Ghosts ✔

028 • Maddox

If he could turn back time, he would. But he couldn't. He had to live with what he had done – something that was so gruesome that it had taken a few weeks before he had really realized what he had done. He didn't know where that realization had come from. Suddenly he had been disgusted with himself, with what he had done to Dana – with what he was still doing to her.

A few days he had distanced himself from her to make peace with himself. He hadn't locked her up in the video room anymore, he had just avoided her, sitting for hours at the beach, staring at the waves, thinking about a way to make things right. He wanted to see her smile again. He wanted her to love him again. That was the only thing he had wanted since he had taken her to this island. She however had never given him a real second chance – the biker had always been on her mind. And now he understood why: she had carried his child. Breaking the last tie between them had felt natural; so logical that he had reacted instinctively by crushing that skull. 

I had no choice, he told himself. She would have kept trying to return to the father, an obligation she must have felt towards her child. The only solution had been removing the child from her life.

But it hurt her so much. He saw it every day; in her staring eyes, her slumped shoulders, the grim expression on her face. She had grown cold; sometimes he had the feeling that he was fucking a corpse when she was underneath him. The baby had lighted up her world – maybe a new one would do that too. He however couldn't give her a child himself, he needed the help from someone else.

Maddox didn't know how to put his proposal into words. She never talked to him lately; shunning him during dinner, when they were watching tv and when they were having sex. Sometimes he wondered if she was even able to speak, making him listen at the other side of the door when she was with her friend. Then she did talk – softly and inaudible for his ears. But at least it showed him her vocal chords were still working.

In the end he decided to talk about it when they were lying in bed on a random day. She had turned her back towards him, but he felt that she was still awake. More careful than usual he laid his hand on her side. She tensed underneath his touch and he suppressed a sigh. 

"I'm sorry Dana. For what I did."

She didn't answer.

Gently he stroked her side, hoping to attract her attention. "I – I wasn't myself. I don't know what came over me."

Her silence annoyed him. In a moment of frustration he grabbed her arm and turned her around roughly. 

Her eyes stared coldly into his. "What do you want to hear?" she taunted. "You murdered my baby, Maddox. Do you really think your pathetic excuses change anything about that?"

"No," he answered honestly. "But that doesn't mean that we can never be happy together."

She let out a bitter laugh. "God, you really are insane. I won't even try to reason with you anymore."

"I want to start a family with you," he answered stubbornly, ignoring her anger. "I've always wanted that; a child that we can both love."

"Well thank god you're infertile."

There weren't many sentences that were able to make him cringe, but this one was. He had wanted to see his own son or daughter grow up so badly, but that would never happen. "It could happen with help of a donor."

"You wanna ship a sperm bank?" she mocked, turning back her head and looking at him. After a few seconds her eyes widened. "Man, you're really serious huh?"

"I think it will be good for us. New life. Someone we can both love."

"So you can crush another skull?"

"Of course not," he answered peevishly. "Your first child was an unwanted parasite. But we would choose this one together. I will love this child."

"You can't love anyone."

He clenched his fingers to a fist and breathed in sharply, but managed to keep his calmness. "I love you, Dana. Even if it doesn't feel that way, but it's true. Without you I'm nothing."

She snorted.

"After every sexual contact I will love you myself. Then it will feel like it was my sperm that impregnated you."

She shot up in bed. "After every sexual contact?? What the hell are you thinkin'?!"

"I won't mind if you do it with someone you trust. So that you feel comfortable. It will increase the chance that you will get pregnant anyway."

For a moment she stared speechlessly at him. "You – you really are insane."

He gritted his teeth. Why kept she saying things like that? All he was trying to do, was making things as comfortable for her as he could.

"There's only one person here I trust. Are you really suggesting that I should sleep with Kip?!"

"You can pick one of the guards too," he shrugged. "But I thought you'd prefer Kip."

Her face turned pale, for a moment he thought she would throw up. "You hated Tabitha because she was Juice's, but you do want a child that's Kip's?!"

"This will be our child," he answered calmly. "Kip is just a sperm donor. I don't like the thought of you sleeping with someone else, Dana. But I want this family, the three of us."

And the thought that Dana and Kip had no romantic feelings for each other, helped a lot. Kip would find it horrible to impregnate Dana and he would feel guilty towards his friend. Guilt was good, it would keep him from enjoying the deed. This was a business transaction, nothing more and nothing less.

"I'm not going to do this, Maddox," she answered with a fierceness turning him on. "You're insane. So fucking insane."

Maddox however knew perfectly well how to get things done from her. "Then there's no use in keeping him alive any longer."