13. thirteen

"I don't…" His deep, solemn voice trails off into the darkness of the room when he answers me, "I don't know."

It was so close. This nightmare finally being over. Death was at my fingertips. I could feel it. Minutes. Maybe even seconds away.

"I can't do this." My voice cracks as I speak the words. His response is deafeningly silent for someone who practically forced life back into me no more than a couple of hours ago.

The room is nearly void of sound, but the carpet scrunches underneath his feet as he approaches the bed. The mattress shifts when he takes a seat on the edge of the bed, leaving him only a few inches from me. Yet, I'm not flooded with my usual sense of dread, and that scares me more than the idea of a stranger climbing between my legs.

"All…those…men," I force out the words through sobs.

"Give me their names, little lamb." His voice is riddled with anger. "I'll end every man that dared lay a hand on you."

"Names?" I scoff with a nervous chuckle as I continue to cry. "There's so fucking many of them that they don't even have fucking faces…"

My sobs and his deep, heavy breaths fill the dark room, but he doesn't say another word. Uncertain whether he's at a loss for words or waiting for me to finish, I continue.

"They're all I see. Every time I close my eyes, they're there." I suck in a staggered breath as I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. "When I manage to sleep, I'm there all over again. Reliving the worst of it all, over and over again. Forced to endure every unwanted touch. Every unwelcome intrusion. The sheer pain some of them enjoyed inflicting on me. And me, just as defenseless as I was when it happened."

"So, this is your solution?" His voice is harsh, and his words are void of any compassion as he grips my hand and pulls my bandaged arm between our faces. "You want to die? Death is what you want?"

Closing my eyes, I take my time drawing in a deep breath before I slowly whisper the only answer that comes to mind, "Yes."

There's a faint click to my right, and even through my closed eyes, I can see the brightness of the light coming from the small bedside table illuminating the room. Opening my eyes, I startle when I realize how close he got to me in the dark. Still seated at the edge, he's leaning over my body. His arms straddle my legs, and his palms are pressed into the mattress on each side of my hips. My eyes are locked on his, and his face hovers only inches from mine.

"Then you're dead." His warm breath blows over my face as he speaks. His tone is laced with a compassionless sincerity. "Tied to that bed. Rotting in filth. Stuck in your own personal hell. In that life, you fucking died."

Closing my eyes, I shake my head as tears continue to roll down my cheeks. His large warm hand gently wipes away my tears before roughly gripping my jaw.

"While I will never fully understand," he firmly lifts my chin and forces me to meet his searing gaze, "I know they took so much from you?—"

"Everything." My voice trembles as I interrupt him. "They took everything from me."

"Then fucking take it back," he snarls. "Let them all meet the strong, beautiful fighter who I pulled from that bed."

He lifts my hand and drags it over the scratches running through the stubble on his cheek and down his throat. The racing throb of his pulse pounds against my fingertips—mimicking my own racing heart—as his chest rises with every angered breath. "Show them the woman that fucking fought when she was too fucking weak to even stand."

Continuing to hold my chin, his dark gaze bores down on me as his heavy breaths blow over my lips. Abruptly releasing his hold, he stands from the bed and walks into the adjoining bathroom.

A second later, he's standing on the threshold holding a knife—the knife. The same one he forced me to stab him with, and the one I used to try to take my life. Crossing the room, he tosses it onto the bed and it sinks into the fluffy duvet cover beside me.

"Only you can decide if they truly take everything from you." He turns his back on me and begins walking toward the door. Reaching the cusp of the hallway, he pauses and turns back to face me. "Let them have the life they took from you. You can either finish the job for them or take the new life I'm offering you. The choice is yours, little lamb."

He flips the switch on the wall, shutting off the bedside lap beside me and leaving me in darkness as he begins walking down the hallway. I follow his silhouette down the hall until he disappears from my view before feeling over the bed beside me for the knife.

My fingers graze over the cold stainless steel, and I wrap my fingers around the handle. Lifting it from the bed, I pull it into my lap and lay it across my thighs. Sitting in the dark, I run my fingers up and down the flat of the blade as his words continue to echo through my thoughts.

Do I want to let them take the last thing I have?

Do I give them my life?

Or do I take theirs?