***
I was aware of being dragged. Of being a thing that bumped and bounced across the grass. But then Don picked me up, wiping the warm, sticky blood from my temple. He carried me through the door like a newlywed carrying his wife over the threshold, and we were back in the warm, stifling basement. Don sat me in the same chair the Lieutenant had dumped me in only yesterday.
My head lolled back, but he seized my chin and righted it, dropping to a knee. When my vision sharpened, I saw he was staring intently at my face.
“You’ve always liked it so rough,” he murmured, stroking my face. “Strange creature. Eight years is a long time to wait for you. But there’s nothing better than delayed gratification, is there? You learned that from me.”
He kissed me gently on the forehead, then rose, walking to the wooden weapon chest. Almost absently, he pulled the drawers open, one by one. I knew what he was looking for before he found it—same as Laurel, of course, because so much of who we were was an echo of him. This man who’d reached into our brains when we were young.
There it was, the blackened dagger with the needle tip.
He turned with the knife, looking down at me with heat in his eyes, the way a man looks at a lover. His strong jaw was even more pronounced with a five-o’clock shadow. He looked almost love-drunk.
My hands weren’t bound, but the moment I shifted in my chair, Don was beside me, pulling off my jacket, seizing the thin cotton of my shirt and rubbing the dagger against it until the fabric tore. He ripped a line up my shirt, rending it in two.
“I’ll tell you a secret.” His voice was low. “All this time away has made me needy.” He pressed his lips to my chest; I felt the heat of his mouth on my skin when he spoke. “Did you ever guess one day I’d fall on my knees for you?”
The words were intoxicating, each a little cup of wine. Eight years ago, I would have drunk them until I was senseless.
“You need me,” I murmured into his hair. “Because you’re nothing without us.”
He leaned back and grinned, placing the point of the pugio in the dip of my collarbone and dragging down, drawing a razor-thin line of blood between my breasts. The tip of the dagger came to rest against the underwire that held my bra together. “I love you and your games,” he murmured. “Running away, telling your teachers I’m a bad man, showing up unannounced after years. What will you think of next?”
“You used to say I was pathetic, but you were the pathetic one. Just as desperate for validation as us.” My throat was raw. “You did everything to make us think we couldn’t live without you. You knew that’s the only way we’d follow you. You were a parasite.”
“Look what I did.” Don flung his hand at the ceiling. Above us, music swelled, and raucous applause broke out. “I built you a kingdom. I’m remaking the world. I’m close, and once I’m there, you can have it, too. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”
“You used me.” The words flew from me. “I wanted affection, and you preyed on me.”
“No.” He pointed the pugio at the line of blood bisecting my heart. “You sought me out. You were obsessed with me. When do you think the idea for the Paters first came to me? Not with Rachel—with you. The little feminist beauty queen. If I could get you to fall to your knees, who else? How far could I take it? You opened a world of possibility.”
“You tortured me.” I choked on the words.
“Don’t rewrite history,” he said. “Don’t twist what happened between us because you went out into the world and someone made you feel ashamed. You begged me to be with you.”
Hot tears tracked down my cheeks. “That doesn’t mean it was right.”
“Come back to me,” he said. “We’re on the verge of something. The entire reason I built the Paters is coming together as we speak. You’re back in time to see us make history. We’re going to rise up and take back our country, piece by piece.”