this one....took a while
i'm sorry
but alas! chapter 21

[ 21. Plot Twist ]

Staring into the barrel of the handgun with just the knife to protect myself rendered me defenseless. Hayes didn't get the memo about bringing a gun to a knife fight.

"Drop the phone and knife to the floor," he ordered, finger on the trigger and eyes squared in on my face. I pressed my lips together and did as he said slowly, the items hitting the carpet with a suppressed clatter. "Are you happy now? You got your phone call."

I rolled my eyes. "No."

"Of course not," he muttered, flicking his wrist so the gun did the talking. He gestured for me to stand and before I did, he grabbed the knife off of the ground. "You've sure got the bratty bottom role down to a tee, Vinnie."

I wasn't even a strict bottom. At least most of the time. I was vers, which was arguably better than being whatever the fuck Hayes was: a manly man's man who probably shuddered at the thought of a finger even near his asshole. Well, he sure didn't have a problem ripping me a new one. So he got the whole dominant he-man top role down, too.

We walked back to the dining room, this time with a gun pointed between my shoulder blades. Hayes kept the gun cocked until I was seated on the chair and then secured it in the waistband of his pants once the safety was on. I sat with my hands in my lap, staring at all of his little torture devices on the table—although it was an unusual spread. Hayes picked up the needle, removed the orange cap, and then used it to suck up some of the mysterious clear liquid from the vial. He set it down on the table and leaned forward with his palms flat, his full attention back on me.

"You're going to have to listen to me closely because shit is about to go down and it's going to happen fast, you hear me?"

When I looked up, I stilled at his expression. He was void of any humor, his eyes boring into mine and his lips slightly pursed. He hadn't shaved since I'd been here and all of that facial hair was growing thick and fast, a neat shape around his cheeks and mouth. I was starting to look more and more scraggly the longer I stayed here without grooming myself, but he made it look good without effort.

"What are you talking about?" I mumbled, feeling that shaky anxious feeling returning by the second.

Hayes walked away for a moment and reappeared with a towel, setting it folded on the table before me. "Put your hand on the towel," he instructed and I furrowed my eyebrows, staring at him in confusion. His brown eyes bored into mine and I felt my core tighten because it was different. The look in his eyes was unfamiliar. It seemed less out of intimidation and more of desperation, like the stakes were higher than I realized. "I need you to trust me half as much as I've trusted you in the last few days."

"Trust you?" I managed to laugh.

"Yes, Vinnie. Put your hand on the goddamn table so we can get it over with and I'll explain after."

I swallowed the thick, acidic lump in my throat. None of this was making any sense and I was tired of being told what to do and given little choice but to cooperate or face some nonexistent consequences. What was the worst he could do if I didn't put my hand on the table? Kidnap me and hold me hostage with an abnormal supply of zip-ties? I scoffed in response, but for whatever reason I obeyed.

"I don't see how you can explain anything when I'm dead—"

Hayes wasted no time when my hand was on the table before there was a needle sinking into my knuckle. I yelped out in pain, hardly letting him take it out of my skin before I drew it back towards my body.

Hayes leaned over the table and caught my wrist. I tried to resist but I was rapidly losing feeling in my fingers until my entire hand was numb. The rest of my arm tingled and weakened, giving Hayes the upper hand to hold my wrist in place, hand back on the towel.

"What the fucking fuck are you doing?" I spat, but then he grabbed the knife. "No, no, no, no. Stop... stop—"

My eyes shut as soon as the knife met my hand, but I couldn't feel anything other than an intense pressure. I ground my teeth, too afraid to look at what he'd just done. Hayes just cut my hand off. Or my fingers. Or something. I didn't know. I gagged numerous times with my eyes clenched shut.

"Vinnie, you're fine. It was just one finger."

I gagged again, resulting in a fit of coughs. "What the fuck. What the fuck."

Deciding it wasn't wise to just continue letting him mutilate me while I blindly let it happen, I opened my eyes. I regretted it instantly.

I hadn't seen so much blood in one place since the time I tended to my ex's stab wound. That was a story for another time. Red soaked the towel and onto the tablecloth, which now made a disgusting amount of sense, and even splattered onto Hayes's shirt. My hand, though still mostly intact, was only partially complete except for one digit missing.

My ring finger. My gag reflex was working overtime and I had to close my eyes again.

"Vinnie, do not shut down on me. It's only going quicker from here."

"I... I don't..." I couldn't even form words.

"Stay with me," Hayes muttered as he was still moving. With my eyes closed, I wasn't sure exactly what he was doing, but he didn't seem panicked. He was calm, doing whatever the fuck demented shit he was doing with my severed finger. "I'm going to dress the wound, okay?"

I choked out a response of affirmation and reopened my eyes. He worked to lessen the blood flow by holding the corner of the tea towel to the open wound. The sight of all of the red over the table was dizzying and I wasn't sure if I was at risk of fainting or not, but I wasn't going to tell Hayes that. He seemed like he knew what he was doing, which scared me even more.

Mostly, I was confused.

He said he wasn't into causing pain, but he just cut my fucking finger off. If he was going to kill me, only a sadist would go through the extra efforts of torturing me beforehand. Whatever the case, he was moving fast and efficiently, and before I knew it, the empty space where my ring finger once was was triple, maybe quadruple wrapped with ace bandages around the rest of my fingers and wrist.

"Up," he said, wiping his hands on the towel. I stared at my hand in shock. "Come on, Vinnie. We gotta get moving."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Moving where?" I barely answered.

He circled around the table and hooked a forearm under my armpit, raising me out of the seat. "We gotta get you cleaned up. Let's go," he said. My feet moved on their own inhibition, following him to the bathroom.

He produced a washcloth from under the sink and I stood, dazed and confused on so many levels, while he wet it. Hayes's body was fluid and didn't stop moving, treating this like it was just another thing he did on the regular. Maybe it was. Who knew? I stood still as he wiped down my arm where all of the blood had smeared while he was dressing the wound. His eyes scanned the rest of my body for anything else, but he was more of a mess than I was.

"Go in my closet and get some clean clothes. Get dressed. I'll be there in a minute."

"Why—"

"Vinnie, just fucking go."

For the first time, I didn't hesitate to obey. I walked into his room, did as he said, and found myself in another one of his outfits. A worn t-shirt and sweatpants that smelled just like him as I pulled them over my body. My shoes were by the bed, so I slipped them on as well and waited, still staring at my hand. I couldn't feel much, but I knew when whatever that Xylocaine shit was wore off I'd be in for a hurting.

Hayes joined me, void of any blood on his arms, and did the same. He dressed quickly and looked at me when he was done. Without another thought, he pulled a hoodie off of a hanger and tossed it at me.

"It's cold," was all he said.

"Where are we going?"

Then Hayes stopped and stood in the middle of the room while I pulled on the hoodie, careful of my freshly wounded hand. I looked at him with the hood over my head, afraid of what he was going to say. Were we going somewhere more desolate where it would be easier to hide my body? The middle of the woods or something? Was he going to drive me out to a random town in upstate New York, maybe even cross the border, where nobody would look for me?

He offered a strange, strained smile. "I'm getting you out of here."

What the fuck?

"Come on," he said, nodding his head. I sprung to my feet and followed him to the foyer and out the door, waiting while he locked the front door behind him. He grumbled on the walk to the car, "That's going to be such a bitch to clean when I get back."

How was he so nonchalant? I kept up his pace and rounded the Camaro to the passengers side. When I was buckled and as comfortable as I could be with a missing finger and a panicky mind, I folded my hands in my lap and glanced over at Hayes while he started the car and stared ahead, biting at his bottom lip in thought.

"Can you give me a hint about what the fuck is going on?" I said meekly, making him turn his head to face me.

The heating system began to warm the small space between us, but it might have just been the feeling of his eyes on me. Like they were really on me, under my skin and in my veins. Hayes was taking in every square centimeter, maybe noticing the scar near my chin and the mole hidden in my eyebrow, the stuff you'd ignore at a glance. I felt small and big at the same time, insignificant but the most important.

He shifted gears and looked away at the rear view, starting to back out of the driveway. "I'm giving you a second chance. I don't know what that'll mean to you, but if you want my advice? I say get the hell away from New York. Start over, do something good in a way that doesn't put a target on your back, Vinnie."

I felt like I couldn't breathe. "Are you saying you're not going to kill me?"

Hayes swallowed, the bulge of his Adam's apple so severe in his throat that I wondered if saying it out loud was making him question his decision. We drove down the street I'd just sought refuge from a day ago, running for my life that might not have been so doomed, looking back. I'd threatened the integrity of my body, gotten beaten up by some random NPCs, running from this man that... what?

Saw the value in me I feared didn't exist?

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and, when we reached the stop sign at the entrance of his neighborhood, dipped his head to meet my eye.

"No, Vincent, I'm not going to kill you."