Page 28 of These Monstrous Ties

Because part of me wants to run.

But part of me…part of me wants to stay. The part that’s fucked up. That’s always been fucked up since that first foster home.

“If I let you go, are you going to try to run?” he asks me, cocking his head.

I swallow. Was I? I don’t know.

But slowly, I shake my head.

“Don’t lie to me, Lilith.”

I take a breath, and another. Another. I suck down air as fast as I can get it.

“Are you going to run, baby girl?” he asks again, loosening his hold on my wrist.

I shake my head again. I’m not.

He seems to realize I’m telling the truth. He lets me go, then flips the knife in his hand and before I can say a word, he slices a hole in his black pants.

For a moment, I only stare at the pale skin beneath. He cuts a strip of his pants, lets the fabric fall to the ground. Then I see the tattoo. Same as Ezra’s; a skull with smoke and a U. I also see the blood.

I should gasp. Or run now. Maybe ask him what the fuck he’s doing. But I don’t do any of that. I just watch the cut deepen with crimson, swelling under the skull eyes, then run down his thigh, down his pants. He’s bleeding. It’s a good three inches or more, and it might be a shallow wound, but it’s dripping steadily. He has other scars, too.

He runs the flat part of the blade over the wound, coating it in blood. Then he holds up the knife again between us. I can’t stop staring at it, the silver slick with red. He pushes me back against the door.

“Open your mouth,” he commands.

I tense, finding his gaze in the darkness.

“Open your mouth, Lilith.”

And I fucking do. I don’t know why. I could run now. I could scream for help.

But I don’t.

I open my goddamn mouth.

He makes a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan and he presses closer to me, leaving only enough room to hold up the knife.

“Stick out your tongue,” he whispers, his voice thick with some unknown emotion.

I stick out my tongue.

“Don’t move.” The warning rings in my head as he places the flat of the blood against my tongue. I taste copper. Blood.

His blood.

He slides the blade down my tongue, careful not to cut me, but he coats my tongue with him.

“Swallow it.”

I do. It’s salty and metallic, and I only want fucking more of it. I clench my hands into fists to keep from sinking to my knees, to keep from running my tongue down his thigh. From stopping the bleeding with my own goddamn mouth.

But he pulls me to him by the neck and he crushes his mouth to mine.

We’re teeth and tongues and blood and spit and I only want more. He groans against my mouth, then slips something into my hand.

The hilt of the blade.