Tabula Rasa(69)

Except that Shannon didn’t seem affected. How could he be? I was sure he didn’t have a soul to damage. He was impervious to all this inconvenient humanity.

“But you’re not going to stop doing it,” I said.

“Of course not. I told you... everybody I kill deserves to die.”

“But not that woman,” I said.

“I didn’t kill her.”

“But you would have. She would have been collateral damage.”

“I was too focused on the results and not focused enough on the planning. It was because I cared more this time. But yes, I would have done what was necessary. Whatever you believe, I’m sorry you had to make that choice tonight. But I’m glad you made it. Aren’t you glad you made it? Would you rather I go to prison?”

“I don’t know anymore. I don’t think I can live with who you are. Or with who I am now.”

“You’re the same. One moment doesn’t change that.”

“It changes everything.”

Shannon eased off me, and pulled me into his arms. I thought at first he might squeeze me to death, he was holding me so tight.

“I wish I could take this for you,” he said, quietly. “I could handle it. I would take the guilt and pain so you wouldn’t have to feel it.”

“I wouldn’t have to feel anything if you’d let me...”

“No. We’ll go to Paris. Everything will be better there. You’ll see. A trip is what you need. You can see your friends. You can show me the sights.”

“You’ve never been to Paris?” I asked.

Shannon shook his head.

“But you speak fluent French.”

“No. I’ve been learning it ever since I found out you spoke it. I have CD’s in the car. I know just enough to get by.”

His mouth found mine, and despite what I wanted to be true, I still wanted him. Sex with Shannon that night wasn’t the victory f*ck after a fresh kill that I’d feared it would be. And it wasn’t ropes and whips and power games. It felt like making love. And I wanted to believe it, that this was real, that it was something he was capable of feeling with me. Even seeing him cry wasn’t enough to fully convince me that I was some magical exception to the cold deadness inside him.

Afterward, he held me for a long time until I had almost drifted off, surrendering to dreams to make me forget for just a little while how badly everything had gotten f*cked up.

But then, moments before I reached that happy release, he got up, unzipped a bag, and pulled out a coil of rope and tied me to the bed. My heart rate picked up. “Shannon?”

His answering expression was grim. “I don’t trust you with loaded guns lying around. This is for your own safety.”

When he’d secured me, he got back into bed beside me and pulled the covers over us. “Go to sleep. Things won’t seem so bad in the morning.”

Whoever had first coined that phrase was an idiot.





***





A week later, we were in a hotel suite in Paris. Shannon seemed weirdly happy traveling with me, as if he could tick off the box marked romantic vacation on his normalcy checklist. I sat up in bed and drank coffee and ate pastries off the room service tray. Shannon stood beside the window looking out at the breathtaking view of the Eiffel tower.

“Do you want to go to the Louvre today before we meet your friends for dinner later?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Shannon had taken a softer turn with me since the night we killed Stevens and his TA. As if almost losing me had snapped something into focus for him. At least where I was concerned. Or maybe it was that he thought I was too fragile to handle anything that would remind me of who and what he was. Or what I’d become in his care.

“Shannon?”

“Yeah?” He still stared out the window.

“Why did you stop? The kink stuff?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can we go back to it?”

He turned sharply from the window, his gaze now intently focused on me. “You want that? After...”

“I need it. I mean... if you want...” More than ever, I needed that release from everything that those games brought. I couldn’t say it out loud, but I needed to be punished, no matter how hollow the effort.

That dark intensity came back to his eyes. “Yes. When we get back home.”

I let out a long breath. “Good. Thank you.”

“Sir,” he corrected.

Despite everything I was dealing with and all the things I thought I’d never get over, the feeling of safety and security wrapped around me again like the warm, inviting smell of the coffee on the tray in front of me.

“Sir,” I said.

I went back to my breakfast. I’d momentarily forgotten the previous night’s dream, but now it rushed into my mind with the force of a typhoon wind, practically leaping into vivid color right in front of me. I was back in the theme park with Trevor. The dream replayed that last day before Shannon had shown up. Yet somehow, the dream version of me had seen the future already. Half of me lived the reality as it was, knowing nothing of myself or the truth, and another half of me seemed to be off to the side watching, already knowing everything that was to come.

Shannon’s dark clad figure filled the doorway. Gunfire sounded. Trevor crumpled to the ground, blood spilling out of him. I ran to him on autopilot, trying to stop the blood, trying to keep him there, trying to hold the lie of our life together, all while trying to remember I’d already done this, and Trevor wasn’t the good guy.