Page 12 of Jagger's Remorse
"They feed them to the wolves." She pulls up her top, revealing a map of scars across her ribs. "These are from my first teacher. He liked knives. Said pain was the best educator."
Higher, showing a bullet scar near her heart. "This is from my second teacher. She believed that lessons should leave marks."
She turns, showing me her back.
Whip marks. Burn scars. A tattoo of Santa Muerte inked between the violence.
"Five years, Jagger. Five years of learning how to survive everything you and your brothers want to do to me. How to endure. How to wait. How to win."
She drops her shirt and faces me again. "So let's be clear about what's happening here. You didn't capture me. I captured you."
"You're fuckin’ insane."
"Probably." She shrugs. "Trauma does that. Watching your father's brains paint the walls tends to affect a girl's mental health."
"Why are you here?"
"You know why."
"Revenge."
"Justice." She corrects. "Revenge would be putting a bullet in your head while you sleep. Justice is making you suffer first."
"And you think being my prisoner will accomplish that?"
She smiles, slow and dangerous. "I think being your prisoner is the only way to accomplish that. You're going to fall in love with me, Jagger. Going to need me like air. Going to beg me to stay."
She steps closer, close enough I can smell vanilla and gunpowder and blood. "And when you do, when you're completely mine, I'm going to destroy everything you've ever loved and leave you breathing in the ashes."
"I should kill you now."
"But you won't." She reaches up, fingers ghosting over my jaw. "Because I'm right. Because you've been dreaming about me for five years. Because every woman you've fucked since that night has had amber eyes and dark hair and you hate yourself for it."
I grab her wrist, squeezing until the bones grind. "You don't know shit."
"Then why is there a box under your bed with newspaper clippings about me? Berkeley graduation. Dean's list announcements. That feature about my work at the legal clinic."
Her free hand finds my chest, right over my racing heart. "Why do you have my father's obituary in your wallet? Why do you visit his grave every year on the anniversary?"
I shove her away, but she's already under my skin.
Already in my head.
"How long have you been watching me?"
"Longer than you've been watching me." She backs toward the bed, predator pretending to be prey. "The question is, what are you going to do about it?"
I pull the chain from my closet—the one I use for prisoners who need breaking.
She holds out her wrists.
"Ankle," I growl.
"Kinky."
But she sits, lets me shackle her ankle to the bed frame.
"Afraid I'll strangle you in your sleep?"
