Leave Me Behind

by K.M. Moronova

“I’m not asking nicely again, Bunny. I want you off the squad. Fucking quit.”

“You’ll never have a place here with us. The only good Riøt soldier is a dead one. And I can

make arrangements for that, Bun. Fucking try me.”

“If I really wanted to kill you, my blade would be buried in your back right now. You can’t compete in close combat. You can’t protect yourself. What if you

were fighting an enemy soldier and they realized you’re pretty and took you back to their base? You know what happens then?”

“Just leave. None of us want...

“Because I’m fro...

“Because I don’t trust you. I will nev...

“Soldiers don’t cry

“If you give up, you die.”

“I truly believe it’s because he doesn’t want what happened to Abrahm to happen to you. Not

just because you’re from a bad squad.”

“Two assaults in one day? You’re a fucking productive psychopath,”

“Bones, you said we were just going to scare her. This is too far.”

“You’re hurting her!”

Thank God for them not hearing the pleasure in my moans.

I bet he thinks he broke me.

Of course she liked that. Fuck. She’s messing with my head.

Eren reaches me and before he says anything, he strikes me across the face with his fist. It knocks the breath out of me. He’s never struck me before. Ever

“You’ll be punished for this. You know General Nolan has a liking for her.”

She’s bad. But the thought doesn’t carry to my chest with rage like it did a day ago, and that pisses me off. If I have to break her hands to get her to quit, I will.

No wonder her prior sergeant fell in love with her. He saw a little shadow and took it for himself. I could never love a Riøt.

Her glare gives me an unwanted throb deep in my core. One that I refuse to look into and investigate properly.

“She’s not Abrahm. We need her,”

“No, she’s not. And she’ll go worse than he did. She doesn’t care if she dies or not. She’s trained to be a suicidal death machine.”

“So what if she dies on the mission? We only have one objective and it’s not getting her home. Stop fucking with the plan.”

“I’ll make her leave.”

Of course I’m not. He hurt me, but he also awakened something

really dark and disturbed inside of me.

Is this how he stares at me when I’m not looking? There’s so much pain there. More than any person should have to carry. I know that weight.

He doesn’t move for a while after that. But instead of rolling back to his side, he lies beside me, with the weight of his hand over my ribs, the warmth from his chest seeping into me. The ebb of pain slows and the heat from his hand reminds me that Bradshaw, as cold and uncaring as he is, does indeed have a sliver of a heart.

I seethe all night as I scrub the blood from beneath my nails. Devils do bleed.

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.

“Nell.” My name sounds more like a plea than a threat. More like Jenkins’s voice than Bradshaw’s. “I’m not letting you join our squad. You either quit… or I’ll make you.”

He’s made it clear he wants me off the squad. He’ll go to great lengths to make that happen. But then he gets upset after I’m hurt…

“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 ...

This is usually when my panic sets in, when the anxiety spreads through my veins after training and all I can think of is death. But with her… My eyes linger on the bright red of her blood on my fingertips and it shoots heat to my dick. “Goddammit,” I say under my breath. Don’t get attached to her,

I tilt my head back against the bark of the ponderosa and breathe slowly, letting my hand fall to my zipper and pull out my cock. I curl my fingers around the thickness of it and start pumping. Her blood slicks over my length and all I can think of as I beat myself off are her parted lips as I ran my fingers over her cut. The way her eyes rolled sensually back and her hips bucked at my touch. My release is quick and unsatisfying. I need more. I let out a labored breath and stare out

into the woods. Wondering why the more I show her who I am, the more she seems to be drawn to me. And more disturbingly, the more I’m starved for her.

“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 guys still think it’s Riøt’s fault. Bones thinks it’s Riøt’s fault.”

“No one can back up your ‘we received different orders’ story, bun-bun. All we know is that you never showed up.”

“Leave me behind. You can still live. Get as far away as you can, escape the dark forces, Gallows. Be free.”

He knows now. He knows I left Jenkins behind in battle. I’m a coward.

Bradshaw isn’t fit for the field and they’re allowing him to stay, knowing it could very well get him killed. This might be the weakness in his armor I’ve been looking for.

“What’s wrong with him, Eren?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. This is the third time in two years. He vanishes for hours and comes back like this.”

“You do things to me, Bun,”