Leave Me Behind

by K.M. Moronova

For those who crave a violent love story.

A face that no one is supposed to know. I want him to know.

“Bradshaw.”

“My name is Bradshaw.”

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

I’m being reassigned to a squad of devils. No, not literally. Just men that come really fucking close.

God, I hate flying. Everyone is angry and tired and so, so goddamn rude.

“It’s fine; I just wasn’t expecting it. You must be tired from traveling. What’s your final destination?”

“I don’t think you can say final destination on a plane.”

We don’t exist, not on paper. We’ve been long forgotten by the people we used to know.

It’s perhaps the government’s darkest secret, the underside of the special forces that does all the dirty work they don’t want to sully their hands with. Anti-terrorism, foreign combat, black market weapons raids. We get sent to stop it all and we don’t get a lick of credit.

we’re suicide squads.

Malum Squad. The dark forces team they send when they can’t send any of the other suicide squads.

They call him Bones. He’s rumored to be the cruelest man in the dark forces. Apparently he likes breaking open ribcages and literally pulling people’s hearts out. Sometimes their bones. Hence the disturbing code name he bears.

The dark forces aren’t exactly free individuals. We’re halfway between criminals and military hounds.

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.

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.

was after Eren initially, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more interested in Bradshaw. He has secrets and demons hiding behind that soulless expression he wears. Something damaged and broken being kept from view.

“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.”

“Why are you still here?” I ask, not sounding as cruel as I was going for. The corner of his lip kicks up and he sets a hand on the wall behind me. “No one’s kicked me out before and I didn’t like it.”

“Okay, fine. I guess if I had to name one thing, it’d be outliving my twin.” I nod. “He’s the only person that matters to you?” His eyes flicker. “He’s the only one left.”

“I’m a devil.”

“I’m a reaper,”

Hades: The hounds they send to wreak havoc. Riøt: The executors of traitors. And Malum: The Evil—the squad that goes where no one else can or is qualified to go, to snuff out the enemy quietly like ghosts in the darkness of night.

“Bunnies will consume their own under stress,”

“Great. Our psychopath meets his match and now our lives are in their twisted hands.”

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

“Bones showers separately. None of us are allowed to know what he looks like, so if you’re going to fuck any of us, it can’t be him. Unless you’re into mask shit,”

I am indeed into that.

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

devil in human skin. Watching him move so fluidly gives me an itch I’ve been trying to ignore for weeks. Something inside of me yearns for him. My blood burns through my veins.

want to give in so fucking bad. I want to throw in the towel, because who in their right mind wants to protect someone like him? He deserves to die. But there’s a small voice in the back of my head that won’t let me give in.

and that thin line between pain and lust lights up again. Something I shouldn’t enjoy, but I

“You fucking masochist. I knew you liked when I carved you up. Your thighs were hot and rubbing beneath me. Is that why you won’t go? Because I keep feeding your sickness?”

“You obviously enjoy dealing out pain. It’s not my fault you discovered my kink.”

“He wasn’t the same after that. A part of Bones died with Abrahm that night. And a darkness was born in his heart,”

“You’re going to be okay, Nell.” He pushed me away from his slumped body, the tree stained red with his blood. I stood shakily, shocked that a man I knew as invincible could look so broken. “Leave me behind. You can still live. Get as far away as you can, escape the dark forces, Gallows. Be free.”

“You want me to make you come?”

“I want you to break me,”

“Oh, baby, breaking you comes much, much later.”

A god of a man. A devil of demons.

I just stare back at him, trying to figure out how I can hate him but feel such immense emotion for him at the same time. I see a broken shell of a man. I see someone who’s been cast away from the world and thrown away like me.

delicately because my ire for her has been properly extinguished for the night. I’m mildly disturbed with the idea that I actually want to be gentle with her right now.

Irrationally, I feel jealous that she still loves a dead man. I don’t want her to feel that way for anyone… Though, I guess it’d be okay if she felt that way about me.

“You’ll convince me you don’t hate my guts if you keep talking like this,”

She might think I broke her tonight, but it’s she who has broken me.

“The one I dreamt of was a sort of townhouse, stones on the exterior like you read about in fairy books. I would live on the second story of it. In the morning my husband would go downstairs and start early, brewing coffee until the bitter scent would wake me and I’d wrap myself in a robe and tiptoe downstairs to hug him tight. We’d read and open the shop at nine and then close at three. Spend the rest of the day gardening, exploring, or—” I once dreamt of a family, but I decide to avoid that. “Or just enjoying the afternoons together.”

If they want to play dirty, then I’ll play in the fucking mud.

“Easy killer, it’s just your favorite fuck boy.” Bradshaw’s voice is heavy with a smirk.