“You’re a monster,” I tell him, this one statement sincere.
“That’s right,” he murmurs. “Fight me.”
Don’t fight them. I’m shaking with something—maybe fear, maybe anger. I prefer to be angry. Some part of me thinks it might seem more realistic, but the truth is I am angry. It’s not pretend. “How dare you do this?”
“Offer you money? Well, sure, call the cops. Tell them how horrible I am for paying your daddy’s debts.”
“Aren’t the police in your pockets?” I ask bitterly.
“Or you can take your chances with Damon Scott. He has quite a reputation.” He glances at Daddy’s broken leg. “I suppose you’re already familiar with it. What did he promise to take next?”
Daddy looks at me, his eyes helpless. It doesn’t matter who broke his knee. Doesn’t matter that the debt to Damon Scott has been won, because that was the deal I made. To be bait for this man. This dark king.
“Tick tock,” the king says. “Would you like the money?”
He shifts ever so slightly on the old lumpy sofa, revealing a flash of silver in his coat. A gun. Will he use it if I refuse him? It doesn’t matter, because this is my purpose.
“I’ll do it.”
In a graceful move he stands and strides from the room, leaving the money on the sofa. It’s too much to hope that he’s changed his mind as soon as I’ve agreed. No, he expects me to follow him. I’m not even worth a basic command. I’m a dog, trained to heel by poverty, trained to obey by circumstances.
“Wait,” I call after him into the hallway. “I’m coming.”
There are only minutes to run back, to hold Daddy’s trembling hand. To squeeze.
“Damon Scott will come,” I whisper, breathless. “I’ll try to leave a trail. Tell him to follow me. Tell him what happened.”
His eyes are wide, helpless. I don’t even know if he’s hearing me.
I grasp a handful of coins from my tip jar, mostly pennies left after digging out the quarters and dimes to spend. A few nickels. And that’s what I need—dark copper pennies made green and blackened from use.
I run down the stairs, the coins clutched in my sweaty palm. It’s only on the street that he stops, as motionless and contained as if he had been standing there all along. I’m out of breath, still wearing my old diner uniform. A handful of loose change he can’t see.
“I don’t wait for you, little girl. That’s not how this works.”
Go to hell. That probably isn’t going to help my position any.
And that’s not what I really want to say. Please find me, Damon. He’s the only one who can solve this for me. He’s also the reason I’m in the middle of this, a twisted game of tug-of-war between father and son.
“Okay,” I say softly. “I’ll be good. I swear.”
“Do you really think Daddy is going to use the money to pay off the debt?”
I don’t care about the debt anymore. Don’t care about the money. What I care about is that Daddy tells Damon Scott what happened. “He knows what I’m giving up.”
Silver eyes gleam in the dark. “Do you?”
I glare at him. “You want to have sex with me.”
“Wrong.”
Goose bumps rise on my skin, despite the warm night. It only makes it worse. “What, then?”
“I want to break you down into parts—into hope and despair. Into love and fear. I want to consume your humanity, feast on you, until there’s nothing left but a small, jagged core at the center.”
What a bastard. “Why?”
He laughs. “Do you ever think about how mechanical sex is? Men so desperate for something warm and wet to fuck. A purely physical sensation. We might as well be automatons.”
I’ve never thought about sex like that. I never think about it at all.
That’s a lie, Penny. You think about Damon.
He continues, his expression severe. “I learned to block out physical sensations as a child. Pain. Sex. Hunger. They only touch our bodies. Not our minds.”
I swallow hard, remembering how that wild boy had left home. Something had been done to him. And something had been done to the man in front of me. Men turned into monsters. “What happened to you?”
He holds his hand out like I’m a little girl crossing the street. “Come along.”
“You’re insane.”
“No, little peach. I’m the only sane one in a world full of rabid animals.”
Please find me, Damon. Find me in time. I put my empty hand in his. He squeezes gently, as if to comfort me. It’s a strange sensation, to be consoled by my enemy. Less strange to be led by the king. I drop a single penny near the curb, hoping it will be small enough to escape notice, hoping it will shine enough to bring Damon to me.
He takes me down two streets with a familiarity that shows he’s used to walking the west side streets. Every few steps I drop a penny, leaving a trail for him to follow.
As long as he comes in time. Please, Damon.
The sign for the Midtown Asylum has long since crumbled, leaving only a large, plantation-style building. On either side, there are houses falling down. It’s dark inside them. Empty.
We’re alone. The last coin falls into the overgrown weeds.
He unlocks the front door and steps inside, finally releasing me.
Leaving me to stare at the pictures spread over the floor. The insides of senators’ houses. The interiors of city hall. Windows into our twisted little world.
“The desk,” he says, hanging his coat on a hook like this is a five-star hotel instead of a broken down mental hospital.
I take a step forward, horrified to find my bedroom in a photo. “You watched me.”
My faded quilt and my kitten poster. The room I had undressed in and slept in. The bed where I had touched myself thinking of Damon Scott.
As if he can read my thoughts he smiles. “Sometimes at night, I’d hear you breathe faster. See your hand moving under the covers. It’s so beautiful, the way you love yourself.”
My eyes widen. “I’m not leaving here, am I?”
“Not alive.” He sounds almost regretful about that.
The last thing I see will be those silver eyes. I run for the door, knowing I’m trapped.
Of course he catches me.
That night I learn why Damon Scott could hold his breath underwater for so long. Because his father forced him there, longer and longer until he had to adapt to survive. It’s a brutal existence, the water closing in on you, almost praying for death because it would be a relief. Green tiles. Black water. The certainty that this will be the last thing I see.
The decision to survive, if only to spite the monster.
My body is broken and split apart. Violated. Twisted into something unfeeling.
That night my mind cracks into a million splinters.
But the king was wrong about one thing. I don’t die, no matter how many times I wish I would. I learn to hold my breath, the same way Damon Scott did. We have something in common now. We’re both monsters. Not the kind you can see on the outside. He wears a secret smile on his handsome face. Bruises faded back to pale skin on my naked body.
It’s only inside that something can never be repaired.