Page 111 of The Bonding Games: Part 2

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you—

Rolling my neck, I grit my teeth as I slide my armoury stick back into place over my shoulder.

I do not understand why they are demanding things of me. Have I not given them enough? And then Scotty . . . the way he spoke to me, the way he undermined me as if I can be questioned . . . three simple words that could crash down everything, warp the way people see me with their false implications . . .

I am not able to be swayed. Just the thought of the entire world thinking I can be, even if it is not true, even if I am the same woman I have always been . . . It is simply weakness. So much weakness that it is nauseating. Humiliating. I am not like the rest of the world, and I will not have anyone falsely believe I am.

Teeth gritting, more blood drips into the sink under my hand as it is squeezed out by my balled fist.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

But it is more than that. It is that the weakness is already in me. It makes my skin itch and crawl, and I just want to tear my innards out, to rearrange them in the hopes that they will become what they once were: Cold. Black. Uncaring.

It has not been easy, but I have been giving in to what I wanted because it felt good. But today, the demands . . . that did not feel good. My Bonds are telling me this is a part of being in a relationship, but I do not want the parts that do not feel amazing. I do not want to care when one of my men is upset or harmed. I do not want to have to reassure them when they should trust that I am capable of taking care of myself. I do not want them to know that they have any disgusting control over me.

All of that is painful, especially the last, and reality has slapped me hard in the face today. I am reminded that nothing is ever truly good. But I thought I could almost feel . . . happiness. And I was trying to understand more, because there was almost . . .

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you—

“SHUT UP!” My fist crashes into the mirror, and glass rains down everywhere. But it does not stop.

I love you.

I love y—

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

The itching of my skin gets worse and worse, and I tear out of my Avri suit, glass and soap and my toothbrush, anything and everything, crashing to the floor. Vaguely, I make out distant shouts, and I do not think I have the bond under my control anymore, but I cannot find it in me to care when I have already lost control of so much else.

Love you, love you, love you . . .

I hate that motherfucking word. It is only pain. There is nothing good, nothing nice about it.

A scream of pure rage leaves me, and I do not quite know what is happening, how this has managed to tip me over the edge. The fact that I am so beside myself only increases that wrath and disgust within me, and I just want it out. I want it all out. I wish I had never begun to feel. I wish I had never met them. I just want it out, out, out . . .

Knees rushing for the hard taalk floor, my heart thrashes about embarrassingly fast, no part of me cool and collected as it should be, my skin clammy. Fumbling with the glass down here, I do not react as shards split open my palms before I get a good grasp on a large piece, and I blink angrily, salty liquid burning paths down my cheeks.

My next scream is filled with the disgraceful tears, and the overwhelming urge to just end it all takes over like it only has one time before. But this time, it is all too much. All these feelings, it is too fast, too much, too new and strange, and I—