Page 33 of Starving Butterfly
“That’s the difference between us.” I came around to face him; he didn’t even look up from the mound of paperwork he’d engrossed himself in while waiting. I kept a respectful distance; maybe it was best, considering every time we were close we’d fight or fuck. My dick strained in my pants at the thought, and I took a noticeable step back.
“What are your plans with them?” He glanced up.
“Settle down. Have a family.” I shrugged. It was true; I always wanted a family, with some kids playing in the yard. Experience childhood through their eyes instead of the one I was so graciously gifted. Lucas’s jaw ticked, but he said nothing. Passive-aggressive as ever. We’d been at odds since the girl. Casey. Although to say we were ever fully aligned to begin with was a stretch. He would never stop tinkering. And I couldn’t live that way. I craved normalcy. That was ultimately why I took the teaching position and the rotations at the hospital. Mundane in everyday life. Truth be told, I hadn’t known Summer was related to Casey. It didn’t change the fact that I wanted her.
“Why a blonde?” He asked quietly, as if he were judging me as much as possible. That it meant more than he was ready to admit. The hurt disguised in his tone as he contemplated the hair color. He hated blondes. I was the exception to his rules, and only because my condition had been more fascinating than he’d care to admit.
“You detest blondes, so she was the safest option.” I sighed. He shuffled the papers off his lap and stood, cracking his neck.
Nade jumped on the coffee table between us and meowed.
“I’m keeping the cat.”
I didn’t argue. There wasn’t anything to say that he didn’t already know. I didn’t mention the fact that he’d taken up residence in my house in my absence or that he’d taken an interest in the cat he so violently wanted to kill months prior. There was no amount of words I could muster to express the thoughts that ran rampant in my mind. So instead, I pulled the house keys out of my pocket, sliding a blue-painted key off my key ring and set it down next to the cat. The paperwork would find its way into his possession soon enough. The assets we shared would be signed over without delay. Everything we’d once shared — I shook my head; it didn’t matter anymore.
I stroked the cat once down its back and turned to leave.
“Don’t write me out of your life just yet.” Lucas spoke.
My hand tightened on the door.
“Never.”
25
I AM NOTHING LIKE YOU
“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” I asked when Shaw came through the doors, they kept me chained up like an animal. Barely able to move two feet to take a piss or shit and slide food on a metal tray without silverware. Of course, had I had the silverware, I would have stabbed myselfto suffer less. They didn’t risk it. I sat slumped against the wall, head craning up to watch Shaw walking towards me. It had been a few weeks since Melody or April showed up, and I was beginning to wonder if she’d actually become bred.
“I can’t,” he ground out as he plopped the tray of porridge in front of me. That was my latest diet. Last time they gave me an orange, and I stuffed so much in my mouth at once that I started to choke. Too bad the bastards had a fucking camera and made me cough it up. Now every meal was supervised, and every bite was measured. More surveillance than a toddler with a pair of kitchen scissors. If I had had the scissors, they would have gone into my neck and saved me from this life. There was no point in living a life that was not my own, so I kept thinking of ways to end it sooner.
“It’s not as hard as it seems, just take a knife and plunge it into my heart,” I goaded.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t rise to the bait like he would have the first time. If we had been born into different roles, I would consider him the most loyal friend ever. The way he goes with the orders must have been torturous. He didn’t wait for Melody to even move before he was halfway out the door. I chopped it up to karma biting him in the ass. He forced Cole to participate in the rape of Summer and forced me to watch, well until I got punched so hard I blacked out. After that day, she didn’t want anything to do with me. Stopped talking to me as if it were my fault. It had been my fault for not lying better in the first place. I was too weak to stomach it. I didn’t kill for sport, I didn’t murder and rape innocent people, I wasn’t cut out for this world.
“If you aren’t going to eat than stop wasting my time,”Shaw said in a tired voice, like he was struggling to remember the reasons for my captivity. There were fewer guards than usual; instead of a grunt giving me food, it had been all Shaw these past few days. I slid the metal tray over; it scraped against theconcrete in a high-pitched whine. Shoveling the slop into my mouth, I forced myself to swallow. It had been months since I had been outside of their rooms, and yet I kept hoping for change, like any second Summer and Cole would be blasting through the door. I looked up towards the door expecting it to be the case, but there was nothing. I tried to escape. The first night they strapped me to the table, managed to disable a few guards and rush out into the snow. It’s how I knew it was winter here. They’d kept me for over three months, enough time for the early fall to give way to a harsh, brutal winter. The last time I saw Summer it was August, so that meant it was closer to November or December.
“Listen to me!” he screamed. “You and I have to be smart about this if we all want to survive, there’s no getting Summer without first ridding ourselves of Midas…We have to be smart about this.”Cole’s words echoed through my mind like a pendulum. Bouncing back and forth like a taunting tick of the clock. Did I kill him? He was right anyway. There was a better chance of facing Midas with him; I should have listened to him when I had the chance. I bet they moved on without me. Summer, Cole, Reyna and those kids, it would be the perfect life. A big family and lots of joy and laughter. I closed my eyes, picturing her blonde hair against the snow as she made snow angels with the kids. She was my angel; she’d always be my angel. I couldn’t stop wanting for her, no matter how many times they strapped me to the table. It was never the pleasure that made me come for them; no, it was always Summer.
“Get up,” he kicked my leg. I groaned, snapping out of my self-pity, and rose up.
“What can’t get it up this time?” I mocked. He shoved me forward; my knee scraped against the concrete, and I hissed as I stood back up. He didn’t even say anything else; he just watched as I stood face to face with him.
“Come on, shower.” he ordered, un-cuffing my feet and pulling me along. I thought about biting back again, but it was expending energy I no longer had. At least when he argued back it was entertaining; now it was depressing.
We walked through the large doors of what I had come to know as a warehouse and through several halls into a shower room. I stood there letting the warm water cascade down my head while Shaw waited by the door.
There were bruises all over my body, some of them fresh, others faded. Like it wasn’t enough, they had to rape me for sperm that was likely dead, anyway. I leaned into the hot stream, eyes pinched tight in anticipation. Shower days were reserved; they meant — clean, I am clean.
It became harder to see anything bright in what they were doing. Sure, if I did manage to impregnate the bitch, I'd finally be able to die. I just felt sorry for the poor kid who had to grow up to be a mafia heir. April was a dying old bitch stuck in her ways. Why would you force two people to have sex for a kid when this world could simply make a kid in a Petrie dish? The whole idea was barbaric, and if I ever got out of here, I would cleave her head from her body like a barbarian.
The thought made me laugh, as if I were ever actually getting out of here. The bar of soap slipped out of my hand. I bent over to retrieve it, glancing back at Shaw. He looked to be ten times his age, as if the stress of what he was doing was catching up to him. There would be one day I could break through his walls and make him see the reality, or he would die of heartbreak. It didn’t take long to see how he looked at Melody every time she wasn’t looking. He loved her; I understood it now. So, as much as it pained me, I knew that Shaw was being tortured along with me.
Coldness seepedinto my body as soon as I saw the table. My feet stumbled in hesitation as I backed into the hard mass behind me. Shaw’s chest stopped me from retreating any further. He didn’t immediately pull me towards the steel table. Orders, they’d said the first night, I still hadn’t any idea why they both went through this time and time again. I wouldn’t ever understand it.
“Come on,” he grunted as my legs became lead weights. I couldn’t do this.
“You don’t have to listen to her, you don’t have to go through with this, I see the way you look at Mel?—”
