Early Sins (Dangerous Games Book 0) (14 page)

“No.” He moved his face a little closer to hers. “What could I do to you right now? Say it.”

“Let me the fuck up!” Jerking hard at his grip on her, she tried to tilt her hips and break free, but he dropped his weight over her and squeezed until he could feel the fine bones of her wrists grinding under his hand. A low whine of frustration escaped her and then she mumbled a series of curses, clenching her eyes tight.

She has to face this
.

Using his free hand he grabbed her chin hard and forced her to look at him again. “You need to say it. Out loud.”

“Smith -”

“Say it!”

“You could fuck me, rape me, do whatever you wanted.” The words were hollow, distant, and somewhere, in a part of his mind he was ignoring, the words were barbed with broken glass and razor wire, tearing him up.

“Yes.” He swallowed down the bile in his throat. “You’re a beautiful girl, C. And you won’t always be hunting targets that don’t know how to fight. You won’t always be the hunter. Sometimes people will come after
you
. Trained people, strong people, and they might want you to tell them something you know.” He released her chin, running his thumb along her cheekbone before he made himself pull his hand away from her soft skin. “And they aren’t going to stick to simple torture with you.”

“
Simple torture?
” She rolled her eyes, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. “Like torture is nothing?”

“They’re not just going to hit you, threaten you, or whatever they would do with me or any other man – they are going to do whatever they can think of to break you.”

“I want up.” She pulled at his grip, but he landed his free hand on her hip and squeezed, holding her still.

“No. You need to listen to me. I want you to think about your nightmares -”

She writhed under him, twisting, arching her back and digging her heels into the earth behind him as she tried to break free. “Smith…” her voice was painfully soft, but he couldn’t stop.

She has to know. She has to hear this. She has to understand.

“Listen to me, C. Think about your nightmares,
think
about what those men did to you -”

“I don’t want -”

With a growl of frustration he raised his voice, almost shouting at her in the empty park, “Do you really think they were the only men who would want to hurt you, C? Do you really think no one else would if they got the chance? If they had you vulnerable, if they needed you alive, if they needed something you had?” There was a sheen of tears in her eyes as she tilted her head back, her wrists twisting in his grip, but he shifted his weight forward and crushed them mercilessly against the grass. “Camille! Answer me! What would you do?”

“I’d fucking kill them!”

“What if you couldn’t?” He hissed the words at her, insisting that she face it. Face the truth. “What if they get their hands on you? What if they -” his stomach twisted, emotions surfacing underneath his cold exterior, but he made himself say it, “What if they rape you? What will you do?”

“Go fuck yourself, Smith!” She jerked her gaze away from him, trying desperately to get away, to escape this horrible truth, but he had her locked in place, pinned under him so she couldn’t move. Just like someone else could if she made a mistake, just like those men had before. Just like her God forsaken nightmares.

You’re a bastard. You are such a bastard.

“This is reality, C. You wanted this life? You wanted a gun, wanted to be a killer, you wanted to walk in my world? Well – this is what’s waiting for you. So what will you do when it happens?”

When, not if.

There were definitely tears now, leaking from the edges of her eyes and sliding into her hair, but her jaw stayed clenched tight as she let out a scream of frustration and rage. He could see the pain inside her, painted across her face because she was too raw after the nightmares to hide it right now, and he had known it. Used it… for this.

To make her understand.

After a minute she took a slow, shuddering breath, a cold calm taking her over as she stopped struggling against him. Her voice started out almost too soft to hear, but it grew louder, stronger, “Then they will have me, Smith. They’ll do what they want with me. They’ll fuck me, they’ll take turns with me – and then they’ll get lazy, they’ll make a mistake, and then I will fucking kill them.”

Hatred for these imagined monsters filled him up, the phantoms he’d created out of nothing to scare her, to make her understand what awaited her the deeper she walked into this world of death and violence – and he knew he wasn’t numb anymore. Not when it came to her, he could never be numb when it came to her, which is why he needed to know she’d survive. Had to know that she wouldn’t crumble. “So think
that through, Camille. Imagine it. All of it. You think you’ll be able to pull the trigger afterwards? You’ll be able to think straight? Keep it together?”

Her blue eyes came back to meet his gaze, all the more blue for the fact that she was crying, and it tore into his chest. “Why are you doing this?” There was pain in her voice, pain that he had put there.

You really are a bastard.

“Because it will happen. Someday you will know something that someone else wants to know, and they will pay people to find you, to get the information out of you no matter what it takes.” Smith shook his head, ashamed by the predictable behavior of his gender. “And they will try to threaten you, and then they will probably try to hurt you, torture you, to scare you, but you’re strong. You can take the hits, C, you can deal with the pain, and they’ll figure that out too. And then -”

“They’ll rape me.”

“They will, because that’s worse than any beating. You
know
it’s worse, C. You’ve lived it, and I’ve heard you screaming and crying in your sleep, I -”

“Stop,” she sounded like she was pleading, like she did in her sleep, and it almost made him let her up.

“I need to know you won’t break, Camille.” He shook her with his free hand, his voice intense. “I need you to be stronger than what those men did to you, stronger than what other men might do to you. I need you to be able to separate, to
think
even when it’s happening, even when it hurts… so you can live.”

“I’m not some fucking victim,” she growled, and he was glad she was cursing, that there was steel in her voice again.

“Then prove it to me. You are beautiful, and there is not a man out there that won’t see it, and some of them will want to take advantage of it. So prove to me you won’t be a victim, no matter what they do.”

“How?”

“Get up.”

Camille was filled with a whirlwind of knives, her nightmares and memories clashing inside her, and Smith wasn’t backing off. He was telling her it would happen again, practically guaranteeing it, and as much as she wanted to show him she was strong, the idea of it had her skin crawling, her empty stomach roiling.

Her head was full of memories of her own screams, the nights she had begged from inside that closet to be let out, making promises if they would just give her water, feed her, swearing she’d
be good
. And there was no fucking way she’d ever be that person again, that weak, pathetic girl.

But, he’s right.

It was stupid to think someone else wouldn’t take advantage if they could. Sure, with everything she knew, everything she could do, the average asshole wouldn’t even get his hands on her. But someone trained? Someone that knew how to move, how to fight, how to kill? That was a whole different story, and she was literally face to face with it. Smith had her on the ground, pinned under all his strength, unable to move. If it were anyone else -

“Get. Up.” He ordered her, and her temper snapped.

“How the fuck am I supposed to do that with your weight distributed?” She shouted at him because she had tried it already, tried to twist free, but her wrists ached from the effort and she couldn’t buck him off while his heavy, muscled body sat on her thighs.

“You can’t. It’s why I pinned you like this, but I can’t do much in this position either, can I?” His head tilted, jade eyes boring into her as she realized what he meant. Then he took a slow breath like he was preparing for something. “Session isn’t over, C. You fight me, understand?”

All she managed was a nod before his free hand landed over her throat, cutting off her air, and his knee drove between her thighs. An instant later she could barely breathe, stars sparking behind her eyes as his other knee joined the first and he spread her legs wide.

Memories.

Nightmares.

Too many hands on her, too many times she’d been held down like this, her stomach tried to empty as panic edged in – but she shoved the darkness back, and made herself think. Smith had told her to separate, to evaluate, to survive.

Think, dammit. Where is he now?

His hips pressed against hers, his fingers tightening around her throat, and when she let go of the panic, a moment of clarity appeared in the mess of her mind.

He’s between your legs, and that means his weight has shifted
.

Digging her heel into the ground beside her she lifted one hip sharply and pushed off the ground to throw him to the side. The force of it carried them over, his grip on her wrists breaking without the aid of gravity, and then she was on top. Grabbing his thumb she bent it back sharply and tore his hand from her throat, pulling in air before promptly landing an elbow into the side of his head.

The hiss of pain that came from him was short, because he was in full
work mode
– a cold-blooded, very well trained killer. Smith moved fast, landing a hard hit into her ribs, before winding his other fist in her hair to pull her back down, and they tumbled again. Him on top, between her thighs again, but he was still suspended a little above her and that gave her space to move. She planted her foot against his hip and kicked him off as hard as she could. Smith took a chunk of her hair with him as he was thrown off her,
damn him
, but she was free and she rolled backwards and got to her feet, backpedaling for distance as she pulled raw breaths through her aching throat.

Her hands itched for a knife, or a gun, everything inside her screaming for blood. Vengeance. The nightmares never ended like this, never ended with her standing above one of them, and it felt good.

She had fought. She had won.

Against Smith of all people. It was almost unbelievable.

Smith stood slowly, wiping his hands off on his pants before he rubbed at his temple. “That was good. You didn’t hold back.”

“You didn’t either,” she growled. The pain in her ribs, and the ache in her wrists, would take a day or more to fade, and she’d be covered in bruises for a week at least.

“I didn’t hold back, because they won’t hold back.”

“I’ve never asked you to fucking coddle me!”

“No, but you wanted me to train you. Now you can shoot a gun, use a knife, fight hand to hand, run when you need to, long distances and over obstacles, and you can hunt your targets. The right way.” He shook his head slowly, rubbing the back of his neck, visibly favoring his left side.
At least she wasn’t the only one in pain.
“But now you need to understand the other parts of it. The worst parts, and the nicer parts too.”

“Worst parts, like what? This?”

“Yes. This. The pain, the torture – all of the things they’ll do to you to get what they want.”

“And you’re so sure it’s going to happen to me because… why? Just because those bastards had me before? Before I knew how to fucking defend myself, how to kill, how to fight?” She scoffed, turning away from him to walk a few steps away. The moonlight turned the grass silver in spots, leaving dark pockets of shadows in low places, but it was still just the two of them.

Together, but somehow completely separate. Like they always were.

Two people with too many walls around them to be more than strangers who slept in the same room. She growled under her breath and turned back towards him, her anger flashing inside her. “Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m going to get grabbed by some asshole on some dickbag’s payroll. You’ve never been caught, so why the fuck do you assume –”