Echoes
Title: Echoes
Character/Pairing: One sided Wash/Taylor, Lucas
Word Count: 2700
Genre: Um…romance? Angst?
Rating: PG-13 to soft R
Warning: Sexual things
Summary: The son and the lieutenant are similar in this way, both twisted, failed reflections of the original.
Authors Note: All this angst and deathfic makes me want to write something twisted. And while I’m a BAMF shipper to the core (and kinda ship Lucas/Skye one sided) this was too dark to resist. Listened to Frozen by Celldweller while I wrote it. I’d suggest having it playing in the background just for mood music, but it’s not required.
Echoes
The good lieutenant is everything he loathes, his father’s ideals, his father’s code; his father’s everything, given human form. Poisonous and beautiful, her dark hair hanging loosely about her shoulders, her very posture a mimicry of Taylor’s. It’s a twisted sort of refraction, a reflection of a greater man, shards of him tearing through every bit of her being.
The son and the lieutenant are similar in that way, both twisted, failed reflections of the original. Lucas stands as the black to white, a self proclaimed devil to balance the lauded messiah of humanity. Years have allowed him to step from beneath his father’s shadow but a shadow he remains. It tears and bites every time he looks in the mirror. His father’s eyes, his father’s face stares back at him. Darkness owes itself to light; he owes himself to his father. It stokes the loathing boiling within his veins, rage and helplessness sending tendrils from his heart to mend the shattered remains of the boy he once was, the black shoots, crippling and poisonous, fill the void left by his father’s betrayal, his failure.
Washington stands, not in opposition, but in tandem, a whole that sacrificed self and fulfillment for the betterment of another. Not herself, not an equal to Taylor. She loves, and her love is impossible, every look the stab of a knife, tearing her, bleeding her. Perhaps she’s a little insane; perhaps that’s why she cannot look away despite the pain it inevitably causes. Her dark eye blaze when she thinks the attention has been turned away from her; she reshapes herself to better suit him, consciously or otherwise. A perfect paradigm of his father’s code, a loyal subject, a fawning tool, unable to see beyond his whims. She worships him silently, burns herself willingly at the altar of his piety. Lucas loathes her for it, loathes her for her foolish devotion and loyalty, for her beauty, for her everything.
Because she is a scar, a scab across his memory that will not heal. It festers and tears when she breezes past him, unknowing, unseeing. She is Somalia, his father’s failure, his father everything, given human form. And when he sees her, unknowing or otherwise, when she clasps her fingers lightly over his shoulders to lend comfort, to offer a delicate word of consolation, he’s back in Somalia. Ayani, his mothers face, staring lifelessly towards the sky, towards nothing, towards whatever lays beyond the veil of death. The color’s fled from her, her features beautiful and statuesque in life now tauntingly rigid. The warmth has fled, the comfort is gone and Lucas, young and alone, clutches a memory, begs and pleads for her to return to him.
Taylor had arrived too late, always too late for his son and his wife, his perfect lieutenant, his failed doppelganger, trailing along behind him her dark hair loose around her face, alive despite the dirt smearing her features. He had been there for her, had been capable of saving her, but not his wife. It bites and tears, eats at Lucas’ heart even now.
She had knelt beside him, taken his face in his hands, attempted to comfort, to warm. Taylor had said nothing. Perhaps that is where they differ. Perhaps that is why she’s little more than the moon to Taylor’s sun. She strokes his hair back from his face, attempts to get him to his feet. He remembers her hands on his skin, slick with blood and dirt, leaving streaks of crimson across pale flesh. Her heart breaks, he watches with a dark fascination as it shatters behind those amber eyes, as she takes Ayani from his arms, cradles her head against her chest. He loathes her for it, wants to strike her for it. She already poisoned by his father, she cannot lay claim to his mother’s spirit as well.
It is a thing time has not healed and when he catches sight of her his soul aches, longs for something he cannot put a name to. As she stares after his father, affection tearing at her façade of indifference, he stares after her, catalogues each of her steps, the way her breath catches ever so slightly when his old man accidently brushes against her.
The son and the lieutenant are similar in that way, both chasing an incorporeal dream, an echo. She motivated by love, a desire to own the original, her creator, he a desire to shatter the thing his father has so painstakingly crafted. Remake her, leave her, possess her.
It’s self destructive, dangerous, but she is both those things and so he cares little. He trails after her as she moves, shadows her steps (and laughs, he shadows his father’s shadow, how terribly droll), is there when she turns. And when she arches a brow, regards him with something nearly fascinated, nearly suspicious, something inside him purrs, longs for her. Two failed echoes might find completion in each other, hmm? He isn’t certain.
The first time he reaches out to touch her cheek she moves away, her expression confused. Because it is the father she loves; the son she merely protects. But there is a certain fondness there, as one much always have for a lesser incarnation. She has known him every bit as long, protected him with the same vigilance (because the father loves the son, and she loves the father). She moves away from him, a physical manifestation of everything he loathes and must triumph over.
The second time he brushes the hair away from her cheek, tucks it behind her ear. It’s a maneuver his father has employed on more than one occasion, and both note it. She hesitates then moves away. But not before she looks at him, sees him as he is. With his father’s eyes, his father’s soul twisted to absorb light rather than amplify it, everything an echo of the original, twisted by the war rather than steeled by it. She sees him, hesitates. Moves away.
Because he is everything his father is, and everything that stands against him.
It takes months, trailing her, and he sees her frustration every time he meets her. Because Wash has always been there, protecting, offering comfort. But it is the father she loves, not the son; the original, not the reflection. And as she chases the former, the son pursues her.
“He doesn’t see you,” he breathes against her ear one morning, standing behind her as she surveys the colony. She stiffens but refuses to turn, fingers tightening on the railing. As poisonous as his words are, as desperately as they tear at the fibers of her being, there is no small truth to them. Nathaniel is blind, the ghost of his wife, the past, coloring the future. And how can he see his lieutenant, the woman he’s crafted, with her fiery eyes and dark hair when an incorporeal angel whispers in his ear? It is impossible for a memory to fail him, disappoint him, and Ayani was a beautiful creature, a second piece to complete him, make him whole. The memory makes him whole; Wash is little more than a substandard copy. His flaws, his failures, given life.
She shoves him aside, breezes past him, smelling of earth and life to counteract the death still staining her soul. Ayani was innocence where she is death. He doesn’t see her for the rest of the week.
When he does, she’s sparring his father. The old man fails to notice the ever so subtle shift in her bearing, how she willingly forfeits the occasional advantage to bring them into contact. Lucas watches her, smirks and knows she’s aware of him. More importantly, she aware that he knows her shame. Knows that when Nathaniel claims the advantage, pins her against the ground, that the flush in her cheeks is not owed entirely to her exertions. That when she bucks beneath him it is not an attempt to free herself. He smirks and her cheeks burn with shame. She excuses herself, and the Commander stares after his second, confused by the change in her.
He fails to see her.
Lucas could laugh to himself, the sound bitter and mocking. Her pain is refreshing, seeing her shatter is a victory against his father. To see that beautiful face fall, something like despair momentarily flashing before her inner fire rallies to combat it. In such moments, he fancies there are few things more attractive, more powerful.
The next time he finds her, the sun has set, and Terra Nova’s messiah has retired. The lieutenant is framed by moonlight, alone as makes her rounds. It lends her an unnatural pallor, a severity that is not out of place. She refuses to look surprised when he joins her; in truth, there is nothing on her face when she takes him in. She appears hollow, the shade she truly is. No fire, no life in the witching hours of the night.
“Should you be out so late, Lieutenant? Won’t my father miss you?”
“I relieved him.”
“Of course you did,” he’s barely taller than her, younger than her, and perhaps not in as excellent shape. He lacks his father’s muscle mass, favors his slighter mother. But she doesn’t fight him (unnatural, she needs to fight him, how can he conquer if she simply surrenders), allows him to trap her between the fence and his figure. He reaches out, brushes her cheek. This time, she refuses to move; exhausted and tired of fighting. Focuses on him, his eyes, his father’s eyes.
The father does not see her, and it is the father she loves. But the son sees her, and the son is nothing more than an echo of the father.
She stares at him, confused, but does not pull away when he leans forward, brushes his lips against hers. It’s a ghost of a touch, an echo. For a moment, she fails to react. But her hand slowly reaches up, fingers weaving in hair longer than his fathers, lighter than his fathers. Her lips move against his, deepening, frantic, tongue stroking across his teeth before finding his. It’s hollow, a fantasy, but she holds him tightly to her, presses herself move closely against the wall behind her while dragging him forward.
It tastes of poison, of mutual longing and loathing, a desire neither can satisfy but can pacify. He wishes to destroy his father and she is an echo of what he stands for; he will conquer her, find comfort in such a victory. She longs for his father and he is an echo of the man; she will have him, find comfort in such a tryst. He chuckles against her skin when she breaks the embrace, traces the rise of her cheek with his nose. Revels in her, despises her. Her thoughts parallel his own.
He leaves her that night, flashes her a smile (his father’s smile) before fading off into shadow.
The lieutenant follows the Commander as he flits about the colony, follows as he marches into danger outside the gate, never questioning. She’s never questioned. Lucas accompanies them. When they encounter a Slasher, his father sustains a wound. It’s hardly fatal, but she’s the only medically qualified member of their group and must treat him. Divested of his field armor, she does her best, long fingers stitching, mending. Her professionalism cannot be doubted but there is a tenderness there that transcends camaraderie. The father does not see it, the son does.
Nathaniel is not aware that his touch burns her as he clasps a friendly hand on her shoulder, thanks her and moves blindly away. Lucas is, and where his father moves away, he moves in.
The lieutenant is left, the blood of the man she loves still dripping from her fingers, spurned again. The son smirks at her, brushes his shoulder against hers. A reminder, an echo.
It is Alicia who comes to him, her black hair not unakin to the darkness that flits about his room, hanging loosely across her shoulders and breasts. She’s torn, openly conflicted. But she does not move away from him, takes his face in her hands, kisses him as if she can remake the world, remake herself, through the contact. An echo that seeks to make itself whole, if not through her creator than through another one of his creations.
His skin is cool (Nathaniel’s is warm), his touch punishing (Nathaniel’s reverent). She doesn’t move away from him, fights, attempts to retain the upper hand. She shoves him, not smiling, not anything, when he falls back amidst the sheets. She climbs in after him, fists hands in hair too long to be his fathers, eyes never leaving his. He watches something break inside her, the self loathing that accompanies each of her movements. But she’s beyond caring, and he revels in it. Revels in her slow death, revels as the beautiful woman slowly poisons herself.
He runs his hands across her skin, flesh marred by scars owed to war and his father. Scars sustained in Somalia. A mark under her breast where a bullet had pierced her, nearly ended her life. She had lived; father dearest, always the hero, had saved her. Saved her, failed his wife. Failed his son. He bites down hard on her shoulder as the thought overruns his conscious mind. It earns him a growl, a rough shove as she pins him again, both wrestling demons they will not admit to.
She screws her eyes shut when he enters her, hisses against his shoulder. And when he moves, thrusts, she tears nails down his back, punishing as he tears her. Occasionally, he’ll bend over her, chuckle and brush a stray strand of hair from her sweat stained forehead. Occasionally, he’ll drag his lips across her cheek, almost friendly, almost loving. And sometimes she’ll breathe against his neck, wordless murmurs, almost fond, almost affectionate. In some moments, it’s almost possible to believe it’s something other than mutual loathing, that it’s something more than physical gratification.
When he watches her move beneath him, he allows himself to smile, a hateful echo of mirth pooling in his gut. With her hair splayed behind her, the moonlight bathing her in otherworldly light, she’s beautiful, each and every one of her flaws clearly on display, each tear in her armor more vibrant. And when he pulls away from her, he revels in the shame that seems to flit briefly across her. Because they are both aware of why she comes to him. And she loathes herself and him for it. It pains her, breaks her at least for a moment, and he delights in tormenting his father’s favorite toy.
She contents herself with a subpar second, reasons that an echo is better than nothing. And there are times when he leans down to kiss her that it’s almost more than that. There are times, when she wraps her legs about him, that she can almost imagine it’s him. But Lucas is a shadow, nothing more, and she doesn’t miss the rage in his eyes. Blue eyes, so much like Nathaniel’s. She delights in the moments, behind her eyes, when she can almost imagine it’s the father and not the son inside her.
And when she comes, when she throws her head back, tears nails down his back, she calls his father’s name.
And he stares at her with such absolute hatred that she can’t help but smile, laugh a little though the sound is tinged with absolute bitterness. She watches him shatter, a twisted reflection of the man she loves, groans as he continues to pound into her.
She calls Nathaniel’s name again.
Character/Pairing: One sided Wash/Taylor, Lucas
Word Count: 2700
Genre: Um…romance? Angst?
Rating: PG-13 to soft R
Warning: Sexual things
Summary: The son and the lieutenant are similar in this way, both twisted, failed reflections of the original.
Authors Note: All this angst and deathfic makes me want to write something twisted. And while I’m a BAMF shipper to the core (and kinda ship Lucas/Skye one sided) this was too dark to resist. Listened to Frozen by Celldweller while I wrote it. I’d suggest having it playing in the background just for mood music, but it’s not required.
Echoes
The good lieutenant is everything he loathes, his father’s ideals, his father’s code; his father’s everything, given human form. Poisonous and beautiful, her dark hair hanging loosely about her shoulders, her very posture a mimicry of Taylor’s. It’s a twisted sort of refraction, a reflection of a greater man, shards of him tearing through every bit of her being.
The son and the lieutenant are similar in that way, both twisted, failed reflections of the original. Lucas stands as the black to white, a self proclaimed devil to balance the lauded messiah of humanity. Years have allowed him to step from beneath his father’s shadow but a shadow he remains. It tears and bites every time he looks in the mirror. His father’s eyes, his father’s face stares back at him. Darkness owes itself to light; he owes himself to his father. It stokes the loathing boiling within his veins, rage and helplessness sending tendrils from his heart to mend the shattered remains of the boy he once was, the black shoots, crippling and poisonous, fill the void left by his father’s betrayal, his failure.
Washington stands, not in opposition, but in tandem, a whole that sacrificed self and fulfillment for the betterment of another. Not herself, not an equal to Taylor. She loves, and her love is impossible, every look the stab of a knife, tearing her, bleeding her. Perhaps she’s a little insane; perhaps that’s why she cannot look away despite the pain it inevitably causes. Her dark eye blaze when she thinks the attention has been turned away from her; she reshapes herself to better suit him, consciously or otherwise. A perfect paradigm of his father’s code, a loyal subject, a fawning tool, unable to see beyond his whims. She worships him silently, burns herself willingly at the altar of his piety. Lucas loathes her for it, loathes her for her foolish devotion and loyalty, for her beauty, for her everything.
Because she is a scar, a scab across his memory that will not heal. It festers and tears when she breezes past him, unknowing, unseeing. She is Somalia, his father’s failure, his father everything, given human form. And when he sees her, unknowing or otherwise, when she clasps her fingers lightly over his shoulders to lend comfort, to offer a delicate word of consolation, he’s back in Somalia. Ayani, his mothers face, staring lifelessly towards the sky, towards nothing, towards whatever lays beyond the veil of death. The color’s fled from her, her features beautiful and statuesque in life now tauntingly rigid. The warmth has fled, the comfort is gone and Lucas, young and alone, clutches a memory, begs and pleads for her to return to him.
Taylor had arrived too late, always too late for his son and his wife, his perfect lieutenant, his failed doppelganger, trailing along behind him her dark hair loose around her face, alive despite the dirt smearing her features. He had been there for her, had been capable of saving her, but not his wife. It bites and tears, eats at Lucas’ heart even now.
She had knelt beside him, taken his face in his hands, attempted to comfort, to warm. Taylor had said nothing. Perhaps that is where they differ. Perhaps that is why she’s little more than the moon to Taylor’s sun. She strokes his hair back from his face, attempts to get him to his feet. He remembers her hands on his skin, slick with blood and dirt, leaving streaks of crimson across pale flesh. Her heart breaks, he watches with a dark fascination as it shatters behind those amber eyes, as she takes Ayani from his arms, cradles her head against her chest. He loathes her for it, wants to strike her for it. She already poisoned by his father, she cannot lay claim to his mother’s spirit as well.
It is a thing time has not healed and when he catches sight of her his soul aches, longs for something he cannot put a name to. As she stares after his father, affection tearing at her façade of indifference, he stares after her, catalogues each of her steps, the way her breath catches ever so slightly when his old man accidently brushes against her.
The son and the lieutenant are similar in that way, both chasing an incorporeal dream, an echo. She motivated by love, a desire to own the original, her creator, he a desire to shatter the thing his father has so painstakingly crafted. Remake her, leave her, possess her.
It’s self destructive, dangerous, but she is both those things and so he cares little. He trails after her as she moves, shadows her steps (and laughs, he shadows his father’s shadow, how terribly droll), is there when she turns. And when she arches a brow, regards him with something nearly fascinated, nearly suspicious, something inside him purrs, longs for her. Two failed echoes might find completion in each other, hmm? He isn’t certain.
The first time he reaches out to touch her cheek she moves away, her expression confused. Because it is the father she loves; the son she merely protects. But there is a certain fondness there, as one much always have for a lesser incarnation. She has known him every bit as long, protected him with the same vigilance (because the father loves the son, and she loves the father). She moves away from him, a physical manifestation of everything he loathes and must triumph over.
The second time he brushes the hair away from her cheek, tucks it behind her ear. It’s a maneuver his father has employed on more than one occasion, and both note it. She hesitates then moves away. But not before she looks at him, sees him as he is. With his father’s eyes, his father’s soul twisted to absorb light rather than amplify it, everything an echo of the original, twisted by the war rather than steeled by it. She sees him, hesitates. Moves away.
Because he is everything his father is, and everything that stands against him.
It takes months, trailing her, and he sees her frustration every time he meets her. Because Wash has always been there, protecting, offering comfort. But it is the father she loves, not the son; the original, not the reflection. And as she chases the former, the son pursues her.
“He doesn’t see you,” he breathes against her ear one morning, standing behind her as she surveys the colony. She stiffens but refuses to turn, fingers tightening on the railing. As poisonous as his words are, as desperately as they tear at the fibers of her being, there is no small truth to them. Nathaniel is blind, the ghost of his wife, the past, coloring the future. And how can he see his lieutenant, the woman he’s crafted, with her fiery eyes and dark hair when an incorporeal angel whispers in his ear? It is impossible for a memory to fail him, disappoint him, and Ayani was a beautiful creature, a second piece to complete him, make him whole. The memory makes him whole; Wash is little more than a substandard copy. His flaws, his failures, given life.
She shoves him aside, breezes past him, smelling of earth and life to counteract the death still staining her soul. Ayani was innocence where she is death. He doesn’t see her for the rest of the week.
When he does, she’s sparring his father. The old man fails to notice the ever so subtle shift in her bearing, how she willingly forfeits the occasional advantage to bring them into contact. Lucas watches her, smirks and knows she’s aware of him. More importantly, she aware that he knows her shame. Knows that when Nathaniel claims the advantage, pins her against the ground, that the flush in her cheeks is not owed entirely to her exertions. That when she bucks beneath him it is not an attempt to free herself. He smirks and her cheeks burn with shame. She excuses herself, and the Commander stares after his second, confused by the change in her.
He fails to see her.
Lucas could laugh to himself, the sound bitter and mocking. Her pain is refreshing, seeing her shatter is a victory against his father. To see that beautiful face fall, something like despair momentarily flashing before her inner fire rallies to combat it. In such moments, he fancies there are few things more attractive, more powerful.
The next time he finds her, the sun has set, and Terra Nova’s messiah has retired. The lieutenant is framed by moonlight, alone as makes her rounds. It lends her an unnatural pallor, a severity that is not out of place. She refuses to look surprised when he joins her; in truth, there is nothing on her face when she takes him in. She appears hollow, the shade she truly is. No fire, no life in the witching hours of the night.
“Should you be out so late, Lieutenant? Won’t my father miss you?”
“I relieved him.”
“Of course you did,” he’s barely taller than her, younger than her, and perhaps not in as excellent shape. He lacks his father’s muscle mass, favors his slighter mother. But she doesn’t fight him (unnatural, she needs to fight him, how can he conquer if she simply surrenders), allows him to trap her between the fence and his figure. He reaches out, brushes her cheek. This time, she refuses to move; exhausted and tired of fighting. Focuses on him, his eyes, his father’s eyes.
The father does not see her, and it is the father she loves. But the son sees her, and the son is nothing more than an echo of the father.
She stares at him, confused, but does not pull away when he leans forward, brushes his lips against hers. It’s a ghost of a touch, an echo. For a moment, she fails to react. But her hand slowly reaches up, fingers weaving in hair longer than his fathers, lighter than his fathers. Her lips move against his, deepening, frantic, tongue stroking across his teeth before finding his. It’s hollow, a fantasy, but she holds him tightly to her, presses herself move closely against the wall behind her while dragging him forward.
It tastes of poison, of mutual longing and loathing, a desire neither can satisfy but can pacify. He wishes to destroy his father and she is an echo of what he stands for; he will conquer her, find comfort in such a victory. She longs for his father and he is an echo of the man; she will have him, find comfort in such a tryst. He chuckles against her skin when she breaks the embrace, traces the rise of her cheek with his nose. Revels in her, despises her. Her thoughts parallel his own.
He leaves her that night, flashes her a smile (his father’s smile) before fading off into shadow.
The lieutenant follows the Commander as he flits about the colony, follows as he marches into danger outside the gate, never questioning. She’s never questioned. Lucas accompanies them. When they encounter a Slasher, his father sustains a wound. It’s hardly fatal, but she’s the only medically qualified member of their group and must treat him. Divested of his field armor, she does her best, long fingers stitching, mending. Her professionalism cannot be doubted but there is a tenderness there that transcends camaraderie. The father does not see it, the son does.
Nathaniel is not aware that his touch burns her as he clasps a friendly hand on her shoulder, thanks her and moves blindly away. Lucas is, and where his father moves away, he moves in.
The lieutenant is left, the blood of the man she loves still dripping from her fingers, spurned again. The son smirks at her, brushes his shoulder against hers. A reminder, an echo.
It is Alicia who comes to him, her black hair not unakin to the darkness that flits about his room, hanging loosely across her shoulders and breasts. She’s torn, openly conflicted. But she does not move away from him, takes his face in her hands, kisses him as if she can remake the world, remake herself, through the contact. An echo that seeks to make itself whole, if not through her creator than through another one of his creations.
His skin is cool (Nathaniel’s is warm), his touch punishing (Nathaniel’s reverent). She doesn’t move away from him, fights, attempts to retain the upper hand. She shoves him, not smiling, not anything, when he falls back amidst the sheets. She climbs in after him, fists hands in hair too long to be his fathers, eyes never leaving his. He watches something break inside her, the self loathing that accompanies each of her movements. But she’s beyond caring, and he revels in it. Revels in her slow death, revels as the beautiful woman slowly poisons herself.
He runs his hands across her skin, flesh marred by scars owed to war and his father. Scars sustained in Somalia. A mark under her breast where a bullet had pierced her, nearly ended her life. She had lived; father dearest, always the hero, had saved her. Saved her, failed his wife. Failed his son. He bites down hard on her shoulder as the thought overruns his conscious mind. It earns him a growl, a rough shove as she pins him again, both wrestling demons they will not admit to.
She screws her eyes shut when he enters her, hisses against his shoulder. And when he moves, thrusts, she tears nails down his back, punishing as he tears her. Occasionally, he’ll bend over her, chuckle and brush a stray strand of hair from her sweat stained forehead. Occasionally, he’ll drag his lips across her cheek, almost friendly, almost loving. And sometimes she’ll breathe against his neck, wordless murmurs, almost fond, almost affectionate. In some moments, it’s almost possible to believe it’s something other than mutual loathing, that it’s something more than physical gratification.
When he watches her move beneath him, he allows himself to smile, a hateful echo of mirth pooling in his gut. With her hair splayed behind her, the moonlight bathing her in otherworldly light, she’s beautiful, each and every one of her flaws clearly on display, each tear in her armor more vibrant. And when he pulls away from her, he revels in the shame that seems to flit briefly across her. Because they are both aware of why she comes to him. And she loathes herself and him for it. It pains her, breaks her at least for a moment, and he delights in tormenting his father’s favorite toy.
She contents herself with a subpar second, reasons that an echo is better than nothing. And there are times when he leans down to kiss her that it’s almost more than that. There are times, when she wraps her legs about him, that she can almost imagine it’s him. But Lucas is a shadow, nothing more, and she doesn’t miss the rage in his eyes. Blue eyes, so much like Nathaniel’s. She delights in the moments, behind her eyes, when she can almost imagine it’s the father and not the son inside her.
And when she comes, when she throws her head back, tears nails down his back, she calls his father’s name.
And he stares at her with such absolute hatred that she can’t help but smile, laugh a little though the sound is tinged with absolute bitterness. She watches him shatter, a twisted reflection of the man she loves, groans as he continues to pound into her.
She calls Nathaniel’s name again.