by Liza James
Ruby pauses beside me, inching closer as I turn to look her way. She's just as torn as I am, I can see it on her face in the way her eyes are shining and her lips are pulled into a tightly quivering line.
"K," she cautions, and I already know what she's about to suggest. "You know I would never—"
"No," I interrupt her, speaking the words we both want to say anyway. I know us, and we'll never give into the likes of fucking Dom. Betraying the girls in our final breaths? No fucking way. "You don't want to, I don't want to. Don't suggest anything out of obligation to keep me alive. We aren't doing that to them."
She doesn't respond at first, and Dom snaps his fingers to hurry us along. She nods in agreement, and suddenly shifts behind me, wrapping her arms around my waist and pulling me against her chest.
Dom drops his head in disappointment, shaking it back and forth before looking up with newly renewed rage in his energy. I can feel it radiating off of his form, the fact that he isn't getting what he really wants at the end of this. But then he snaps, his voice rising from his throat in a graveled scream. He slams the butt of the gun against my head, and I feel warm blood pouring from my skull as excruciating pain pulses inside of me.
"You don't make the fucking decisions here," he grips my jaw tightly, and Ruby reaches forward to attempt shoving him away. I'm caught between them, and he's roughly twisting my face toward Ruby while gripping hers and dragging her to me. The gun is in one hand, pressed against my head beneath his hold while Ruby's lips are forced against mine.
My heartbeat is battering uncontrollably in my chest, a new course of fear breaking through me as everything begins falling apart around us. I don't feel like I can gain control here, and while Ruby and I are trying to pull away from each other, the barrel of the gun is being buried painfully in the side of my fucking skull.
"Lay the fuck back." He grips Ruby by the hair and yanks her to the ground as she cries out, shoving me forward and on top of her while the gun stays pressed against me. "Kiss her again," he demands but when I try to shift off and get away, he's already there, ripping me forward and over her lips again.
Ruby and I kiss, in a way that's fucking confused and desperate for survival. I don't know how to get out of this, and the situation is turning more and more hopeless by the second. Ruby and I are both bleeding, my head still pulsing with the injuries and a hazy fog settling over me. The adrenaline I've been feeling is falling in the midst of defeat, and the fear taking root is becoming my stronger emotion.
Come on, come on. Get it fucking together, K.
Dom's hands are grasping at my shirt, ripping up and over my head before he moves to Ruby and does the same. We're both pushing against him, our hands clawing at his skin and face as we try to take control. But he keeps maintaining the upper hand with the fucking gun, using it to beat us into place with hits and threats until Ruby and I forced together on the floor.
"I tried to let you choose this," he mutters, his fingers digging deep into my hair as he holds me above Ruby. Our chests heaving together with each breath, her hands resting on my hips in nothing sexual, but a simple connection to not be alone in this. As if she's offering me her strength while she's taking some of mine as well. "But you decided to take the hard way. I'm not surprised, really. The two of you have always been the most corrupted, the great sinners of the club while everyone else survived in your wake of darkness."
He pushes me toward her, my body trembling and shaking against hers while I continue fighting against his hold. "Now fuck her!" He screams at the top of his lungs, bellowing through the wide open space and echoing off the walls around us.
In one instant, I'm attempting to throw my elbow back and against his ribs when he cries out in pain. I'm surprised because I didn't think I actually hit him, but he immediately releases me at the same time. I scramble back and off of Ruby, just as I see blood pouring from Dom's back. It's soaking his shirt, spilling over his legs as he stumbles back and reaches behind him.
My eyes fly up and land on both Lyp and Aura standing at the back of the fucking room. I want to run to her, pull her against me and feel her warmth but I force myself to ignore it as I launch toward Dom and Ruby quickly rushes after me.
I'm suddenly wrapping my arms around the back of his neck, yanking him to the ground as Ruby climbs on top. Lyp and Aura slowly waltz toward us, as Dom yells and thrashes in our hold. He's bleeding out though, and suddenly his movements are getting sloppier, slower with each passing moment.
Aura bends down and pulls the knife free of his back, twisting it in her hand while Lyp crawls down and on top of him, replacing Ruby's frame while I rest at his back.
Lyp's eyes meet mine, alight with something I've never seen before. It's the same look inside of Aura's gaze. This strange detachment from reality, a vacancy that shines with power and freedom.
Blood stains the floor below us, and that's when I remember the cameras on either side. I catch Ruby's attention, nodding to them so she can run and turn each of them off. She does, and immediately comes back to our sides, the four of us holding Dom down in a storm of chaos.
"You'll never get away with this." Dom bites out, meeting Aura's eyes for the first time since they showed up. "You don't want to do this to me, right baby? My Wildflower. You know your purpose, your strength now. This is exactly what I wanted you to become. I've always wanted you to be free." His tone is pleading, and Aura's gaze widens briefly before she tilts her head and leans closer beside Lyp. The two girls he stole the most from, straddling his waist with knives in their hands.
"You're right, daddy. You did help me find my freedom," she whispers, her voice light and void of connection. She jams her knife forward and under his ribs as he screams out in pain once again. "You also stole from me, from Ruby, from Lyp and K and so many others. You destroyed and ruined, slaughtered, and raped. In my quest for freedom, you've become nothing."
His eyes are strained, bouncing back and forth between the girls while he struggles to breathe. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, his blood soaked hands scrambling forward to grip Aura’s face.
She lets him, not an ounce of fear in her eyes. I look to Ruby who tenses, I can tell she’s holding herself back. But Dom’s sick and graveled voice taints the space in his dark toxicity. “You think you have a place here? Amongst these sinners? They don’t know the role you’ve played in their pain, my sweet Wildflower. Do you think they’ll still accept you when they find out it was Sunflower’s sister you sacrificed all those years ago?” His words sink through each of us, and my trembling suddenly stills at the weight of this revelation.
When I look to Aura and Lyp, I expect to see some kind of intense reaction—something angry, something violent. Like an explosion of pent up rage bursting through at once.
But what I’m met with is far worse than what I anticipated. Aura’s nose flares in response, her hands going still while blood slowly slips down her forearms. Lyp’s eyes widen for the quickest moment, as she realizes what he’s just said.
But then it changes. Her lips flatten into a tight line, her shoulders shift back and her spine straightens. Her already twisted and bitter energy turns even darker, that detachment slipping away further as Aura suddenly yanks the knife free of Dom’s stomach.
She leans over him, and Lyp moves behind her back, hovering over her shoulder while the two women meet Dom’s gaze. “Everything we have ever done, ever endured, ever experienced, was because of your manipulative and disgusting beliefs.” Aura whispers, her teeth gritted tightly together as silent tears fall from her eyes.
“If I know one thing,” Lyp suddenly says, lifting her hands and resting them on Aura’s shoulders. “Is that anyone near you will be forced, coerced and groomed into doing things we never wanted. Things that haven’t even plagued our nightmares before meeting you.” She spits the words out on venom, just before raising one hand to drag through his blood. A sick smile spreads across her lips, and when she looks to him again, he has blood seeping from his
mouth. "I was lost to you," she continues on a whisper, reaching her hand up and resting it against his face as she shifts beside Aura.
I watch her in complete enrapture, caught in the energy exploding from her body. She's a different person right now, and Ruby and I both know it as we watch our girls find the freedom they've been desperate to claim.
"I let you make me believe I could never be anything more than what I was. I surrendered to your torture, to your belief system in hopes of finding myself along the way. As if you were the only one who could make me worthy of living." She suddenly pulls grips his jaw tightly as she drives her own knife deep into his gut. He grunts and yells in pain again, more blood staining his body and ours while we continue holding him in place.
"You are nothing," she repeats Aura's words slowly, twisting the knife inside him before yanking it back out again. "And now, I've found my worth in who I am. Outside of you, The Nation, my childhood, mistakes. Who I choose to fucking love and who I don't. All of that belongs to me and no one else. Fuck you, Dom." The two girls stab him again and again and again, until the four of us are soaked in his blood and it floods the ground beneath all of us.
Dom chokes on his own blood, it pours from his mouth while we all watch in heated silence. Our hands lay on his body, Lyp and Aura staring into his eyes as he finally succumbs to death.
He speaks final words, and they are exactly what would be expected. "My ascension has finally come."
My heart is racing. I can't control it, nothing seems to be making sense anymore. But as I sit here, with Dom's lifeless body beneath my form, all I feel is complete and total relief.
Relief.
Is that normal? When your monster is finally vanquished, by the hands of those he tortured, covered in his blood and listening to his cries of pain.
I feel relief.
I feel freedom.
I feel an explosion of anger and hatred finally leaking out into the atmosphere around me.
But then it hits me again, all at once as I drop the knife to the ground and scramble off of him. K releases her hold on him and rushes toward me, just as Ruby desperately grasps for Aura and drags her closer as well.
K's hands fall to my face, and my own grip her as well, yanking her tightly against me as I struggle to catch my breath.
"I thought you were dead," I stammer out. My voice trembling violently as my hands run frantically over her body. "I thought you were dead." It's the only phrase ringing through my mind now, again and again while I try to process the fact that she's still alive.
"I'm here, I'm here. I'm alive, okay? I'm here." Her tone is just as hoarse, trembling with understanding of what's happened here. "Fucking hell, we're still here."
My eyes bounce back and forth between hers, my fingers lifting and dragging across her lips, her cheeks, her eyes, her hair. Tracing and feeling every inch of her to know she's still alive. God, she's still fucking here.
"You're breathing," I say, as if I have to speak it out loud for it to be true.
"I'm breathing," she replies, running her hands through my hair and along my jaw as her eyes rake over me.
"I love you," I say the words as if they're burning my flesh to stay within me. They have to be spoken, released, and given to her in order for me to continue breathing. "I fucking love you."
"I love you." She pulls me against her and wraps her arms around my shoulders. Mine fall tightly to her waist and I run my fingers up and down her bare spine again. I don't even want to think about what he was forcing them to do, but I understand exactly what it feels like to be a slave to someone like him.
"We've got to call the police," Ruby announces over the sound of our heavy breathing and quiet cries. "They'll have most of the video, it'll prove our self-defense in this."
"Yeah, you're right. Thank fuck for that," K replies, her hold tightening even further around me. She refuses to let go and I do the same.
I'm so fucking over spending life pretending like I'm living. Tonight, everything changed. Tomorrow, we keep down this path of self-worth and discovery.
I won't be shoved into boxes of who I should be anymore, my worth laid out at the hands of men.
Fuck them.
I suddenly hear the sound of Aura's raspy voice speaking over the line in hurried words. My heart continues hammering, finding solace and comfort in the warmth of K but still terrified at what's to come when the police arrive.
She hangs up, and K immediately begins asking us questions. "How the hell did you both find us?" She pulls back briefly, meeting my eyes in confusion and surprise.
"We followed you, from the moment you left the fucking apartment." The tail end of my sentence lilts with annoyance at the fact she left in the first place.
"I'm sorry I did that," she whispers to me, her eyes shining in genuine regret. "I'm sorry I've done a lot of fucking things."
I reach forward and press my lips to hers, savoring the taste of her skin. "I know. But never again, that was our deal. I'm not kidding K, we can't do this shit again."
"Never," she replies, nodding while long strands of her hair slip in front of her eyes. "It's us together going forward. Every fucking time."
I'm almost smiling when I suddenly hear the sound of a slap from Ruby and Aura. When I glance their way, Ruby is rubbing the palm of her hand over her cheek, wincing in pain as her girlfriend lays into her. "Lie to me again and I'll fucking kill you."
A laugh escapes me, and I can hardly believe it when my eyes fall to Dom's lifeless body on the ground again. I have to force my eyes shut, because as the adrenaline falls and safety becomes more apparent, the reality begins sinking in and under my flesh.
But the sounds of sirens soon blow through the space, and before we know it, cops and SWAT members are swarming abandoned building.
Each of us quickly lay on the ground, hands perfectly visible as we're quickly yanked up and cuffed before filtered into cop cars. It feels like I'm in a permanent state of panic, but when I look to K, things begin settling.
She's the epitome of calm and collected. No ounce of regret or fear on her features. I swear, even if she went to jail, she wouldn't take back a single second of what we did tonight.
On our drive to the station, my mind flashes with moments of our childhood, when we were teenagers and spent every moment together after school.
Stolen touches against her hands, or her waist. When I'd hesitate before reaching forward and rolling strands of her hair between my fingers. Watching her while she worked on homework or feeling her beside me if we feel asleep.
There was something so powerful there, a connection growing between us that held a strength I never fully understood.
Since everything happened, when she came to my house that day and our relationship was destroyed, I've lived inside a box. I've become this shell of a human, living to please others, to entertain the masses when my heart was calling me elsewhere.
I left my worth in my apartment, or on the stage, or in the accolades of men when I should have been searching within myself.
But each journey to self-discovery is different. Each path of understanding, of realizing your own value is riddled with experiences that shape who we become. My path, my decisions don't have to be based in the expectations of others or societal molds.
I don't have to give myself to people I don't want to. I no longer have to search for my identity in the opinions of others and fuck, I didn't even realize I was doing that until now. Until I've been alone and in pain so drastically that I was forced to dig deep in order to find myself.
The pain, the trauma, it's reminded me how fucking strong I truly am. I'm the one I go to sleep with every single night, and I'm the one who will always be there in the morning.
Fuck expectations, screw ideations and other people’s perspectives.
I'm living for me. Now and always.
I'm on fire tonight. Literally on fire. My skin is burning with an unbound electricity bursting within my blood.
Music poun
ds in my ears, my hand shifting up and down the neck of my acoustic guitar while I play. The crowd is packed tonight, and the little brewery I snagged this gig at is everything I could ever want for one of my first shows.
I can't even believe this.
Words fall from my lips as I sing, the beat pulsing in every fiber of my being and taking me to this high I only experience while I'm here, doing this.
Living out the dream I had for my life, chasing after these moments with the only girl I could ever want to be with.
My eyes fall down to the front of the stage, where several couples and girls have gathered and are moving to my music.
My music. I want to laugh, an outrageous smile pulling my lips wide when I say the words again in my head.
But they aren't who I'm looking for now, and when I lift my gaze, I catch sight of K standing in the back. Her elbows are resting against a tall circular table, and she holds a beer in her hand.
She's smiling. Uncontrollably as her eyes remain glued to my own. I get lost in them; in the way her gaze immediately throws us into a space that's all ours. The connection between us pulls tightly, licking along my skin while she watches me play.
I want to fuck her.
Again and again and again and again. While she’s moaning my name and begging to come, while her body writhes and moves against mine.
Thankfully, I'm just ending my set, and when I lean into the mic and tell everyone thank you, she's already walking toward the stage to take my guitar from me. She reaches up, wrapping her fingers around the neck as her other hand takes my own and I jump down. We walk through the crowd, her arm slung around my shoulder as we move to the back table.
"God, you are hot as fuck when you play," she whispers in my ear, her nose brushing along my skin and breathing me in.