Lover's Curse (Red Queen Awards Winner)

Chapter Seven - A Spark

Guess I'd rather hurt than feel nothing at all                                                                                                                        - Need You Now by Lady A

Mare

His touch still burns.

I've given up trying to scrub it away.  Instead, I let it linger on my skin, desperate to understand every scrape, bite, pinch, and bruise, the compelling depth I've found in this pain.  My focus is sharper than it has ever been.  No Skonos will bid these marks to fade.

What will he do when he sees them?  When he remembers all the things we did in the dark, the secrets we shared, the games we played?

Will he want to do it again?

It doesn't matter.  He'll be too busy to consider it as the next stage of my plan unfolds.  Maven is a can of gasoline.  A spark, and he'll explode.

A few hours after my summon, he arrives in the late afternoon.  I keep to the corner, sliding behind him as he enters and tracing circles on his back.  My voice brims with hurt.  "You erased them."

Maven breathes in my arms, darkened shapes exposed to broad daylight.  "You should too.  People will gossip."

"Oh, darling," I purr.  "They're always gossiping.  We're quite the spectacle."

"A Skonos will be here within the hour."  He steps into the hallway.  "Get some rest."

I catch his hand.  "That's all?"

Maven pries my fingers away, silent.

"Fuck me and leave.  That's what I mean to you."  The whimpers come too easily, the tears too fast.  Nails tear through his flesh and mine.  "This love you've caged me for.  That's all it meant to you."

His hands shake.  He lets me carve a grey line on his palm, flinching.  "If I look at you for too long, I'll cry."

"Then cry."

It takes a minute.  His pride faces off against my own, but Maven has taken all the shame I have.  He will cry for me.  He will lay himself bare lest I feel underdressed.  It's the least he can do.

"I'm not sure what happened last night.  Whether something snapped in you."  A droplet glides across his cheek.  "Or in me."

"Does it matter?  We're both broken either way."  A coarse laugh.  "This is the second time we've done this.  Will it be a habit?"

"It shouldn't be."  Maven steps backward.

"'Should' isn't the same as 'will'."

He grits his teeth.  "Mare, I can't see the future."

"Isn't that convenient."  My lids hang heavy, and my limbs hang heavier.  "Jon's gone.  I wonder how much he lied to you."

Maven lingers in the doorway.  "You'll never know."

"Neither will you."

As he leaves, my legs grow heavier, eyes fixed on a point he cannot see.  I gasp, hand clasped too late to muffle the sound.  My neck twists as I spiral to darkness, manacles chinking as they hit the ground first.  Look at me.  Watch me suffer.

Know yourself responsible.

He catches me.  I hang limp in what must be his arms, stretch a hand to a blurry shadow which can only be his face.  "Put me down.  I don't want--"  My eyes flutter shut.  "Don't touch me."

I had no opportunities to practice, lest I give away to the cameras that this is an act.  But I am always on the verge of collapse nowadays, and he must know it.  Fear it.