My father calls him a killer, Holly calls him dangerous, and Nic says he’s disturbed—but to me he’s just Ian. They might all be right. Maybe he is disturbed and dangerous, and maybe he is a killer. Those things might have scared me a year ago, but now I find peace in knowing that about him. I grew up thinking life was really simple. You grow up, try your best at whatever you’re doing, and you just be a good person. Nobody ever talked to me about the evil things that can happen in life. Nobody ever told me that good girls with high GPAs can grow up to become junkies. They never talked to me about the dangers of experimenting, and they didn’t tell me that former good girls on the road to redemption can be violated and humiliated. My father, the cop, never shared the horrors he’d seen on the job before, and I didn’t know to ask.
All of the awful does exist, though, and a significant portion of it has happened to me. Some of it I’ve even done to myself. I used to long for a time when I didn’t know how much pain I could endure or how strong I really am. I used to wish to turn back the clock to the eighteen-year-old girl who had such a bright future. I’ve given up on that now. That girl is gone, and in her place is someone I’m still getting to know. All I really know about her is that she likes a man who carries the evidence of his scars on his face for the world to see. She yearns for a man who the scariest men she’s ever met fear to cross. She’s in love with a man who will kill for her, even if he doesn’t love her back. That kind of security doesn’t come along every day, and not every man can fulfill that dark need—but Ian can.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he says quietly. His hand slips around my neck, gently caressing the front of my throat with his thumb.
“Then explain it to me.”
“It’s not something you explain. It’s just—this life. You don’t want to get any more involved in . . . the club.” The way he says the club sounds like it’s forced, like he wanted to say something else but decided not to at the last minute. Why he can’t, or won’t, just talk to me about whatever’s going on here is maddening. “You’ve been hurt bad enough. This club—what we do—is dangerous. You already know that. Why would you choose this when you have another choice?”
“Do I have another choice?” I ask. “From where I’m standing, this is it for me. I used to be somebody else, and now I’m—I need this, the club. It makes me feel normal. It’s like this person I’ve become can’t really exist with the rest of the world. But here, with you guys, I feel like you guys get it.”
“What do we get? What is it about us that makes you feel normal, Melinda?”
And just like that, we’re back to bossy man. He’s losing his softness and sharpening those hard edges he almost always has.
“I get so angry, so mean. I look at normal people and I can’t help but wonder how fucked up they are. I think about it a lot, about what I want to do . . . to them.” This is the first time I’ve said this to someone, what I fantasize about. If anyone will understand this darkness, it’s Ian. “Those men . . . I hate them. I want them to suffer, but they’re dead, and I don’t get that. I wanted Leo to suffer because he scared me.”
“What you did could have gotten him killed if I didn’t like the guy so much,” he says.
“You should have killed him. You should have tied him up and set him on that stupid fucking seawall at high tide. You should have let him drown in the Pacific.”
“This shit isn’t healthy. You’re on a path to destruction, and I’m not going to be responsible for it when you wreck.”
“No,” I say.
He slides his hand behind my neck and tightens his grip. He holds me in place, his eyes searching mine, and his nostrils flaring.
“I’m already destroyed. There’s nothing here for you to save.”
“The fact that you believe that shows how na?ve you really are.” His voice rises as he barks out the words, and the grip around the back of my neck gets even tighter. It hurts, but I refuse to tell him that. “You’ve never stared into a man’s eyes as he takes his last breath. Your blade has never pierced a man’s flesh and ripped apart his insides. You’ve never been coated in someone else’s blood. So don’t tell me there’s nothing left of you. There’s plenty of good left.”
There’s an uncomfortable layer of silence that settles between us, and I search for something to say. Anything would be better than this quiet. If he would just maybe scream at me, it might be better than this. That way I won’t have to stand here, staring into his eyes, thinking about what he’s just said. I’m doing everything in my power to not think about it. I’m afraid how I’ll feel if I do let it sink in.
“I know you think you want me. You think you like this life because you’re hurting, but this isn’t for you. Every one of our women is either born into this world or life fucked them into it. You can’t stomach hearing about it, you won’t be able to stomach living it.”