Page 104 of Chained

I sigh. This is a battle I'll never win. I move slowly, and she follows each movement, keeping the blade pointed at me until I slide into the bed, my back pressed against the headboard. She climbs on top of me, straddling me, holding the knife against my throat.

"Kiss me."

My jaw tightens.

"No."

She presses the knife harder, the blade nicking my skin. I feel the blood slowly travelling down my throat. She leans in, her breath hot against my mouth, her teeth grazing against my lower lip. Her hips begin to move, gyrating against my crotch, but for once, nothing comes. No pulsing, no hardness. Nothing. Her eyes change as she realises that no matter how hard she tries, my body refuses to respond.

There's a strange kind of grief in watching someone realise, in real time, that they've lost the one thing that made them feel powerful over you. I don't feel triumphant about it, the way some cruel part of me thought I might after all those nights I lay there wishing I could just refuse her. I just feel tired.

"Why?" she whispers. "What changed?"

I see her mask slip, her face crumbling into something that she tries desperately to hide. The vulnerability, the need to be wanted.

"You ruined us, Melina. You took away my freedom. Not Vincent, not even Archie. You."

"But we carried on, for years..." Her voice trembles, hand shaking the knife against my throat. I slowly raise my hand, taking her wrist into mine as I try so hard not to send her over the edge.

"I loved you, Melina. You're the first woman I ever loved. Nothing will change that, but I don't feel that way anymore. You need to understand that."

"You could though, if you tried. If you let me in."

"It's too late."

My hand slowly moves the knife away. Her eyes dart, brows pulling into the centre as she tries to figure something out. There's a silence so thick it sits heavy on my chest, weighing me down like an anchor.

"It's because of her, isn't it?"

She'll never accept it. She'll never accept that it's her, that she ruined us. It'll always be someone else's fault.

"No, Melina." My hands move to her hips. Taking the chance, I shove her to the side, letting her land to the bed and jump up to my feet. "It's because of you. It's because of what you did."

"No, no, no, no." She holds her hands to her head, the knife pressing against her. "I did everything right. I spent years letting him use me. I did everything right."

"What are you talking about?"

Something in her voice stops me cold; some register I've never heard from her before, not even during every kind of manipulation she's tried on me. This isn't a performance. And I know all of Melina's performances. She looks up, her face broken, and for a second, she's not the same Melina she is now. She's the girl by the fountain, the girl who gave me my first kiss. She drops her head, hand gripping tightly against the handle of the knife, hair covering her face.

"Years, Ace. You survived years because I let him touch me. Every time you defied him, he'd sneak into my bed and whisper what he'd do to you if I ever said no." She swallows. "But I did it, for you."

I stumble back, the air from my lungs knocked out of me like I'd been punched. No. There's no way. Archie wouldn't, he's her dad. He loved her. My mind claws for another meaning, any other meaning. Some innocent version of the sentence she just said, but there isn't one. There's only the one meaning, sitting there in the middle of my childhood like it's always been there, waiting for me to finally be old enough to see it.

"You're lying."

I need her to be lying. I need it so badly my whole chest aches with the wanting, because if she isn't, then every single memory I have of Archie, every lesson, every nod of approval I used to chase like it meant something, sits on top of this the entire time, and I never once saw it.

Something inside her snaps. She doesn't wipe away the tears. She doesn't attempt to hide the hurt. She moves quickly from the bed, knife in hand.

"He said you'd say that. He knew," she spits at me, her words venom.

I can barely breathe, chest aching and stomach spinning. There's no way Archie would do this to his own daughter, but then flashes of my childhood come into view. The times his hands lingered on her body, the bruises on her thighs that she'd always try to hide. The nights her bedroom door would be locked.

Fourteen years of memories start rearranging themselves in my head without my permission, every one of them tilting slightly, showing me an angle I'd never let myself look at before. Melina disappearing for hours at a time and coming back with her smile too bright, too fixed. The way Archie's voice would change, soften, whenever he said her name. In a way it never did for anyone else, not even Vincent. I'd thought it was favouritism. I'd been jealous of it, once, as a kid who'd never had anyone soften their voice for me at all. God. I was jealous of it.

"Why didn't you tell me? I'd have killed him, Melina. I'd have fucking destroyed him."

"Because you couldn't. Because no one could—" She pushes past me, moving out into the balcony and leans against the railing. "Not until Vincent found out."