are candid, from a distance.

So distracted by the sight, I don’t hear him until the hands have made their way around my throat and mouth.

One covers my mouth, the other squeezes my throat, tugging me back into a man’s chest.

My heart pounds in my chest, my breath quickens. The goosebumps once caused by the cold are from something else entirely now.

The man tugs me backwards, towards the bed.

“This is what it would be like,” he whispers in my ear. “At the mercy of others. Unable to protect yourself.”

Axel shoves me down onto the bed and I catch myself on my hands and knees.

I look back at him, my eyelids are hooded, my tongue lashes out to wet my lips. “Axel,” I murmur his name.

Axel growls, “You aren’t supposed to like this!”

That’s what it is. Some base primal part of myself isenjoyingthis. The way he takes complete control, how he handles me with reckless abandon. He treats me as an equal, as stronger than I am. It’s why I have always been drawn to Axel. He frees a part of myself I don’t want to admit I have.

He makes me want to run wild, to just live in every moment as if it were my last.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

I roll over onto my back and then he’s there again. Jumping on top of me, pinning me to the bed, pressing me down into the mattress.

His typical leather has been replaced with cotton.

Cotton shirt.

Cotton boxers.

He thrusts his hips into me, his hard cock rubs against me. I am acutely aware of the thin layers that separate us. How my skin is on fire. My nerves alight.

Before I was shot, I was already falling into the O’Brien brothers. I was already in love with them all.

They were already a part of my broken heart.