Before continuing, please be warned that some of the content, while not graphic, may be disturbing.
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DOMINIKA'S POV
February (4 Months Later)
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His hands on her were rough, too rough, not smooth and coaxing but calloused and demanding, squeezing her flesh like he was checking the firmness of a peach. When he sighed his pleasure, it shot a thrill down her spine, but it fizzled out before it reached the juncture of her thighs.
His name was Damian and even if he didn't know the map of her body, it wasn't his first time navigating around a woman's curves, and with expeditionary enthusiasm, he relished in the soft groove of her neck. Their fucking—because it could never be making love—was a long time in the making.
She hoped he'd give her what she wanted so she could go to sleep tired and hopefully fall into a dreamless sleep, but Damian kept kissing her neck - if it could be called that. He lapped and gnawed at her like a dog with a new bone and she was painfully aware that he was not, and could never be, Fenris North.
"Dominika," he panted when he slid into her. Her name on his lips sounded all wrong.
Now that it was happening and her body was responding to his quick, hard thrusts, she realized she didn't want it anymore. She thought about saying no, but it was too late now, wasn't it? She recalled that once she had been a person who knew that no meant no, no matter at what point the no occurred.
But she wasn't that girl anymore. She wasn't Dominika, who had been strong and brave fearless. She was something new, now. Something else.
She quivered beneath Damian's body, feeling weak and helpless, and hating herself for it. At least, the small part of her that used to be Dom hated herself for it.
Whoever she was now didn't feel hate. Didn't feel anything.
"I'm so close," Damian ground out. "Shit, Nika, I'm so close." He didn't ask her whether she was.
St. Mary's was the right kind of school for a girl like her, her father had decided. How he knew what kind of girl she was after a lifetime spent ignoring her for not being the son and heir he had wanted, she never knew. Her American mother, long used to bending under the yoke of his oppression, had said nothing in Dominika's defense.
It didn't matter to Dom, either way. Night terrors in one place were much the same as night terrors in another place. And she hadn't cared about anything after that last, horrible night at Reed's house, so she'd let her father dictate what she needed. It seemed easier than caring.
"Is this good for you, Nika?"
She didn't know why he kept calling her that. She wasn't a Nika. She didn't feel like a Nika. But then, she didn't feel much like a Dominika, either.
Isn't that the point of this? a voice in her head nagged. To feel something? Isn't that why you're letting this ape maul you while you just lay there mewling like a pathetic cunt?
Vaguely, Dom wondered why her conscience was such a raging bitch.
Damian looked nothing like Fenris. Damian was the kind of honey-tan that hinted at his mixed heritage, and his eyes weren't slanted and upturned like Fen's, but round and thickly-lashed. He was handsome and tall, and when he tossed a football around on the green, all the girls would stop to look. She missed Fenris' unassuming good looks, his svelte body, and tender lips.
Not like Damian. No, not like Damian at all.
Damian had met her in the library, and even though she didn't so much as bat an eyelash his way, he kept up his juvenile antics until the nun in charge of the library had thrown him out. Dom had kept her face straight and continued staring at the book she wasn't even reading the whole time he was posturing for her. She knew he was being rowdy with his friends just to get her attention. It was the main reason she withheld it from him.
But there was an allure in being chased, in being desired so much that a boy would lurk outside your dormitory or slip notes under your bed about joining him in the planetarium for a midnight feast. She assumed there would be actual food involved if she had chosen to take him up on it, but maybe the lure of snacks had just been a ploy to get her out of bed after curfew.
She didn't trust herself to read people. Not anymore. She'd been wrong before.
How? Could I have gotten it all wrong? I told her, I told Mayuri...Reed lies. I didn't get that wrong. But the rest of it...
"Please..." she said. It could have been a plea for him to bring her to climax or it could have been a whimper for him to stop. Even she didn't know.
"Sorry. You're a little dry." Damian's head was still on her neck, planting kisses with such ferocity that she half thought he expected roses to bloom there. "I'm trying, Nika," he said, frustration making his voice tight.
"I know," she breathed back. Her stomach clenched uncomfortably and she realized she was holding her body stiff. Relax, just relax. As she willed her body to acquiesce, she wondered what Fenris was doing, where he was. If the nightmares still plagued him, too.
Damian's hips were still butting in and out, in and out, like a child on a swing, always picking up momentum, never slowing. It could only have been a minute or two, but it felt like longer.
"Dom," she said. "Call me Dom."
His body went still. "Dom?" He laughed, but stifled it quickly with the back of his hand, because next to her, her roommate was still asleep. "You don't look like a Dom."
"What do I look like, then?" She winced. Damian wasn't considerate like Fen, to prop himself up on his elbows when they were having sex. Damian's weight pressed down on her like an anvil.
"I don't know." He brushed damp hair away from her face. "I guess you don't look like a Nika, either."
She bared her teeth at him. She'd always hated that nickname. She didn't know why she'd let him call her Nika for so long. It had seemed easier to be her, she supposed, than to explain why it hurt so much to be Dom.
Fenris.
Reed.
Mayuri.
The three reasons Dom had wanted to shed her old name and her old life and her old friends, because it didn't matter now, anyway. Better to do what her father and Sister Adele and Sister Agnes wanted.
"You don't seem into this." His voice cut into her consciousness.
"No, I am." She didn't know why she said it, but the lie came to her faster than the truth.
Damian's voice was soft, warbling with boyish uncertainty. "You don't seem to like me. Not even a little bit."
Did he actually seem hurt by that?
"Well, maybe I could just—" She swallowed. "Maybe..." She scooted backward and pushed herself upright, taking him with her. "Maybe we could just...?" Dom used her pointer finger to mime rolling over.
It was no easier when she was lying on her stomach. The cycle started all over again and her cheek roughly bounced against the pillow. She glanced to the floor and saw the scrap of black lace underwear, forgotten and crumpled. The reminder of the quick, furtive impatience for sex filled her with dispassion.
Dark eyes regarded her from a thick white comforter and Dominika fought against the urge to gasp. Her roommate, Alissa, was watching her. A riot of brown curls popped under the comforter, burying the face from view.
It wasn't their first time fooling around while Alissa was in the bed next to them, but tonight was the first night that Dom was aware that Alissa was aware.
"Damian," whispered Dom. "Stop. Stop."
"What?"
He kept moving. Dom knew her words were a blur in his ears. She twisted her back and tried to grab his bobbing chin, but then she was the glow of light under the door and a shadow passing by. Dom sank into survival mode with the ease of someone who had travelled through hell. She'd decided months ago, ever since it had all happened, that she would never be caught unawares again.
The shadow stopped moving right in front of the door, blocking the hallway light like a solar eclipse.
One of the nuns was outside the door.
One of the nuns was about to come in.
She began to struggle against him and in the confusion, Damian stumbled backward, forgetting to be silent. As the exclamation left his lips, Dom pushed him toward Alissa's bed. She went for her nightgown, slipping into it in one fluid motion. She crawled back into bed and at just the moment the door was flung open—the Sisters never bothered to knock—Dom reached down and tossed the lace underwear under her bed.
By the time Sister Agnes entered, Dom was curled under her blankets while Alissa was upright in bed, clutching the comforter to her chest, patches of color in her cheeks. Sister Agnes took one look at the naked, stammering boy, and dragged him out by his ear, barely giving him the time to snatch Alissa's comforter with him.
What was fortuitous for him proved less so for poor Alissa, who was left with her long, parted legs, underwear and frilly shorts tossed near the foot of the bed, and hand hastily hidden in the folds of her daisy-printed cami.
"What's going on?" Dom yawned lightly, putting her hand to her mouth. "Alissa, what's happening?"
"Dom!" Alissa's whisper was horrified.
Dom let her eyes go wide as she took in the sight of Damian frantically covering himself. She turned to Alissa and dropped her jaw. "Oh my gosh, Lissa," she whispered. "You know we're not supposed to have anyone in our room after curfew." She lowered her voice, pretending to be scandalized. "Especially a boy."
Play it cool, Dom, don't oversell it.
"You." Sister Agnes snapped her fingers at Alissa. "Out of bed. Now. You're coming with me."
Alissa struggled to clothe herself, angling her body away from the hard-eyed nun.
Dom kept up her charade of sleepy innocence and ignored Alissa's seething eyes.
Five minutes later, she walked right out the front door, leather jacket tight around her shoulders and black 7 For All Mankind jeans low on her hips. The school wasn't a prison, no matter how high the stone walls were, so what she was doing wasn't exactly escaping, but it sure felt like it. She had her purse and a backpack, and she'd cleaned out her half of the closet within minutes. She didn't bring much to St. Mary's, which Dom was thankful for, because she'd hate to leave any of her couture behind when she fled.
She even had Damian's pack of smokes with her. They were still lying in his regulation gray trousers, one white corner sticking out of the pocket. It was a good thing Sister Agnes hadn't spotted it, otherwise she'd have one more thing to screech about.
Dom actually felt bad about throwing Alissa to the wolves—the girl had been friendly and had offered to share gum with her once—but when the hand of doom was approaching, there was no time to think about anyone but yourself. She felt a little ashamed of her knee-jerk reaction, but she'd barely had time to coherently process any of it before her body had flown into action, shoving Damian and feigning confusion.
She'd thought differently once before, but history had shown her what happened to people who tried to be heroes. When you tried to save other people, you heaped a world of hurt on yourself.
And a savage part of her thought Alissa kind of deserved it for spying on them.
Dom's stomach ached.
If she'd never convinced Fen and Mayuri to help Caroline, if she'd never made Mayuri go to Reed's party...
Dom closed her eyes as she unlocked the gate. St. Mary's needed better security. There was just a deadbolt, which was no trouble at all, and a quick push sent the heavy iron gate swinging open.
Escaping hadn't even been on her mind until tonight. Something had kicked in when she'd slept with Damian. Something had flickered to life inside her and she didn't have a name to put on it.
"Dom?"
She could smell the blood in the air again. Heard incoherent mumbles as she rocked the boy she loved in her arms like he was a small child.
I know that voice...I would know you in the daylight or in the dark.
In the dark, her eyes fought to adjust to the slim figure of a boy standing thirty feet away from her. He was skinnier than she remembered and his cheekbones, already prominent, were more gaunt than ever. His clothing—she recognized the jacket and the ripped jeans—hung loosely on his shoulders and thighs.
"Fenris?" She cast a quick glance around, body tightening like she was seconds from fight or flight mode.
"It's me." His voice was hoarse but it was still the Fenris North she remembered. "I came to find you."
"Why are you here?" she whispered, though he'd already answered her.
"I told you."
Dom turned to close the gate behind her, dallying so she wouldn't have to look at him. It hurt. It fucking hurt. She hadn't seen him months, not since it happened, and now he just strolled up to the gate. Was it providence that he showed up here, tonight, right when she was ready to leave?
"How'd you know where to come?" she asked, still not turning around.
"I kept calling your mom until she finally picked up. It was a good thing she did. I'd run out of room on her voice mail. And your phone is—"
"Disconnected," Dom cut in. "I know. That was Dad's doing. Thought it would be a good idea for me to get some distance from..." She didn't need to say the rest.
"Oh."
She turned around, cheeks wet. "I didn't want distance from you," she said, stressing the last word.
She'd heard the hurt in his words. Unlike Damian's uncertainty, which she'd felt no qualms about ignoring, she refused to leave Fen in the dark, doubting her love for him.
"I didn't really have a choice." She kicked at the ground with the toe of her boot, watched as the pebbles scattered. "Dad wanted me to have distance from everyone connected with—" She couldn't continue, couldn't say the words. Dom looked up, forced a smile. It felt like trying to pry wood apart. "I guess I should be grateful he didn't just drag me back to Russia. It'd be harder to escape from there."
Fenris' laugh was more of a not laugh, a brittle, thin sound that stretched and hung in the silence like the snapping of a rubber band. "So this is you escaping from boarding school?"
"Looks like it."
They were talking like warriors returning from the battlefield. Still a little stunned and more than a little battered. Fenris hadn't made a move toward her and though Dom wished she could run to him and throw her arms around him and inhale his familiar scent, she knew things weren't that simple.
She still remembered the boy who had flinched away from her in the days following the murders, like he thought he was next, like from the shadows, they would be back to strike him down. He couldn't bear to be touched four months ago and she didn't think she could bear the crushing agony if he was to turn away from her again.
She didn't blame him, not really. Everyone coped in different ways. She wondered if he would hate her if he knew how she'd been coping with her grief. She put Damian out of her mind. He was a distraction, nothing more.
"You broke up with me," said Fen.
"I know."
"Do you wish you hadn't?"
She hadn't been expecting that question, so she averted her gaze. "I'm escaping," she said instead. "I hope you have a car around here. Because these boots, contrary to what the song may say, were not made for walking."
"It's parked back there." Fenris jerked his thumb behind him. "But if you come with me..."
Dominika stopped walking, her feet skidding to a stop. "Your help is conditional?" she asked, voice cold.
"Yes." He held her gaze, unwavering. "I'm going after her."
She knew instinctively which her he meant. "On second thought, maybe I don't want to get in a car with a crazy person." She knew she didn't mean that, though.
"She's not dead."
"Of course she is. She's what's called—what was that quaint little term that bitch of a detective used? Oh right—collateral damage."
"If Caroline was going to kill her, they would have found her body along with Mrs. Norcross and Baron in that burned-up crack den the Fernleys called a house," Dom snorted. "By definition, the collateral damage doesn't tend to have a long life span."
"It's almost like you want her to be dead," Fenris accused, and the words were so venomous that Dom threw her backpack at him.
It missed by a mile, of course, and he didn't even blink when she screamed, "How can you say that?"
It was the fucking worst thing he'd ever said to her.
"Because you can't see the look on your face! When you talked about finding her body, it was like you were talking about finding a lost earring!" Now he was screaming back. "We can't save anyone else, but we can save her."
"We should be more concerned about ourselves." Dom alternated her weight from foot to foot. It was suddenly too hard to look at him. Maybe it had been better when the memory of him was all she had to sustain her.
"Do you love me?"
"Of course." That had never been in question.
"Then help me." He said it like it was as easy as saying yes.
"I can't."
"I just..." Dominika ran a vicious hand through her hair, not even wincing when she yanked her way through snarls and tangles. "When I let myself...." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "When I let myself think about her. About anyone. About Reed. Lenox. Ca—" No, she couldn't say Caroline's name. "When I let myself think about them"—yes, that was a safer word—"all I feel"—she pressed both hands to her heart—"is pain."
"That pain means you're still alive. You're still alive to feel something," he said, and then he was there, his arms around her, his cheek smashed on the top of her head. "You're still here," he said and then, as if she hadn't heard him the first time, he repeated it again and again and again.
"You're here, too," Dominika said because at that moment, it was the only thing that mattered.
"I'm here, too."
She didn't realize she was crying until she tasted salt on her lips. She tilted her face back to look at Fenris, properly look at him, and she was almost undone at the look on his face. He was gaunt and he was angry and he was different than she remembered, but he was still Fenris, and he was still hers.
"Fenris," she whispered, and it was a word that conveyed everything.
He took her hand in his and together, they walked to her backpack. He stooped, picked it up, and slung it over her shoulder. He must have seen the pack of cigarettes stuffed into the water bottle compartment, but he didn't say anything.
"Let's go," he said simply, and so they did. They got into his car and Dom had to rearrange his many maps and print-outs and almost sat on what he claimed was his last good red pen.
"What is all this stuff?"
"It's my portable crime board." He flashed her a wan smile. "As in, my whole car is sort of...my crime board."
"Ah." She let the map fluttered between her fingers. "Will you say my name?" she asked as he started the engine.
He shot her a quizzical look.
She swallowed. "My name. Please."
"Dominika," Fenris said softly. "Dominika."
"Thank you." She closed her eyes and let her head loll against the headrest. The tears still flowed, but her wracking sobs had subsided. She felt the hotness trickle down her neck and though it didn't do a damn thing to wash away any of her guilt, she felt slightly cleaner.
"Fenris?" The car was moving now and she watched in the side mirror as the St. Mary's boarding school got smaller and smaller. "I shouldn't have broken up with you." She thought it had been the right thing to do, but now she wondered if even that hadn't been thanks to her father's coaching, subtle hints about what the right thing was.
Maybe it was time she redefined what right and wrong meant to her.
"No." Fen cleared his throat. "You shouldn't have." His voice softened. "But we don't have to talk about it now."
"What's the plan?" she asked. "What can we do that her own dad can't? That the police can't?" It was still a tentative we.
"There's almost nothing that can be done after she's out of the state. And that was a long time ago. The manhunt was called off after the first week. You were gone by then. There's still people on the case but...you know how it is with these cold cases." He flashed her a mirthless smile. "They're cold. No clues. So the department put less resources on it. And her dad just returned to work after a leave of absence."
Fen faltered. "And I don't want to say anything until—I mean, I just don't want to get her family's hopes up. It would be cruel. I've seen them die a thousand times whenever a new tip comes up, because they never pan out. You'd be surprised how many people think they saw her in a car on the highway, or in a grocery store, or playing craps in Vegas."
"And if you came to get me," she guessed, "That means something has happened—something that they don't know—that could lead us to her."
"It's a long shot," Fen allowed. "And I'll need you for it."
"So you didn't come to...I mean, you came because you needed me."
"I do need you." Fenris' grip tightened on the steering wheel. "You can't begin to understand how many ways in which I need you in my life, but for this...yes. I needed you for this, too."
It wasn't the heartfelt I love you Dominika yearned for, but in a way, these words were as satisfying. "Okay," she said simply. "Let's go get our girl."
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Please spam the shit out of this with feedback. I am beyond curious and eager to know how you guys felt about how Halloween changed everything for these characters.
I gratefully welcome all critiques. Do consider voting and commenting if you enjoyed!
P.S. In the television show version that I see playing out in my head, the song above is what I hear in the background when Dom sees Fenris waiting for her <3 Reading their scene to that song makes me emotional - does it make you feel some kind of way, too?