Page 115 of Deep Cover

"They are." My face was heated but I shrugged it off. "Sorry." And that wasn't the right apology, it was more of an I'm sorry, sir; I didn't mean to be disrespectful around you but if he didn't understand how heinous this was and how upsetting for me, my apology would mean shit. "They're spreading out. There are of course undercover narcs and I'm sure with all the activity that there are DEA agents but – "

"But you want to be there."

I nodded. Mouthed a silent sir.

"Noble sentiment."

"Thank you, sir."

"You're not ready." He had paced away from me and now he stalked back and grabbed a handful of my curls and dragged me with him into the room. "You're not ready to take responsibility for something like that because what your hometown needs is not a vigilante and not someone equally as childish as those being harmed. Do you think I don't see it on you? You want revenge!" He spat the word. "You want more than simply doing your job." His face was up close to mine, his eyes terrifying and intense. "You want to get revenge for what was done to you and to that whoremonger you were fucking before someone killed him. It never occurred to you he was as vile a piece of filth as the rest of them?"

"Of course it did!" I snarled back at him. "But I was doing my job."

His hand tightened and both of mine went up to my hair, afraid he was going to pull it out by the roots. "Killing yourself won't change anything and if you go back unready, unprepared, that's all you'll be doing. Killing them, taking them down, making the charges stick, getting them off the street – those things will make a difference." His face was inches from mine. "And you'll still be alive."

I'd never heard that word sound like a curse before.

"What does that matter?" I was crying now, sobbing, tears being wrenched from me, and Cole, if possible, leaned in even closer to me.

"Because. You. MATTER." He roared the last word and then there was no more talk.

One of the things I'd learned reading about domestic discipline was that partners didn't punish each other during anger. They waited so they wouldn't accidentally seriously hurt the person they loved.

But Cole St. Martin wasn't in love with me and I wasn't his partner and this wasn't a domestic discipline relationship. He was furious and he wasn't going to wait to calm down.

This had been brewing. Since I ran. Since I came back. Since he found me and brought me back, allowed me to come back and went right back to work getting me well.

I was scared. I was scared and wet and anxious and I wanted it and I wanted to run and I didn't know what to expect and I knew he wouldn't tell me.

He dragged me by my hair, leading me forward and he was slightly ahead of me as we moved so his arm was snaked back behind my head, his fist tight in my hair. I stumbled, desperate to keep up. To not fall.

He didn't tell me to keep my gaze down and as I struggled not to fall, I looked around me wildly. For the first time, I saw some of the room around me. I saw the cross against the wall, straps for restraint hanging from it. I saw a whipping post, and a spanking bench, and another piece of furniture that looked like it would be a face-up spanking chair, one that could be cranked to separate the legs once they were buckled into place.

I saw banks and racks of whips and straps, belts and crops, of canes and paddles and other things I couldn't even identify. I saw hoods that could all but totally zip closed, encasing the head, those with padded ears and padded eyes, those that would never open anywhere but for the smallest opening at the mouth.

I saw dildos and butt plugs and Cole had dragged me to where he wanted me and I slammed my eyes closed again, not wanting to know, wanting to somehow get through whatever was coming.

Wanting strangely to make him proud.

More than that. I wanted absolution. I wanted forgiveness. I wanted to atone for the things I'd done, the things that were part of the lifestyle I was trying to bring down because sometimes the only way to that ending, the part where the bad guys go to jail and off the streets and the kids are – however temporarily – safer, was to play along. To go make buys. To go make sales.

I'd never hit that second part but only because a buy had gone south. Only because I'd been with my father in the hospital, terrified for his life when Jesse lost his.

I wasn't doing enough fast enough, I wasn't deep enough, I'd never taken my cover far enough. My own addiction was nothing, my own life was nothing. I had let Cole down but more than that, I'd let all those people out there at risk of the drugs and the people who developed them and distributed them and dealt them - I'd let those people down.

I'd let my family down.

I'd let myself down.

And still I fought. I fought him when he dragged me to a spanking bench, meaning to put me on my knees, my ass cranked up, my legs strapped down. When he would have reached for something – a cane, maybe, I didn't think I could ever stand to be caned again, the memory of the pain alone was enough to push me close to sickness, wanting to vomit out my fear.

I broke away from him and I tried to run, even knowing there was nowhere to go.

He brought me back. Seemingly patient, but I felt the fury in his hands, in the way he was restrained as he touched me. He stroked my back. He stroked the hair he'd been pulling.

"Annie," he whispered. "This is going to happen."

I went limp. I felt him arranging my body to suit his needs. I felt him strapping my legs down, separate from each other, felt him adjusting the bench so my arms were strapped down and my head hanging, my body in pretty much an inverted seated posture. Blood rushed to my head and my ears started to ring again.

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