Take the pill.

It would be fast. Hopefully not too painful.

Working my throat, I tried to create enough saliva to swallow without needing water. My dry mouth refused to cooperate.

I couldn’t do anything right.

The weight of everything was suddenly too much, and I bowed my head against the edge of the safe. I would rest for a moment, then find a glass of water. A few more minutes before I died.

I slipped into a semi-trance state and didn’t hear the footsteps until it was too late.

My reactions were compromised. I no longer cared.

Something hard cracked against the back of my skull, and I plummeted like a rock.

I was out cold before I hit the floor.

I came to with the sharp prick of someone stitching my leg. I recognised the pull, the tightness. It’d been over two years since I’d been stitched back together, and I found in my f**kedupness that I missed the sensation of being repaired.

My head hammered with every sluggish beat of my heart, and I couldn’t swallow the foul taste in my mouth.

Maybe this time I could be put back together the right way.

My gut twisted. The pill! Did I take it and this was hell? That didn’t explain the swelling on the base of my skull or the soft murmur of voices. Someone knocked me out, and I guessed they’d used one of the smaller statues sitting on the tables around the room.

My eyes shot wide and I sucked in a breath. Zel bowed over my leg, her forehead furrowed, lips pursed in concentration. Two fingers pinched my skin together while she pulled a needle and surgical thread through the wound.

My hands clenched as the rush of conditioning doused me with violence. My labouring heart beat faster as Hazel touched my thigh. I wanted to scream at her to run, but the sharp pinprick of pain from the needle helped me retain my self-control. Shame filled me. I was addicted. They’d turned me into an addict of agony.

I clutched the bedspread, panting with heat, shivering with chill.

Her eyes rose to meet mine, bright green filling my world. “I have no idea what I’m still doing here. But I couldn’t walk out the door when I saw you holding that pill. I know what you were going to do.” Her eyes flickered to a medic sitting on the other side of the bed. Masked, dressed in white, his blue eyes never stopped looking at us. She’d brought a bodyguard? Or was the medic supposed to be the one sewing me up?

I blinked, trying to understand.

“The minute this is done I’m leaving, and I never want to see you again,” Zel muttered.

My heart tripled its beat, but I nodded. It was the only way.

Zel stabbed the needle in my skin, deliberately punishing me. “He wanted to numb the area while I worked, but I thought you might like the pain.” Her eyes held a silent conversation.

I know you self-harm, and I figured this would be what you wanted.

I nodded, battling past my headache. “Thank you.” I couldn’t say it out loud so I forced the message silently. I didn’t mean to hurt you.

Apologizing wordlessly wasn’t enough. She deserved a heart-felt apology. She deserved me on my f**king knees begging for forgiveness.

Keeping every part of myself on high alert, I captured her bloody glove-covered hand and squeezed. Swallowing hard, I murmured, “I’m so sorry. I have no excuse for what happened, and I know there’s no chance you’ll forgive me. Just…” I met her eyes, staring hard. “I need you to know you’ve helped me more than anyone, and I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you. I didn’t mean to.”

She pulled her hand away. “You could’ve fooled me. The look in your eyes, Fox. You weren’t all there. I think you need to find proper treatment.”

I wanted to tell her everything. Then and there. I didn’t care anymore about secrecy or what they’d do to me if they found out. I just needed it to be freed from inside me.

There’s a witness.

I looked at the medic. His masked face was blank; body tense. I shut down. I couldn’t discuss what I was in front of him.

Zel caught me looking at him. “Don’t worry. He won’t touch you.”

I frowned, gritting my teeth as she poked me with the needle again. “Why are you the one sewing me up? Do you have medical training?”

Zel’s lips flickered into a tiny smile. “He’s not doing this as I don’t want him in danger. You tried to kill someone who you knew—what would you do to a stranger?” Her eyebrow raised. “I have basic CPR and what I studied to earn a receptionist job at a doctor’s practice. But I’m not flying blind. Before you woke up, he helped.” Nodding at the medic, she added, “He checked your wounds while you were out and agreed nothing internally is damaged.” Her lips twisted into a wry grin. “I’m a good sewer. Ask Clue. I can crochet with the best of them, and I figured this couldn’t be much different.”

My eyes popped wide, flaming my headache. “Stitching a leg is completely different than stitching a damn pillow.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Well, I think I’m doing a damn good job and considering I’m battling the urge to stab you multiple times with this tiny needle for what you did, you can f**king sit there and let me finish.” Fire lit her eyes. “If you think you can stop me, or if you move too fast, that lovely gentlemen over there will dose you up with anaesthesia so fast you’ll be out cold, and when you wake, I’ll be gone forever.”

The needle stabbed me hard, deliberately rough. “Understand?”

Instead of being cowered by her tirade, my f**king c**k thickened. My heart pumped lust thick and fast, and all I could think of was kissing her. I wanted so f**king much to be normal so I could hug her and kiss her, and thank the universe for giving me an angel.

“As long as you’re inflicting pain, I can keep it together.” The admission made Zel look up. I lowered my voice, throwing an annoyed glance at the medic. “I want you to know. Everything about me. Maybe then you can understand. I want you, Zel. The thought of you leaving f**king kills me.”

Her hands shook—the only sign of emotion. Her eyes tore away from mine, and she resumed her stitching.

We didn’t speak again as she finished sewing me up. Her touch was light and gentle, but every stab of the needle gave me what I craved. Somehow, she created a new sensation. Mixed with pain and sweetness, making me surrender to her hypnosis, giving me the strength to ignore the conditioning just for the moment.

I fell into a trance. When I next opened my eyes the medic was gone and Zel had stuck crisp, white bandages over the stitched-up wounds. It was only then I noticed she’d cut off the leg of my trousers.

Her eyes met mine before she ever so carefully, ever so hesitantly, touched a large scar on my shin bone where they’d snapped my leg and then pinned it back together after a mission.

I sucked in a breath, clenching my fists. Without pain the conditioning echoed in my brain.

“Did you do this snowboarding as a child? Or perhaps falling off a motorbike when you were a teenager?” Her voice stayed low, none of the anger and heat from before.

She wanted to know.

Joy lit my heart. She wouldn’t leave until I explained. I’d answer any f**king question she had if it helped her forgive me.

For now emotions between us were pure, almost as if the fight had cleared the air for utmost honesty. “No.” My own voice shocked me. I’d never spoken to anyone about my past. Ever. Cold chills darted down my back.

She won’t forgive you. She’ll hate you even more when she learns the truth.

“I’m waiting, Fox. Tell me who you are.”

She’d look at me with terror and loathing. She’d feel it was her duty to report me. I’d be locked up in another cage and made to stand trial for what I’d done. Overwhelming fear cracked my heart. “No.” I couldn’t do it after all.

Her face darkened and her eyes dropped. She focused on her finger trailing around my kneecap. Small X shaped scars decorated the joint where they’d stuck torture devices so I couldn’t bend when I walked. They said I had to learn how to run and move in any condition, including being almost disabled.

“Did you fall off a horse, or perhaps were hurt in a car accident?” Her voice whispered. A threat more than a soothe. Her entire body hummed with tension—anger barely contained.

“No.”

Her touch crept upward, ticking my thigh, brushing through hairs and tracing old injuries. Every inch she travelled, my stomach tightened. Confusion smothered my brain. The conditioning grew stronger with every sweep, but I clutched the bedspread, reactivating the pain from my bruised knuckles.

I wanted her to stop. My body wanted to kill her because that’s what it’d been taught to do if touched. But for once, my brain wanted more. It wanted the softness, the gentle caress.

I wanted more of the sweet torture of being stroked.

Such a novelty. Such a rare gift.

Zel never stopped her feather light touch. “Did you have a boating accident, or fall off a skateboard?” Her voice painted pictures of a carefree kid who’d had a normal upbringing. Had loving parents and a fun-filled childhood. She painted a lie. A lie I desperately wished was the truth.

“No.”

Her fingers flattened against my thigh until her entire palm pressed against me.

The conditioning increased its ferocity until I trembled, trying so hard to ignore it. Her body shifted as she moved higher, following the contour of my thigh until her hand disappeared under the torn material of my trousers and brushed against my cock.

I jerked. I gasped.

My brain had too much to filter.

Don’t hurt her. Don’t kill her. Please keep it together.

All I wanted to do was surrender to the sweet agony she invoked. My hard c**k swelled to the point of pain, summoned to life by one innocuous touch.

I groaned as her hot hand clasped me, squeezing firmly. “Does that hurt?”

I couldn’t speak, but it did. It killed me from the inside out. I’d never felt such f**king pleasure. Such branding awareness. Nodding, I moaned again as her hand released me, dropping to cup my balls.

All my life I’d avoided touching it, looking at it. The one and only time I’d brought myself to release had come with dire consequences.

Zel grasped me firmly, squeezing with a mix of authority and temper. Her touch sent me spiralling into a cesspit of memories.

“What is this piece of meat, Fox?”

“Nothing, sir!”

“Then why were you jerking it like it was your favourite toy?”

My fifteen-year-old cheeks flamed. I forgot there were cameras in my room. I hadn’t meant to touch myself. I hadn’t meant to chase the delicious tightness building in my balls.

I didn’t mean to get caught.

“If this is proving to be a distraction, we can remove it. Can’t we, Fox?”

My heart ceased to beat. “No, sir. You don’t have to do that. Never again, sir. I swear, sir.”

Sir. Sir. Sir. I couldn’t stop begging.

His hard grip on my dick squeezed before letting go. “You touch yourself again, and we’ll rip it off.”

“Fox. Fucking stop. You’re hurting me,” Zel snapped. Her palm slapped my cheek, bringing a sharp sting.

My eyes flew open and I jerked my fingers away, releasing her wrist. The moment I freed her, she rolled her hand, bringing blood circulation back into her hand. Her eyes glassed with tears but they weren’t sad tears—more like rage. “Why the hell am I trying to help you? You’re beyond help!”

My heart stuttered and I grabbed her hand again, massaging life back into it. “Fuck. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

The mixture of uncertainty and fear in her eyes undid me, and I’d never been so close to breaking down. After everything I’d done, she still hadn’t left. She hadn’t given up, and I thanked the f**king universe for whatever connection existed between us. She persevered with me, not because of the money, but because she couldn’t walk away.

“No, I’m not okay. Everything about you tells me to run, yet I ignore myself and end up getting hurt again. I hate myself for needing to help others—it’s a compulsion that’s driving me insane.”

She squeezed her emerald eyes before looking right into my soul. “You’re driving me crazy but I’m learning and because I’m learning it makes it harder to leave. “

“What are you learning?”

She sighed heavily. “How to help you.”

I sucked in a breath, hoping, praying she was right. I’d had my moment of weakness and contemplated suicide, but now I was ready to embrace a cure. I would do anything. Anything.

I didn’t know what to say.

We stared for an eternity before she whispered, “Do you trust me to do something? I want to see if it works. If it doesn’t, I’m done. But if it does, I’ll stay and honour our agreement.”

Whatever the f**k she wanted to do, I hoped it worked.

“Yes. Do anything you want.”

She braced her shoulders and said, “Don’t ask questions. Lay back.”

I obeyed instantly. She waited for me to rest against the pillows and settled herself on her knees between my legs. My entire body thrummed from having her so close, and I forced my hands under my hips, pinning them beneath me.

“I’m going to touch you now,” she whispered.

Before I could reply or prepare, her hand disappeared up my cut-off trouser leg and wrapped boldly around my cock.

“Holy f**k,” I groaned. My brain capacity zeroed in on her hot, captivating hand. Every cell in my body gushed with need so sharp I felt like she flayed me alive.

“Concentrate on me touching you. Never stop focusing on my grip.”