Leave Me Behind

by K.M. Moronova

The light has gone. And vengeance is born into my heart.

There is a frosty edge that radiates from his pale blue eyes. The set of his sharp jaw and blank expression don’t add any warmth to his demeanor. A thin one-inch scar resides beneath his left eye, making him appear tired. Another crosses the bridge of his nose and two small scars rib his lower lip on the right side, almost appearing like piercings. The hollows of his cheeks are lined with muscle that defines the bone structure. He’s easily the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on.

I am only a weapon. A rabid dog running from an inevitable death shot.

There’s something in the way he stares at me, like a starved man who’s contemplating a heinous act. You don’t have to tell me there isn’t one good thought in his head. Red flags are flying all around this guy. But I can’t look away. He captivates me, scares me even and I can kill a man in five seconds flat.

I refuse to let him know I’m affected by the way he watches me so carefully. My mom always said I was into bad guys. I doubt she knew I’d grow up to be into ones who clearly had psychological problems. The ones you don’t tell God about when you pray at church to forgive your sins—the ones with dark backstories and baggage.

He has secrets and demons hiding behind that soulless expression he wears. Something damaged and broken being kept from view.

The assholes are always hung for some reason.

“You see how wet you are for a stranger? What a good girl. Are you going to scream for me too? I’d like it if you did,” he whispers, but his voice isn’t soothing. It’s sexy and scary. Dominant.

“What God? Tonight, you only scream and cry for me. No God will bear witness to what I make of you.” My eyes flutter shut at his words and I suck on his fingers.

“Whoa, Bun. You’ll only excite us if you get physical.”

If I’m anything, it’s stubborn.

“I’m going to help you bloom into the monster you truly are.”

We stare at each other for a moment, the warm water soothing my entire body and making me want to melt in his arms. I shouldn’t want to be held by a murderous thing like him. But I do. I crave it like a shot of morphine.

I knew it then. Jenkins would ruin what good was left of me.

“I love you, Gallows. Leave me behind.”

But I finally decide to try to make peace with the devil, if he’s willing.

“I killed a few bad people.” Horrifically. Borderline animalistically. “I’m useless in the real world.”

“Useless in every other sense besides killing.” His jaw flexes at that. Did he think they’d put a softie on their squad? “I was recruited because there’s darkness in me and this is the only place I belong until I’m eventually killed too.”

“When you let go of your thoughts, you can do anything, Gallows.”

He is lethal and every instinct inside my body thrums on high alert.

“I’m going to make you wish you had quit the moment you got here.” Bradshaw grins beneath his mask and it sends chills down my spine. Terrible things are playing behind his cold eyes.

Devils do bleed.

A devil in human skin.

“What we do in the dark forces requires people like us. We’re easy to throw away once the job is done.”

He makes me feel helpless and small when he controls me like this. It’s a shot to my nervous system and I can’t help but enjoy it. I’m always the most dangerous person in the room, but around Bradshaw I feel vulnerable.

“And they say monsters don’t have weaknesses,”

“I want to dominate you. I want to break you into a million pieces and make you answer only to me. I want to keep you as far away from my squad as possible before I ruin what’s left of you. Because if you don’t leave, that’s what’s going to happen. I’ll break you, just like I break everything. Is that enough? Will you shut the fuck up now?” He says slowly, cruelly, while squeezing my jaw.

That’s also why we’re so drawn to each other, because we’re both toxic and cruel.

“Oh, Bunny, you sick little thing. Tell me you aren’t into this too. The pain kink was already catching my heartstrings, but this? This makes me want to brand you as mine.”

“Do you know how to break a man? I mean really break him.” I remember Jenkins’s words clearly. I was still newer to the dark forces then, eighteen. I shook my head. “No.” Jenkins guided my hand across his chest and placed it over his heart. “You make him trust you, make him need you, and then you take it all away.”

“Especially if it’s a person. Take away what he loves and you’ll break him irrevocably. You’re heartless, Gallows. That’s why I’m taking you under my wing. No one gets it quite like you and me.”

We don’t care. If a name comes up on a screen, that’s all it is. A name. We obey. We eliminate.

“You are a dangerous little thing. Beautiful, but dangerous.”

Before I fall asleep, I conclude that he is the beautiful, dangerous one. Wicked in his ways. Perhaps that’s why he holds me so securely while he sleeps with his head on my chest. We were made for each other—molded by darkness itself.

As long as I’m by his side, I will follow him to the grave.

I want to run my thumb over her bottom lip and tell her she makes my chest ache when she looks at me so tenderly. I want to tell her that the nights I laid beside her were the only ones I slept peacefully in fucking years. I want to tell her that I fucking missed her.

All I do is break things. But no matter how much I push her, she doesn’t stay down. Maybe things that are already fucked up can’t be ruined further. There has to be a point where there’s nothing worse, right?

I cannot let her die like he did. I will not survive it.

“Traitors can be put down in two ways. In prison, fifty years after the crime, or when they choose to betray their comrades.”

Rats never seem to remember that snakes are hiding in the bird’s nest too.

“Let the monster in you take over.”

“I’m tired, so it’s okay. If this is where it ends, it’s okay.”

The pain in her gaze was enough to bury me a thousand times over.

“Would you kill me? If I took Jenkins from you? Tell me you would and I’ll give you what you want, Bun. But don’t you dare fucking lie to me. Would you watch the light leave my flesh? Would you send the devil back to hell?”

“Never. I could never. Not you.” Because you make me feel things I’ve never experienced before. I could never hurt you. I could never let you go.

“What have we let the world do to us, Bun?”

“We let them make monsters of us. Stolen vices.”

“I don’t think I can continue being Bones. Because Bones is heartless and ruthless. But ever since meeting you, I’ve been anything but those things. When I look at you, I feel like my thoughts are no longer blurry. This dark underworld I reign in doesn’t have to be the one I die in.”

“Together, our broken pieces can do anything.”

“All I want is to be by your side. In training, in war, in death. I can’t picture myself anymore without you being there, Bun. You linger in my thoughts, in my fears. But mostly, you’re the cause of all the emotions I feel again. I was dead until you tripped on my foot on the plane.”