Page 56 of Dismantle & Prevail
“Yeah?”
I remember that day clearly. I had spent the entire day in my room and had a horrible nightmare that night. I was shaken up, to say the least. The next day, I went in search of familiar faces to find my way back to reality and Ari was the first person I saw.
It was a nasty black eye. Boone had to have had some power behind that punch and I remember it making me smile. The never ending antics of the compound brought me out of that dark headspace I was fighting so hard to stay out of.
“Boone didn’t hit me. You did.”
Sitting up straight, I stop unwrapping the candy. “What did you just say?”
“I was coming to check on you that night when I heard screaming. I ran into your room thinking someone was attacking you and found you trapped in a violent nightmare. You were thrashing, and I had to calm you down before you hurt yourself. One of your fists caught my eye and your eyes flew open.
“I expected you to say something or remember, but you didn’t. And I didn’t want you to be embarrassed or ashamed, so I played it off as Boone got me during a sparring match.”
My mind races and I wrack my brain, trying to remember Ari being in my room, but I come up blank.
“Why did you lie? Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Because you weren’t in a great place, Taylor. You were pretending to be okay, but I saw through it. Plus, you had mentioned a few times in passing that you didn’t feel like you belonged here, so I didn’t want to give your mind fuel to that blazing inferno. So I lied and I don’t regret it.”
We sit in silence as I process what may seem like a small encounter that to any other person but to me, wasn’t. Ari brought me out of a devastating nightmare. I hit him, and then he lied to protect my fragile mind.
I want to be mad, but I’m feeling the exact opposite. I’m feeling…loved, cared for, understood.
“Well, judging by how nasty your eye looked, I guess I can say my right hook packs a punch.”
Laughter fills the space between us.
“It certainly does. That motherfucker hurt for days.”
A gust of wind whips between us as we both look out at the canyon.
“Butterfly. What happened in that nightmare that causes you to have it every year?”
Dammit. I should have seen that one coming.
I’ve done a great job of avoiding talking about my past to nearly everyone except Reagan and Tucker. Don’t get me wrong, I trust Aries with my life, but he saw enough to put two and two together to understand what was happening wasn’t a first time occurrence.
The fear of placing a burden or any sort of mental strife on the man that just went through hell races through me.
I want to tell him it's nothing and just take in the beauty of the canyon, but a large part of me is saying this could be a chance to see if mine and Aries relationship can expand beyond a friendship.
I will know instantly if the tales of my past are going to change the way he looks at me. Much like Ari, I hate pity. I hate people looking at me like I’m this broken toy who should be treated with kid gloves. I’m not that girl.
I’m Taylor freaking Morgan. I am a survivor. I could have sat back and let my grief and pain swallow me whole, but I didn’t. I turned that anger and fire into motivation and skill that helps thousands of others just like me.
“Every year, I don’t remember that day as the day I escaped. I remember it as the last day I wasn’t in control of my own body. That nightmare plays a damn highlight reel of all the times where I wanted to give up and just end it because anything was better than looking at some limp dick bastard that wasn’t able to get a woman, so he had to buy her instead.”
Aries visibly winces, but that doesn’t stop me. My words are flowing at rapid speed as if they have been stuck inside me for years, just waiting to come out, despite my years with Dr. Link.
A dry chuckle escapes me. “And you want to know the sad part? A woman is the person who sold me to the highest bidder. A fucking woman, my own damn mother, sold me in exchange for her own freedom.”
Aries’ face tenses. “She did what?”
I nod. “Yep. She was in hot water with a drug king and he said that she had to give him the fifty thousand dollars’ worth of drugs she stole from him or hand me over with the notion that she would never see me again.” A lump rises in my throat and I force it down.I will not cry.“She didn’t hesitate. Before the words were even out of his mouth, she was pushing me into his arms and slamming the door in my face. My own flesh and blood sold me for the sake of getting high and didn’t even think twice about it.”
Aries' face is almost unreadable, but I can see that he is more than angry. “Where is she?”
“She overdosed less than a year later. I didn’t find out until I was granted access to a computer after trying to hack some old billionaire's phone. He was going to kill me, but his grandson said he could keep me around to grow their fortune. I was immediately put to work and when they weren't paying attention, I hacked into the police station records from my hometown and found out.
