Page 32 of Dominion

My father might have brainwashed me into thinking that Skylar belonged to me, but looking at her with Ash, seeing how she was with him, I realized that she never clung to me like that. She never sought comfort in my arms, not like this.

Colors as dark as the abyss started seeping in from the periphery of my vision, and each passing second felt like an eternity while I watched them. I wanted that comfort from them. I wanted to feel wanted again, needed…

My skin was angry red from the amount of scrubbing I’d done in the shower, but no matter what I did, I still couldn’t feel clean. I still felt the unwanted hands on my skin, the press of the plastic object to my back, pulling out the need from me.

I was too weak, a coward. I succumbed to my desires, to the needs of my body, and I should’ve been stronger. I should’ve relented, stopped it somehow. I should’ve been stronger, but my body had worked against me over the last three days, taking what it needed, even when my heart broke, when my mind shattered, hearing Ash’s screams and the pleading.

The moans from the other captives were seared deep inside my brain, their pathetic voices still ringing loudly in my ears.

That place was Hell on Earth, but then why did every nerve ending in my body feel like it was still there? Like I belonged there?

“Dylan?” Skylar’s voice pulled me back, my body immediately moving me backward, away from their view. I didn’t want her to see me, to see what they had done to me. I didn’t want her to know.

It was bad enough that Ash witnessed almost everything they did, but he didn’t know… He didn’t know that I enjoyed it. That the sick part of my brain craved the control they ensued, the pain they gave me. He didn’t know that I craved it even now, standing here, watching the two of them.

He couldn’t understand why I didn’t want his touch, why I’d pushed him away when they freed us. Why I screamed when he tried to take me out of that room they kept me in.

Because I wanted to stay.

Because I wasn’t good.

I wasn’t good.

I wasn’t?—

“Are you okay?” Her soft voice caressed the bleeding parts of my soul, but I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t let her see that I was still a monster. I was still the thing everyone else feared. I was still the villain in this story, the one person she would be happier without. “Dy?” I didn’t want to look at her, even when my heart pulled toward her, toward her touch, her softness.

She was everything I would never be. Everything good that still existed in this world. And I was going to ruin her. I was going to destroy everything she was just because I was too selfish to let her go.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t let her go.

As my eyes connected with Ash’s tortured ones, I knew I couldn’t let either one of them go. They were mine as much as I was theirs. If that made me selfish, then so be it. I was never a good person, so why should I start now?

A much softer hand took hold of mine, and as I looked down, I saw Skylar’s chipped nail polish and the little ring on her forefinger. “Hey,” she said. “Look at me, Dy.”

I couldn’t.

Don’t let her see. Don’t let her see.

“Dylan—”

She wouldn’t understand. She was good, kind, so precious, and I was ruining it. Every single one of my actions marred the light she had, from the very first moment I saw her. From the time when she was a little girl, and I was too possessive, too jealous of everyone else who had her attention more than I did.

I didn’t realize that my eyes were closed, or that tears streamed down my cheeks. I didn’t notice when I dropped to the floor, my knees hitting the parquet floor with a thud, reminding me of the times when I was on my knees for them, begging them for release, begging them for pain.

The pinpricks on my neck told me I wanted this. I needed this. This submission. This unraveling.

With my head bowed, my entire body shook because the war waging inside of me was too heavy to withstand. I never expected her to fall to her knees in front of me. It was the fucked-up part of my brain that always told me I wasn’t good enough—not for her, not for Ash, not for anyone else.

Her entire body weight fell on me, and I had no idea where she began and I ended. Her arms circled my body, her hands rubbing soothing circles over my back. I buried my nose into the crook of her neck, smelling the pine trees she always reminded me of, the scent of strawberries and everything that Skylar was.

Someone else stepped behind me, wrapping his arms around both of us, as he went down on his knees. I didn’t need years to know these two. I didn’t need the sense of touch to feel their love, their sadness, and their pain, as tangible as my own. I knew them. I knew them better than I knew myself.

“I-I’m sorry,” I hiccupped, hiding my face from their watchful eyes, but they didn’t have to look at my face to taste the sorrow oozing from every single pore of my body. “I’m not good. I’m not good for you.”

“Don’t say that,” Skylar admonished in a watery voice. “Don’t you ever say that again, Dylan,” she sobbed. “You’re good. You’re ours, and we’re not letting you go. Don’t fucking say that!”

Her voice bellowed around us, a thousand sorrows lacing every single word, but I couldn’t agree with her. Maybe she didn’t see it because she didn’t know.

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