Page 106 of The Psychopaths

I am not what the Hayes family made me. Not what Aries imagined. Not even what Arson thought he was using. I am something else entirely. Something born in flood waters and fucking. Something that survived twin hungers and emerged changed but undiminished.

I look away and find Arson standing near the dresser, his back to me as he arranges something with methodical precision. Medical supplies, I realize. Bandages, antiseptics, and painkillers neatly lined up on the wooden surface. The care these preparations imply contrasts sharply with the careful distance he maintains.

He senses my wakefulness without turning. “There’s water beside you. Painkillers if you need them.”

Gone is the tenderness from last night. There’s none of the raw connection we forged in the shower and beneath the sheets. He’s clinical now. Detached. As if building walls between us with each passing second.

“Thank you,” I say, voice raspy.

He nods once but doesn’t turn to look at me.

His shoulders are tense beneath his T-shirt, the fabric stretched across muscles rigid with whatever emotion he’s working hard to contain. The distance isn’t accidental.It’s deliberate.Protective, though whether he’s protecting me or himself remains unclear.

I sit up slowly, wincing as new pains become noticeable. The sheet falls to my waist, exposing breasts marked with light bruises—evidence of mouths, hands, desires barely controlled. Arson’s gaze flicks to me in the dresser mirror, then away quickly. There is no missing the way his jaw tightens.

“You can use the shower,” he says, voice flat. “I left clean clothes on the counter.”

“Arson.” The sound of his name stops his movements. “Look at me.”

He turns reluctantly, eyes carefully fixed on a point above my head rather than meeting my gaze. The avoidance feels worse than anything that happened yesterday. I can practically feel him building the wall between us right now. I know he feels something, and everything on his face right now says he’d rather rip out his own heart than acknowledge it.

“We had a deal,” I say carefully, pulling the sheet up to cover myself since my nakedness seems to disturb him now. “My body for Aries’s freedom.”

A muscle jumps in his jaw. “Is that what you think happened yesterday? A transaction?”

“Isn’t it?” I challenge. “You made the terms clear. I agreed to them.”

“And you think you’ve paid your debt?” Finally, his eyes meet mine, something dangerous flickering in their depths. “You think what happened yesterday was you fulfilling your part of some bargain?”

The bitterness in his tone catches me off guard. “I gave you what you wanted,” I say, confusion bleeding into my voice. “I let you?—”

“You let me?” He interrupts, a harsh laugh escaping him. He seems pissed off, and I’m confused by that. Isn’t this what he wanted? “You didn’t let me do anything. You didn’t let either of us do anything.”

He steps closer, and it’s then that I see the fresh bruises on his face, my gaze drifting to the cut above his eyebrow. His proximity reminds me of how safe and secure I felt with his body pressed against mine, his cock deep inside me.

“There was no giving, Lilian,” he continues, voice dropping lower. “Only taking. First him, then me.”

That’s a low blow, even for him. “I made a choice,” I insist, though uncertainty creeps in. I wanted both of them, but I’m not sure I would’ve wanted it to be in the way it happened. “I agreed to your terms.”

“Did you?” His hazel eyes burned into mine. “Or did the adrenaline and drugs make the choice for you?”

“The chemicals lowered my inhibitions,” I argue, gripping the sheet tighter. “But they didn’t create desires that weren’t already there. No matter what you think, I wanted it.”

He laughs, the sound so cold it feels foreign coming from the same lips that left trails of fire on my body. “Is that what you tell yourself to lessen the trauma? That you wanted to be taken on a concrete floor while you were drugged?”

The crude description makes me flinch, but I hold his gaze. “How it happened no longer matters. I wanted it. Wanted both of you. I have for longer than I’d care to admit.”

The way his jaw tightens, his fists clenched tight at his sides…he’s acting like he gives a shit, like he cares about my well-being. Either that, or he’s pissed that I’m making him follow through with his part of the deal.

“Even after…” His voice tightens, turning brittle with restraint.

“Even after what?”

His upper lip curls into a sneer. “It doesn’t matter. So now you assume the agreement is done? That spreading your legs means Aries goes free?”

“You said?—”

“I know what I said.” He cuts me off and begins to pace the small space in front of me. “I also know what actually happened. I didn’t take anything from you that you didn’t beg for in that shower. It was Aries who took from you without asking.”

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