by Lucian Bane
Once they got their food ordered, Bones turned in his seat and stretched his legs, groaning.
She stroked her hands over his legs, making him moan and stretch again. “I wonder what would happen if you took sleeping pills,” she muttered. “Would it prevent X from coming you think?”
“I have no idea,” he muttered. “But I’m fucking tired.”
“Well sit up!” she said.
He gave a long groan.
“Bones, open your eyes!” She yanked on him, making him sit up. “Don’t fuck around. X freaks me out.”
He sat up and looked at her, anger hardening his face. He finally turned and faced the steering wheel, looking pissed.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.” She wasn’t exactly sure what he was mad about.
He stared out of his window for a while before turning his head, aiming his gaze to the seat next to her. “Did he hurt you?”
“Not… really.”
“Why are you so scared of him?”
Winter’s emotions ran a million miles an hour suddenly with fear driving. She didn’t like talking about X with Bones. “He…” She paused, realizing everything she wanted to say either wasn’t technically true or would hurt Bones maybe. “I don’t like talking about him.”
“That doesn’t make me feel a damn bit better,” he muttered, looking at her.
She faced forward, hating this. Why did every good thing have to be overshadowed by bad? She watched as a Sonic worker skated food to a nearby car and smiled at how fun that looked. “We should go skating. You ever skated?” She met his gaze and stared, the tension in her body slowly leaving when his eyes softened.
“No,” he muttered.
“We should go sometime. I could teach you.”
Her upbeat words rang hollow in the brewing silence. “I’m getting tired,” he barely mumbled.
“Okay, we can… we can call for pizza from the hotel?” She was ready to have him secured. As much as she hated to see him that way she was more afraid of what X would do when he came and remembered what she’d done.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
****
“You sure you need your feet done too?” Winter asked.
Bones secured the restraints to his ankles, his eyes heavy as he nodded. “Rather be safe than sorry as you say.”
“Right,” she said softly. “You sound really tired.”
“I am.” In more ways than he cared to think about. “Test the monitors,” he muttered. “Then you can come finish the final restraints.”
“Do you feel okay?”
Fucking Christ. “I feel great, Winter.”
She knelt next to him. “Hey,” she whispered, taking his face into her hands. Her touch caused an instant tug-of-war inside him but her soft lips on his defeated him instantly. “I’m sorry if I ask the wrong questions, I’m worried about you, that’s all.” He reached for her lips with his and she leaned back in.
“I like kissing you,” he whispered, feeling her lips with his. His heart raced with the fact that a man he didn’t know inside him would come within the hour. A man who wanted to take her away from him.
“I like kissing you too.”
He’d asked if X had hurt her but what he really wanted to know was did she like him? Did he give her things she wanted that he didn’t? Did he make her feel things he didn’t? The idea he might made him sick with rage inside. He wanted so fucking bad to tell her but didn’t know how. “I… I like you. God, fuck,” he whispered, lowering his head and clenching his eyes shut at the stupid words. Don’t talk to X, don’t look at him don’t think about him, that’s what he wanted to blurt.
“Talk to me Bones.” She pulled his lips back to hers, pressing softly. “What are you afraid of?”
He let go of several breaths on her. “Everything.”
“I’m not leaving you, no matter what,” she said, pulling back and searching his eyes. “Are you scared about that?”
“When I get better,” he whispered, fighting to breathe. “I swear, I’ll make things up to you. I’ll… be good to you in every way. I’ll learn, I’ll find a way and learn.”
She kissed him, stealing his breath and words. “You already are,” she whispered back hotly on his mouth. “You’re everything I want. Look at me. You’re so beautiful to me, Bones. I love you. It’s Bones I love. Bones, broken all to hell in fifty different ways, that’s the man I love.”
“Fuck, Winter,” he gasped as she kissed him with more passion than he could stand while shackled. “Please go. I don’t trust myself anymore,” he strained. “I can’t take another man touching you, using my body to touch you, the thought of it is making me crazy. Fuck, I’m already crazy,” he gasped, leaning his head back against the wall.
“Oh Bonesy,” she whispered, putting her head on his chest and hugging him. She showered his face with kisses next, and he’d never felt anything so fucking amazing as she whispered, “We’ll get through this you’ll see. I won’t leave you alone in the dark, I promise you. I promise you.”
THE NEXT CHAPTER
Winter paced in the adjoining hotel room, watching Bones on the monitor. He’d made her tape it on the wall above the bathroom sink for the best angle. They’d decided the bathroom door hinge was the strongest thing to attach him to.
Every time Bones opened his eyes she froze, waiting for the angry appearance of X.
She had to bite her tongue on stupid questions. She mostly needed to hear him talk and make sure it was still Bones. She’d asked if he was having a hard time going to sleep at one point, which led to his hysterical laughter for five whole minutes. She’d laughed too when he finally managed to say something about taking so long to count the sheep since he was counting for every person in his head. She was happy to see him laughing but to think he was on some edge losing his shit had her scared to death. What if she lost him? What if this X fucker took him like he said?
She wanted to tell him those things but couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud, worried that somehow X would hear and it would give him more power.
She froze when he began looking around like he was searching for something. “The fuck,” he muttered.
Oh shit. That was X. She looked at the speaker button. Bones didn’t tell her anything about talking to him but she knew he didn’t want her to. And even though they barely talked about having some kind of plan, utilizing this position they had X in, they’d not come up with anything solid. But she’d not stopped thinking about what to do. And she still felt like doing nothing was the stupidest thing to do.
“Helloooo!” he called at the monitor before inspecting the restraints carefully. “How are you Pretty Doll,” he sang, raising his hands and waving his fingers at her. “I’m not mad at you,” he said. “I don’t blame you for any of this but you need to listen up, I have to tell you things. Things that will help you. But we’ll need to renegotiate.”
Renegotiate? Like telling me enough information that would actually help? She grabbed the monitor, staring at him., Her finger shaking over the speaker button. She needed to be strong. Assertive. The Prime Mover, the Shit Rainer. She pressed the button. “X,” she said, forcing her voice even. “How’s your head?”
A huge grin filled his face as he stared like he could see her. “Better than Bones’ I’m sure. “How did you get out of that one?”
“I told him everything, that’s how.”
“Ohhh,” he said with huge eyes. “That would explain why I’m a prisoner,” he laughed, seeming to be having the time of his life. He began going through the supplies she’d given him. “I got my pillow, my blankie, food, drinks.” He held up an empty soda bottle. “My urinal?” he wondered with a giggle. “This is all so sweet, you didn’t have to. I’m touched, I really am. But Z isn’t going to be too happy about this,” he informed with a wince.
“Sorry to hear that,” she said, pacing while staring at him. “Z will have to deal.”
“Oh, Z deals, Pretty Winter. And you do
n’t want to get on his wrong side.”
“I doubt there is a right side with him, X.”
He nodded with a slow grin. “Honestly? I only know one side. The side that helps me do what I do.”
“Which is?”
“Still not your concern,” he said with a programmed smile.
It was time to move the chess pieces and oh how she wished she had Bones’ ruthless, calculating skills in that department. She’d have to find a way, that’s all. Make do with what she had, like she always did. She could do this, she was a master at making dirty shit shine.
She pressed the button and gave several shaky breaths into the mic. “What kind of renegotiating did you have in mind?”
She didn’t like how easy it was to make her voice weak and pathetic sounding. But at seeing how the tactic worked on him, her pride returned. “I was thinking we could speed our little game of clue up a little.”
“In exchange for?”
“Your help.”
“With what?”
“Getting Bones where I need him.”
“Which is where?”
“California.”
California? So he didn’t know they were already headed there. “Bones doesn’t want to go there.”
“I know he doesn’t because he’s a pussy, always running and hiding.”
“From what?”
“The usual, Pretty Winter,” he said, sounding bored to tears. “His past, his demons, his mommy dearest.”
“And if I agree to this?”
“Then I give you a huuuuuuuuuge info dump,” he said with sparkly eyes and smile that made her queasy.
“Deal. I’ll get him to California.”
“Do you miss me?” he wondered suddenly. “You know, I should tell you that out of allllll the women I’ve had—and I’ve had alllllll of them—you are my absolute favorite.”
She stood there, looking at him as it hit her. He used Bones body to live through. Flashes of naked perfect women, faces gripped in orgasm as he fucked them, brought a jealous rage that slammed her in the stomach. That’s not Bones. That’s not Bones she kept repeating with each steadying breath.
“What’s the matter,” he whispered, angling his smiling face at the camera. “Did you think you were my one and only?” The comical absurdity danced in his eyes, making it easier to hate him. “Keep a look out for different tastes and smells on Bones. Each and every pussy has a distinct flavor, like a fingerprint.”
She grit her teeth and closed her eyes, focusing. She pressed the button. “You’re talking to a whore whose seen, fucked, and sucked, more cocks than you can probably count. Start telling me something I give a shit about. Start telling me about Bones,” she muttered.
She caught the flash of anger in his face just before he lowered it. Two can play that, Mr. X Man
“Here’s the deal with your precious Bones,” he said, the metal restraints clanking as he crossed his legs and dug through the bags of chips, selecting Cheetos. “It allllll started with his fucking mommy.” He opened the bag and chomped the Cheeto like bugs bunny did his carrots.
“And his Aunt?”
His eyes widened and he laughed, shaking his head. “Is that what he said? His Aunt?” he shook his head, digging another chip out of his bag and chomped it with tiny, rapid bites. “Poooor stupid Bones. Aunt Josey,” he said. “She was the one that came when mommy” he emphasized the term “would leave. But the fact of the matter is that Bones didn’t realize and still has a hard time getting, is that Aunt Josey and mommy were one and the same. But because they were night and day personalities, to
Bones, they were not the same people. And mommy,” he stressed again, “called her dear other half by a name. ‘Your Aunt Josey is going to be upset when she hears’,” he mocked in a shrilly voice. “She was always holding that bitch over our head.”
Winter didn’t miss the change from Bones address to the we, as she listened in astonishment to this news. “So, since they looked identical, he thought she was really her twin?”
“Bingo. I mean you could not tell them apart!” he said, giggling as he chomp chomp chomped another chip. “It was uncanny. Like they were the same people!” he cried, busting out in wheezing laughter.
So, that’s why Bones created a twin? “What did they do to him?”
He stopped chewing briefly and shot up his eyebrows. “Ohhh, it’s what they didn’t do, Pretty Winter.” He winked at her, making her stomach sick before getting back to devouring each individual chip. “Somebody had to do the dirty work. And Reginald was too weak to handle it so… Bones did it. Bones did all the dirty work. And he hid Reginald. Until they ripped him.” He yanked viciously at the air. “Ripped him right… from… his soul.” He stared at her with burning eyes as he ran another Cheeto through his loud teeth chopper.
“Oh God,” Winter muttered.
“And let’s not forget the stepdaddy. Richard the fucking great. Isn’t there always one of these in the stories?” he asked, his face intense. “Some sick, twisted, step something. Oh he was a mastermind of evil. Met our mother when we were threeish. Mom, being a closet schizophrenic—which means she didn’t yet know she was…” he spun his finger in slow circles at his temple. “So, she was just prime meat for that crazy stew this fucker was going to cook up. I tried to tell Bones when we found out she was sick. At least she had a justified reason, right? Am I right?” he asked seeming genuine. “Isn’t that a whole lot better than having a sane mother letting your boyfriend use you in their FFF.”
“FFF?” Winter wondered, fighting sickness.
“Fuck Factory Franchise. Nasty business. Buying, trading, selling, torturing, killing. All for the joy and glory of it.”
“Do you do this still?” she whispered, feeling sick.
He stared at her for many seconds, seeming eager to answer that. “That’ll be all the information you get for now, Pretty Winter.”
“What happened to him at the institute,” she hurried.
He held her gaze in the monitor, a slow smile forming. “Well they tried to help him of course. Help him understand that he had the same sickness like his mommy. That his poor, little, Reginald, was just…” he spread his fingers in an explosion “figment of his imagination.” He slowly leaned back against the door, his eyes burning with an almost jubilant hatred. “Little Bonesy didn’t handle that one so well,” he said, his voice deep. He reached into the air and grabbed hold of something invisible and broke it with a violence. “That little psychotic nugget shattered him,” he finished in low giggles.
“Why do you seem happy about this?” she whispered, tears streaming.
He stared a long time at the screen before he said, “Pretty Winter. That’s just the icing on the cake. You get Bones to California. And I’ll give you something that will change… everything.”
“Change how!” she gasped, shaking her head. “He’s forgotten all of this, did you know?”
“Yes, I know,” he said as though it were tired news.
“He can’t handle that, he doesn’t need to hear this, I don’t see how that would help him.”
He shook his head slowly, looking at her like she was way off track. “Trust me, Pretty Winter,” he said softly. “What I’m going to tell him… will set him free.”
“I don’t trust you,” she gasped. “You want to take over his body, his mind.”
He erupted in laughter that made her feel more dense and stupid by the second. She was clearly missing something. “Pretty FUCKING WINTER,” he howled at the screen. “I get that you don’t have a college FUCKING degree, and I actually love that about you the most, but FUUUUUUUUUCK!” he growled, dumbfounded. “I AAAAAAAAAAM BONES! It’s just a matter of TIME before he REMEMBERS that.”
THE NEXT CHAPTER
“Winter!”
Winter bolted up and looked around, blinking sleep from her heavy eyes.
“Winter?”
She flew off the bed and grabbed the monitor, pressing the speaker. “I’m here,�
�� she hurried. “Sorry, I fell asleep.”
“Come get this shit off me, my ass is fucking numb.”
“Coming.”
She gasped and closed her eyes, looking at the clock. God, 6:00 AM? How did his body keep up? She’d finally fallen asleep at 4. She froze at remembering what X had said. Tears flooded into her eyes, reminding her she’d fallen asleep the same way. Crying. Crying for Bones, for his little pretend Reginald and even for X. X was Bones. Bones was X. Bones was Reginald. Her poor sweet angel. Shattered. Just like X had said.
She swiped her eyes and hurried to the door, taking several breaths. She needed to protect Bones. She needed to protect him, that’s all. Somehow.
She entered the room with the key, as she dropped to the floor, unlocking his feet first then his hands. She pulled him up and hurried to the shower. “You should take a hot shower to help with your stiff muscles.”
After she turned on the water, she straightened and faced him. “What’s wrong?” It wasn’t a question, it was a knowing and he wanted the details. He’d want every one of them. And he’d know if she were lying.
He stepped toward her and she met his dark gaze, her heart hammering. Deep concern and worry moved in the shadows of his eyes as he took hold of her face, his touch soft. This was it. She had to tell him, there was no getting out of it. “Fuck, what?” he whispered, swiping the tears from her face.
She met his gaze, blinking away more tears as a sob wrenched out of her. “Bones,” she choked, shoving him out of her way, needing air. She stopped in the room and stood with her hands covering her face. She dropped them and found Bones standing near, watching her with a worried look.
“Remember what we said? Rainer of shit, Prime movers?” he reminded her softly.
“I talked to X,” she blurted, waiting for his anger.
But he only said, “That’s a given,” still being sweet.
“He said if I could get you to go to California he’d tell me things. I agreed, because we’re already going to California I just didn’t tell him that.”
“Good girl,” he said, carefully moving closer towards him.