Page 23 of Kings Fear No One
“You made things more difficult than they needed to be. You refuse to accept there is nothing that is yours. Everything that is yours is mine. I will use these things when the urge strikes me. That includes your wife. There is nothing you can do to stop me. You are better off obeying.
“Besides, I wonder what you would think if you knew,” he says, bowing closer. His calm voice lightens into a silvery whisper, “our wife loves being my favorite. She performs so well every time. Perhaps that’s why you wanted her all to yourself. She was born to be a little whore.”
He knows to step back as I spring up in the bed and realize I’m tied down by leather straps. Seconds pass where I buck against the binds and roar from the deepest part of my chest. He chuckles and turns to go.
“Well wishes, Believer Logan. Get better so you can be Saint Mandy’s stallion again. Somebody needs to fuck her. Better you than me.”
His laughter fades as he walks away, but it lives in my head for hours to come.
The believer that works in the infirmary gives me more pain meds. They drag me under where I’m stuck in dreamless sleep. It’s a cycle that repeats for the next several days.
I was beaten bloody. I was beaten so badly I had a shoulder dislocated and my eye socket cracked. For all anybody knows, my vision might never be the same.
It doesn’t matter either way.
My life’s been stolen from me. Years have been taken that I’ll never get back.
Even if, by some miracle, this hell came to an end, I could never be the same. I could never be the man I was before this happened.
I’m a different person now. Damaged in too many ways to count.
Whenever we fought growing up, Mace and I accused each other of being more fucked up. He said Ma’s death messed me up. I told him he had daddy issues.
Both true if we were ever honest with ourselves.
But I can’t imagine returning to that life after what I’ve been through. I can’t even process how I’ll carry on here.
In this fucking hell.
How can I keep counting the days when the depressing truth has been staring me in the face?
There’s only one escape from this place. Only one kind of ticket out of here. It’s that or devote myself to a lifetime of believing.
I don’t have a lifetime of serving the fucking Leader in me. I won’t ever be in his presence without wanting to tear his throat open. This place isn’t big enough for the two of us.
One of us has to go.
The man I was would’ve seen this realization as a rallying point. He would’ve been determined and made it his mission to take out the Leader; he would’ve seen it as a challenge to kill him and be the survivor.
The swollen man lying in the infirmary sees the realization as a final nail being hammered into his coffin. There’s no fight in his broken body. Just… acceptance.
Teysha needs you.
I grit my teeth, shutting out the echo of her cries. It’s a sound that’s torture. That’ll live with me.
She needs me… but I can’t live with that. I can’t pretend I’m some savior anymore. How can I when I can’t even save myself?
The day I’m released from the infirmary, I’m at war in my head. Dark forces try to take over my thoughts. Poisonous thoughts I’ve never considered a day in my life.
’Til now.
’Til I finally feel it deep in my gut. An emptiness about where this is headed. The only way this will end.
The only option I’ve got left ‘cuz I can’t bear it anymore. I can’t live knowing what I’ve allowed to happen. How I’ve failed her… and myself.
I pick up my workman boots and the rag I clean them with, and I begin plotting. I map out how I’m going to do it. When, where, what time of day.
Teysha comes around, and I almost crack. She’s seeking me out, but I focus on the boots. Scrubbing the leather harder, I shut her out and make her walk away.
