Rinse [manxman]

Chapter Two

That was it. It was the end. I'd die right there in that shithole, with all those pigs surrounding me, feeling like I didn't even know what a person was anymore.

The darkness came down. Bombs exploded. Blood dripped from my orifices, and sweat seeped over every inch of my skin. I felt foul. Every part of me was marred. Nothing felt sacred anymore.

They were all right. I wasn't a person... I was just... it.

Bright light flooded my vision. I blinked hastily and writhed around, trying to scramble back, only for hands to clamp down on my arms.

"Get the fuck off me!" I spat, still trying to pull away. "Don't touch me! Goddamn it, let go!"

"Shh, shh."

Through all the hands and the chaos and the blinding light, the sensory overdrive, I found my salvation and serenity. A soothing baritone voice brushed against my ears. His face hovered over mine, blocking out some of the light. I blinked again.

Dakota Hart stood in front of me. His gold-green eyes scanned over me, and worry crossed his face. He knelt down with his hands hovering a few inches from me in an offering. I frowned, my heart pounding in my chest as I stared at his hands.

I didn't understand what he wanted me to do. No oneelse had ever done that. Commander Boone and his troops never offered me hands the way Dakota did.

"Take my hands," he urged quietly. "Please."

I glanced back up to meet his eyes, flinching when the scuff of a boot echoed off the cell walls.

"No one here will hurt you. Please, if you don't trust my team, then just trust me." Everything about him just felt soft, safe. There was something about him that just struck me and shattered me, something that wouldn't let me refuse him.

I honestly didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad one.

"Could you tell me your name?"

A name? Had I ever had a name? I thought back before any of it had happened... before I was stupid enough to go wandering into a place I knew better than to snoop around in, before all those hands clamped onto me, before the broken ribs and ruined mind had ever happened. I had had a name once, but I didn't remember it.

It was something kind of generic, kind of dull, but it got the job done. It was a hell of a lot better than it.

Dakota touched my hands. I jumped and began to jerk my hands away. He grasped tightly onto them. My blood turned to ice. Everything spun, and black spotted my vision. What I had felt was a lie. He was coming after me!

From one monster to another, that was what my life had become. From then until I finally got the peace of dying, was that all I was to be? A meal?

"I won't hurt you," he said, eyes locking with mine even as panic ran rampant through my head. "Just trust me."

I was foolish enough to relax in his grasp. The very second I felt my muscles uncoil, a shadow shot out of the blackness surrounding us. A blade ran across Dakota's throat, making a deep incision, and causing blood to spurt from his skin. It soaked my skin and hair; it sprayed into my eyes, nose, and mouth. I could taste it better than I could taste the waste that still soaked my lips from not even a full twenty-four hours ago.

The shadow stepped into the light. Commander Boone's cold, pale green eyes pierced through me. He seized me by the throat and jerked me to my feet. His face hovered over mine. A disgusted sneer dominated his angular face.