“All you’re doing is telling me that you’re white trash. Like I didn’t already know. Why don’t you shut the fuck up so you can die with a little fucking pride,” he said smugly. “Come to think of it, maybe I should call him up and invite him over for a visit? Wonder what he’s up to these days?” He was goading me, using what I’d told him to try and get a rise out of me.

Think again, motherfucker.

“He’s just peachy. Rotting in the swamp right where I left him,” I said without so much as a flinch, even though the pain shooting through my spine was crippling.

Chops face momentarily fell. He pushed off the wall and knelt down beside me. “So you killed a man? So what? Should I be impressed? You think some story about your pathetic childhood is going to make me feel bad, and then what? You think I’m just going to let you go?”

I shook my head or, at least, I think I did, all the muscles in my neck were numb at that point. “No, what you don’t seem to understand is that all this is pointless. You can have me ass-raped and it’s not going to break me. You can keep torturing me, but what you don’t get is that half that shit makes my dick hard. You can have me killed…” I leaned in closer and smiled. “But I’m already dead, bitch.”

Chop reared back and kicked me in the ribs with his heavy steel-toed boot, sending me crashing into the wall beside me, my teeth chattering with the overwhelming pain ripping through my body.

Either Chop left without saying a word or I passed out from the pain and didn’t get to hear his last thoughts on what a piece of shit I am. Regardless, when I opened my eyes I was grateful to find that once again I was alone.

Except, of course, for the woman who wouldn’t tell me her name. I should’ve been happy to not be alone, but every word out of her mouth made me cringe and every time Chop left she had a comment.

“You know, provoking him isn’t going to make things any easier on you. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way,” she said softly.

“Hello?” I asked, and when she didn’t immediately answer I figured I was just hearing things, so I did what anyone losing their fucking minds would do and finished out the lyrics to the Lionel Richie song.

“Hello? Is it me you’re looking for?” I sang out, grabbing my ribs as every word felt like I was stabbing myself in the gut, but the song needed to be sung or like a fairy would lose its wings or some shit.

“I never did like that song,” the woman said again, and this time I was positive I wasn’t hearing things. Or like, close to positive. Like, forty percent.

“Listen lady, I don’t know if you’re even real at this point but if you are real, then I’ll forgive your temporary lapse in judgment when it comes to the greatness that is Lionel Richie.”

“Do you ever shut up?” she said, annoyed.

“Yeah, I do this thing when I pass out where my mouth stops running,” I said.

“No, actually it doesn’t. Yesterday you were commentating like you were an announcer over some sort of competition,” she huffed.

“Probably American Ninja Warrior, always thought I’d be good at that.” I adjusted so it didn’t feel like I would crack my tailbone under my own weight. “Well, now that the pleasantries are out of the way, are you finally going to tell me your name?”

“Names aren’t important,” she said.

“Sure they are. My name is Samuel Clearwater, but my friends call me Preppy,” I said, although I was pretty sure I’d already introduced myself to this annoying bitch. “If you’re not going to tell me your name you can at least describe your tits to me. Bra and nipple size if you please.”

There was a brief pause. “He’s not going to kill you, you know.”

“That’s…disap­pointing?” I said, although it came out as a question. I didn’t want to die, but being tortured every single day wasn’t exactly on my bucket list either.

“Chop believes in taking lives,” she said, stating the obvious.

“I kind of got that. He been hitting you in the head?”

“No, you don’t get it. There is more power in taking lives than there is in ending them. By keeping us alive and trapped down here like rats, he dictates how we live and if and when we die. And if a situation arises where he can use us, he’ll toss our gaunt bodies at the feet of whoever he’s trying to intimidate by showing them how much power he really has.”

“That sounds like a lot of work.”

“I think you had it wrong when you told him that you’re more fucked up than him,” she said with a sad sigh. “Pray. Meditate. Concentrate on what life was like before you came here, because Samuel,” she paused. “Because you’re never going to see that life again.”

I didn’t argue with her. Not just because she’d been there for years and I thought arguing with her would be a waste of energy, but because somewhere deep inside I knew she was right.

She went silent shortly after that, and I assumed she fell asleep in whatever hole she was placed in. Without a lot left to keep my mind from torture and death, I closed my eyes and used the simple meditation breathing technique that Mirna had taught me. I took a few deep breaths, well, as deep as I could without choking to death, and I tried to focus on what my life looked like before I was shot. I was happy-ish. I had family. I had respect. What I didn’t have. Was HER. Even when I pictured the cast of characters in my life, King, Doe, Bear, and Grace there was someone else standing further off in the distance, overshadowing the people standing right in front of me.

She was overlooking the bay with her back to me. Her dark hair blowing around in the wind. She turned around to face me just as I got close, her dark eyes softening when she saw me, her smile tugging at the corners of her plump lips. When she spoke it made my heart beat faster and I drifted off into a state of semi-consciousness, surrounded by her words echoing in every corner of my brain over and over again on an endless loop of regret.

Keep me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

PREPPY

When the doorbell rang I thought it was Billy, who was supposed to be dropping off some fresh blue crab before I headed out to see Dre. I wanted to take her mind off Mirna and what better way to do that than a nice homemade crab dinner, followed by my face between her legs, and my tongue deep inside her pussy, for an undetermined amount of time?