Page 146 of Creep

One moment, I was trying to get back down from my peak without it breaking me, and the next, I was falling apart.

I cried in his arms. I couldn’t help it. The tears just kept coming, and I had never felt more out of control than I did then.

Mael tightened his arms around me when I shuddered, letting me cry for all that I lost, for the truth I didn’t want to know, and for the hopeless feeling, the lost feeling I felt pressing down and crushing me.

“I d-don’t know what to d-do,” I said, my voice shaking. I was shaking. “My dad?—”

There was just no way, but he was. And Leo…

Was my childhood nothing more than a lie? Were they just raising me up to get me ready for slaughter?

I didn’t know. I didn’t know anymore.

“You don’t have to know,” Mael said, his voice strong and sure. “I’m right here. You don’t have to decide anything.”

Didn’t that sound nice? But reality didn’t work that way. It was messy and chaotic, and I couldn’t just wholly depend on another person. I was an adult. I was supposed to be stronger than that.

I buried my face in his chest, letting the chaos swallow me whole.

39

MAEL

I heldher in my arms and let her cry.

Every tear I felt on my skin was a vow made to ensure her father and Leo suffered the worst fate possible.

I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything I could say that would make her feel better about this; I knew that. I fucking knew that, but it didn’t stop me from feeling so fucking helpless. I wanted to kill someone.

It had been a long time since I had felt helpless.

I lost track of how long we lay there in bed. But eventually, the tears stopped, along with the sniffles, and then she was just silent. I would have thought she had fallen asleep if I wasn’t so in tune with her every moment. I knew she was still awake.

She pulled back after a while. I looked down and took in her swollen, red eyes, puffy cheeks, and flushed skin.

She was fucking beautiful.

I ran my fingers through the soft strands of her long brown hair, waiting for her to speak first.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Now,” I said, cupping her cheek and bringing her face close to me. I heard her breath catch. “We go home.”

“Home?”

“My home. Your home. We go back home, and I’ll protect you for the rest of my insignificant life.”

Her bottom lip trembled. “I don’t think your life is insignificant.”

I offered her a small smile. “And you stay mine. No matter what.”

She needed to know this. I wasn’t going to let her go. I was never going to let her go. This wasn’t going to be like her relationships with other men. There would be no breakup. No running away. And as soon as I was able to put a ring on her finger, there would be no divorce. I would never let her go.

“Aren’t you afraid I am just agreeing to go back with you because I need your protection?” she asked.

She was cute if she thought that would deter me. “I don’t care. Use me, however and whenever you want. I don’t care as long as you belong to me.”

And no one else. She was mine and only mine. I had never had something that belonged so wholly, so completely to me, but she was it.

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