"You don't seem to understand, do you?"
Jackie leaned back in the overstuffed chair, her silver Glock in her hand, resting across her lap as she glowered at the man shackled to the metal chair in front of her. His bloody and swollen face did nothing to disguise his beauty: long dark hair matted with blood, falling past his bare shoulders down his broad, naked torso, his sculpted face and body now a mass of bruises and cuts. He wore nothing save his boxers, with his torso wrapped in chains, arms shackled behind his back. His dark almond eyes rested on the gorgeous redhead in front of him, taking in the way the white tank top and black jeans clung to her full figure.
"You've no idea how you've broken me, do you, Brayden?" she sighed, shaking her head. "All I asked was for you not to betray me, not to break my heart, yet you go and do it anyway - even after my warnings that I may not be able to contain myself this time?"
"I fail to see how I betrayed you," he replied, straining futilely against his bonds. "I never said I was in love with you."
She got up in a flash, smashing the butt of the gun against his jaw, nearly knocking him out with the force of the blow. "How dare you! You called me your angel! How can you say that wasn't indication of how you felt? Was it all a lie?"
Jackie paced the floor, tapping the barrel of the Glock against her head, mumbling to herself. "It's the red hair isn't it? They all want the Black Dahlias- the dark ones."
She suddenly grabbed the armrests of Brayden's chair, leaning in so her lips nearly touched his.
"Would you like it if I dyed my hair? Made it black like hers?" her voice grew dangerously cool, calm, deeper. "Would you like it if I had more tats? More piercings? Would that bring you back to me?"
"You're crazy," Brayden sneered, shaking his head.
"Really now?" Jackie kissed him full on the mouth, tongue playing with his before she bit down hard. Brayden growled in pain, jerking away as much as his bonds would allow. "Thought you liked crazy."
Brayden's lips oozed with the fresh blood coming from the wound on his tongue. He started to laugh aloud, a robust laugh that set Jackie back on her heels.
"You seriously thought that one such as you could have my heart? One who was too afraid to even get behind a wheel?" Brayden's eyes glowed with contempt.
Her eyes went wide as she frowned, her eyes almost sorrowful as she stood up and just froze in front of him, Brayden's stabbing insult striking Jackie like a knife in the very core of her soul. He knew her fear of driving was most embarrassing for her. He also knew of the accident that had caused that fear and had said he'd understood.
"The one thing I didn't want to tell you because I was scared you'd ridicule me?" Tears welled in her eyes even as they glared at him with such rage they burned through him like coals, her lip beginning to tremble. "The one thing you said didn't bother you you now use against me? Pathetic."
Brayden felt the bullet go through his left knee even before he'd noticed she'd raised the gun, screaming as bone and blood sprayed into his hair and face. Jackie then took a mini blowtorch from her pocket, letting the flame go over the wound, cauterizing it as Brayden screamed and howled in agony, body convulsing from the pain.
"Wouldn't want you to bleed to death now, would we my dear?" Jackie tsked as she went to the table, bringing a bottle of peroxide. "This is gonna hurt like a bitch, but infections are no bueno."
Brayden bit his lip as the peroxide bubbled on the wound, sending searing pain all through his body, his leg shaking with the trauma.
"It seems to me -" Jackie slumped back in her chair, barrel of the gun resting nonchalantly on her temple as she placed the peroxide on the table beside her. "- you do not yet understand how badly I have been damaged. All the others who fed me their pretty lies, who told me one thing to only betray me with another."
Jackie suddenly burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably as she buried her face in her hands, shaking and wracked with sorrow. Throwing her head back, she let loose a wail that sent chills through Brayden's very soul, her face red from the tears pouring down her face in a constant stream.
"I wanted you to be the one, Brayden!" she sobbed, voice pleading like a child's. "You were to be my shield, my soulmate!"
"You going to kill me, Jackie?" Brayden asked, his voice rough from his pain, head lowered onto his chest. "If so, get it over with."
"No, my sweet, I want you to suffer as I have suffered," Jackie snarled between clenched teeth, eyes glaring from underneath her hair. "I want your body to feel the pain my heart feels."
The bullet that shattered his right shoulder burst through his back and blew apart the TV screen on the entertainment center behind him. Again the blowtorch seared his wound, again the peroxide bubbled on his torn flesh. The blinding pain was making Brayden see double as he swayed in the chair, his shackles the only thing keeping him from falling over.
Jackie took a pen syringe filled with adrenaline from her back pocket, slamming it into his chest above his heart. "Come on, hon, you gotta stay awake for this. No fun you passing out on me."
Brayden's eyes fluttered open, muscles twitching fitfully. "You need serious help, Jack."
"Yeah, I do," she mused, leaning over to him, hands behind her back. "I need help knowing where I go wrong every time I decide to give my heart to someone and they stomp on it like a piece of shit. I need help figuring out why - when I give my all to someone - they betray me like I was nothing more than a whore on the street."
She straddled him, putting her full weight on his shattered knee, stroking his battered face with the cool barrel of the Glock, smiling as he winced in pain, trying hard not to cry out. "I need help knowing what I didn't do that she did better."
"Nothing," Brayden replied, gritting his teeth, glaring up at her. "She did nothing that you did not do."
"Then why?" Again Jackie voice went childlike, pleading, tears again rolling down her face. "Why her and not me?"
"Jack, please."
Jackie put her arms around him, taking care not to touch his injured shoulder, her tears mixing with his blood as she lay on his chest.
"I loved you so much," she murmured, listening to his irregular heartbeat, the rhythm made out of synch with the trauma his body endured. "All I ever wanted was your love in return. Now you have forced me to hate you."
She drew in a long, ragged breath, burying her face under his chin as she sobbed.
"Let me go, Jack." Brayden kissed her hair, feeling sorry for her, even somehow guilty despite brutality. "Let me go and I promise you'll come to no harm - no cops will show at your door, no charges will be brought against you."
"But that's the problem," Jackie sighed, "I don't want to let you go- I want you here with me. I want your arms around me, your lips on my skin like before."
"I'll be no better betraying her than betraying you," Brayden replied.
"Don't worry about her love," Jackie smiled through her tears, kissing his chest. "She is well taken care of...."
A girl sat catatonic, rocking back and forth as much as the straightjacket would allow, her shaved head hitting the padded wall behind her. Her pale flesh was riddled with holes in her ears, lips, and eyebrows from the piercings the nurses had taken out. She suddenly let out a scream, echoing throughout the ward with a dozen other patients joining in concert, filling the remote asylum with their song.
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