"Do you trust me?" Dammon asked, taking my hand in his. We were standing in his cramped, little bathroom in his cramped little trailer house.
"With my finger or with my life? That depends."
"Both," he said, his sky-blue eyes beguiling.
"You have an ointment for both?" I grinned.
"Yes, I do, as a matter of fact," he said.
Then he smiled, and I about lost feeling in my legs. I quickly looked down at our hands, so that I might no longer be affected. But it didn't work. Dammon would affect me even if he was a thousand miles away.
"I can't believe you used duct tape for a band-aid!" Dammon shook his head and started carefully unwinding the bloodstained duct tape, until he reached the cotton ball I had placed over the wound, which didn't even look like a cotton ball anymore because it was so saturated with blood. When he peeled off the cotton and exposed the wound, I cringed and turned my head away.
"This goes to the bone," Dammon said, sounding very disturbed.
I nodded my head. I believed I would never forget that sawing sensation in my bone that reverberating up my arm.
"It's alright," he said. There was such great compassion in his voice that I had to turn my head and look at him. He was busy gathering amber jars from the cabinet now, so he wasn't looking at me. But he didn't have to be in order for me to see the compassion in his expression.
While I studied this man before me, there appeared an ache in me that I did not understand. It was much different than the ache I felt to be in Sean's presence. It was a yearning that seemed to have no specific origin. It quickly spread everywhere, like an infection, but a good one. This ache told me that I needed Dammon. That I had to have him or I would ache like this forever. Except it would only get worse with time.
"I can clean this up and use an antibiotic, but it's going to need a few stitches. Six at the least."
"I don't do hospitals. It'll be fine. Just slap some of that stuff on it, wrap it back up and call it good."
Dammon laughed. "You don't have to go to the hospital. And I will not call it good until it actually is."
"What do you mean, I don't have to go to the hospital? You said I needed stitches."
Dammon gathered the materials he had taken out of the cabinet and headed for the bathroom door. "Come on, let's get you comfortable."
"You got a baseball bat? Knocking me out would make me comfortable." I said, nervously. I followed him down the hall into the living room. He gestured for me to sit on the couch then set his materials down on the wagon wheel coffee table in front of me.
"No baseball bat, sorry. But I have something much more effective. I'll be right back. Sit down," he said, politely. I sat down and Dammon went back down the hall. It didn't take him long to return. When he did, he was carrying a basket made of twigs. It was full of things that were unfamiliar to me. Some of the objects looked like utensils doctors would use, still in their sanitary wraps. There were little jars and bottles and spray thingys and packets of pills and what looked like dried grass.
Weed? As in, marijuana?
I looked at Dammon, about to ask him if weed was his idea of better-than-a-baseball-bat, but he got on his knees in front of me and I was totally distracted. My mind concocted a picture of him holding a ring and proposing to me. I almost laughed. I almost cried. Dammon would never want to marry a loser, freak like me. He'd want someone extremely intelligent, sophisticated, beautiful and angelic, like he was. Wow, I hated that girl already. I wanted to be that girl for him.
"Here, take these," he said, and pulled out a little baggy full of pills, dropping two in my hand. "Don't worry, they're all natural."
"So are mushrooms," I muttered, "And cactus berries." I popped them into my mouth and swallowed them down. "And pig poo."
Dammon paused, looking at me suspiciously. He stared at me for a few moments, as if trying to figure out why I would mention pig poo.
"All right, I'm going to put a topical anesthetic on it. It will numb the area so you won't feel a thing," he said, seemingly having a hard time pulling his thoughts away from the pig poo.
"Yeah, ok. Do what you gotta do. I'll be back here. Not looking." I let out a long heavy sigh. My body deflated into the couch cushions and I closed my eyes.
When Addy took me away from my father, I actually believed my life would be less crazy, that I wouldn't have to go through each and every day wondering what kind of confrontation I'd have next with madness. Maybe I was totally mistaken. Maybe life was just a bowl full of evil. It was stupid, really, that I would see it full of cherries.
"So, how did this happen?" Dammon asked. But by the tone in his voice I believed he already knew how this happened. At least, he knew who did this to me.
"I slipped with a knife," I said. Of course he wouldn't believe me, but I really didn't want him to know the real story.
I could feel him gently slathering something cool over my wounded finger. A few seconds later, just as the pain turned up a notch from his touch, I knew what he was slathering. It was the numbing stuff. It didn't take long for me to lose feeling in that area. I needed to have some of this stuff in my medicine cabinet. I wondered if it came in a form that would numb my brain.
"What's the true version?" Dammon asked.
I cleared my throat, noticing a strange, faint, dizzy feeling in my head that was probably caused by the pills. "Paper cut? My notebook attacked me?" I said, shrugging my shoulders.
"Hold still."
I glanced in his direction and saw a needle sliding thick black thread through my skin. I screeched and closed my eyes tight.
"It's all right, Luna. I know what I'm doing," he assured me. "So, did Sean do this to you?"
I didn't answer him. He already knew the answer to this question. It was starting to frustrate me that he wouldn't get the point that I didn't want to talk about this.
"Did you like it?" he asked.
"What?"
"Aside from the pain, did you like it when he did this to you?"
"Are you serious? Why the hell would've I like it?"
"Maybe because it acts as an aid in your mission to self-destruct?"
"Really? I think that's probably one of the most stupidest things I've ever heard!"
"Maybe you've been blaming yourself for something that's happened to you and you believe you deserve to suffer and to be in pain for the rest of your life because of it."
"Still stupid," I said stubbornly. But Dammon may have been on to something here.
Or on something.
The weed, maybe?
"Maybe you've grown so attached to misery that when it's not around you seek it out, because this is where you're most comfortable. This is what you're accustomed to. With out the misery and the pain, maybe you feel dead inside. Maybe, just maybe, when you're hurting, when you're afraid, you feel more alive than you feel any other time. Excluding, of course, how alive you feel when you're in the presence of the People Reader," he said. I could hear the smile on his face.
"Still stupid. And maybe you're just arrogant, in a sly kind of way. Maybe you have this magical ability to put ideas into my head and feelings into my heart in such a way that I will actually believe they belong to me. And maybe, just maybe, I do feel most alive when I'm with you."
Oops! That last part sort of slipped out.
Dammon slid up onto the couch beside me. "Maybe I am the ointment you need to slather on your life," he said, grinning.
I sat up straight, slow and seemingly unmoving. I could feel Dammon's longing to kiss me. I could feel his strong intension, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to flee or grab him by the pony tail and help him out a little. So I just sat as still as I could, as Dammon leaned into me.
"You are extremely intelligent, sophisticated, beautiful and angelic, like I am," he said, his grin growing a little bigger. His face was now inches away from mine. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think straight. Heck, I didn't even know what the heck he was talking about. His warm breath on my face had a total par
alysis affect on me.
"Close your eyes, Luna," he whispered. His voice swept through me like the wind through the trees, and my leaves shivered in his path.
I closed my eyes.
With a feather-soft touch, Dammon brushed his lips against mine.
But then I shoved away from him and shot up off the couch.
It was only a near-kiss. Actually, it couldn't have even been considered a kiss.
"Dammon, I'm dating someone else," I said, even though I'd broken up with Sean in my heart and in my mind, Sean didn't know this yet. And it felt wrong to want Dammon when I was still technically with Sean. "I shouldn't have even come here! I have no idea what I was thinking. I'm putting you in danger." I whirled around and, in a flash, left Dammon and that near-kiss, standing in his living room, all alone.
It was selfish of me to want Dammon's company, after I had run away from Sean. There were a few things I had a hard time admitting. One of them was the fact that I was frightened out of my mind, maybe even in shock after nearly having my finger cut off. I needed Dammon to help me find my calm again. This was why I ended up at Dammon's. Another thing I had a really hard time admitting was the fact that no matter how crazy or confusing I found it, I was falling in love with Sean.
Or maybe not.
The stupid, incessant ache inside my body had me so confused. Oh, how it ached to be away from Sean. What else could this be called if it couldn't be called love?
Bound---
I plopped down onto my couch, lied down and curled into a ball, trying to get as small as I could. The smaller I could become, the less that would notice me in this world. Like a particle of dust. I was certain there were many of those particles lying around my house, but I didn't notice them. I went on with my everyday life unaware of their existence.
Maybe Dammon was right. Maybe when I am hurting and afraid I feel more alive than any other time. I never knew life outside of madness. I didn't know what it was like to go a day without danger of some kind nipping at my heels. I did, after all, grow up in a house with a demon. This was how, when I very first saw him, it was so easy for me to recognize the demon within Sean.
And this was how I was able to fall in love with Sean, right? I had been programed to believe that pain was simply a reality in a relationship between two people. The more pain, the more proof there was that love was involved.
Sean really loved me, and I knew this.
Yet, I could not accept this. No matter what kind of hell I had gone through, I still could not convince myself that I could love a cruel man.
But I loved Bane.
I closed my eyes, wishing Dammon was right about the whole angels-are-out-there thing, because if he was, I wanted one to come to me this very instant and take me away forever.
No, better yet, I wanted Bane. I wanted to fall asleep where I could be cocooned in his black, feathery wings. I wanted to hear him tell me that everything was going to be all right and that I never had to leave his world again. With me in his world, or with him in mine, everything would totally be all right.
****
Chapter Seventeen
Bane