Page 13 of Brutal Knight

It pisses me off. I’ve lived my life knowing I could always do something to improve my standing, to make people trust me. Knowing I can’t do that with her makes me feel stuck.

I don’t like being stuck.

I scowl at the shower and yank the lever all the way to the cold side. I pick Willow up by her waist, deposit her in the shower, and let the water blast suddenly.

She yelps when the spray hits her, immediately shrinking away toward the wall. I slide the glass door until it’s almost closed and reach into my pocket. Willow squints, her hands raised, trying to shield her face from the spray. Her dark hair is already damp, loose curls plastered to her forehead.

I find the knife in my pocket and flip it open. Willow’s hands move, her eyes wide.

“Wait! I—”

She knows the sound. I try not to think about what that means.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I growl. With a quick movement, I cut the necktie from her wrists and toss it toward the trash can.

She blinks, looking toward wherever the tie landed. Her arms are still raised, hands together like she’s praying. There’s blood on her wrist from Victor, but beneath it, there’s faint bruising visible on her pale skin from where he bound her.

Shit.

There’s blood beneath her chin, on the side of her face. It’s fucking everywhere. I remember how we came in, how we shot at Victor until we knew he was deader than dead. I think about how Willow was beneath him, how he fell right onto her.

Dammit. No wonder she’s so fucking traumatized.

None of us thought about the details before, or in the moment. We just knew what we had to do, and we did it.

I can’t say I would have done things differently, even looking at her now. Victor had to die, and it worked out in our favor that we caught him while he was distracted by her.

But I wish she didn’t have to suffer this. I wish she didn’t have to live with her attacker’s blood on her face, with the memory of his body heavy on hers. I wish there’d been another way.

But there wasn’t a way, because she ran away from my goddamned house where she was supposed to be safe. She ran, and I can’t even totally blame her. Not when Dmitri permanently fucked her up so badly that she can’t trust men. The bastard is still putting her and my family through hell, and he’s dead.

“Clean up,” I say shortly. “And sober the fuck up while you’re at it.”

I clench my jaw to keep the bile and anger back. I may have agreed to this, may have wanted it, but I don’t know what I want right now. I’m not even sure I can handle this.

But I have to. For the family.

I leave her in the shower and try not to slam the door on my way out. Before the end of the day, I’m going to need a fucking drink.

Or two.

CHAPTER5

Willow

The water is so fucking freezing.

I was already sobering up. I’m getting closer now that the water is pelting me. It’s worse with clothes still on. It feels like they add ten pounds to me, weighing my body down. It feels like drowning. I scrabble at my shirt and pull it off as quickly as I can.

I blindly reach for the knob to change the temperature. I don’t care what anyone says, cold water only does so much for an addict. It’s a shock, sure, but it’s not a magic cure. If it were that easy to sober up, I would never have gotten addicted in the first place.

What I wouldn’t give for an easy solution. That’s what the drugs are, after all—an easy solution. An easy way to not feel, an easy way to escape the constant memories and fear.

I blink droplets from my eyelashes as the water starts to warm up. The biting need for more is growing, even though the high is just barely leaving me.

I’m used to spending most of my waking moments high. There was no other way for me to survive being with Dmitri.

Now, I don’t know. The urge is still there. I know I’m addicted. That doesn’t change the fact that I feel like I still need it, like I still want the same bliss that it offered. Taking a pill and letting the world fade was survival for me. Now, it feels like escape. I’m free of Dmitri, but I’m not really free. Not from what he left me with.

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