Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“Say it again,” I roar at the guy as he sits his ass down on the ground, his hand sliding in the fresh snow.
I’m over him a moment later, keeping him pinned.
Blood rushes in my ears.
I feel every beat of my heart as my pulse quickens.
And I relish it.
The other guys are surrounding us, making feeble attempts to pull me off, but they don’t have a clue how to do it.
“Hunter,” Rayne says from beside me.
“Fucking say it again. I dare you to say it,” I’m telling the guy below me.
These guys bitched.
Gossiped.
But they have no sense of what a real fight is like.
The guy under me glances up at Rayne, then back to me, and finally, the pieces start to come together beneath his thick skull.
“I didn’t mean it, bro,” he pleads. “Swear. Colson, I’m sorry—”
“I don’t fucking care what you said about me,” Rayne says, coming over and trying to pry me away, too. “Hunter, we’re on good terms with Daggers guys. We don’t need this. I don’t need this.”
“Rayne’s smarter than you’ll ever be,” I tell the guy. “More deserving than you’ll ever be.”
“He knows I’m smart,” Rayne says in a dry tone. “He had sociology with me last year and I helped him when he skipped class for two weeks straight.”
I lift my eyebrows, still pinning my gaze on the guy. “Ungrateful, too?”
There’s a little blood on the side of his face, and one drop falls down into the snow, blooming dark red on the pristine white.
It’ll only be a bad bruise tomorrow.
I lost control.
I fucking lost control, like I haven’t since I was in London.
And soon reality catches up with me, in a way I fucking hate.
I don’t regret this.
But I don’t want this, either.
I never wanted any of it.
I stand up quickly.
It’s hard to find my footing in the snow, but I slip a little as I move to leave.
I don’t make eye contact with Rayne because if I do, it’s only going to make things worse.
I’ll be pulled back in.
And I can’t be.
This is who I’ll always be.
And this is exactly why you need to stay the hell away from me.
I break off across the snow and head for the side path.
Running away.
Fucking fleeing.
I know Rayne’s following me. He keeps saying my name, and I can hear his footsteps on the snow behind me.
My heart is lodged in my throat. I follow the path along the side of the house and make it to the front yard, then to the sidewalk of Red Row. The street is illuminated by the lanterns at the front of each house’s gate, and I try to run in the shadows, heading in the opposite direction of Onyx House.
But Rayne is a good runner.
It feels like he catches up to me in an instant, once I’m past the final lantern at the end of Red Row.
His hand comes down on the back of my arm and he stops me, swinging me around, right at the edge of a forested patch of land.
“Don’t do that shit. Not for me,” Rayne tells me, angrier than I’ve ever heard him.
“I do what I fucking want to do,” I spit back at him.
But is it even the truth?
Have I ever done what I wanted to do, or am I chained to some fucked-up need to fight?
I feel like a monster in his hand.
Like he caught something feral. Like he should put me down, because no one wants a dangerous animal.
Everything around us feels surreal.
The lantern glows behind Rayne and makes his hair look like a halo.
But I stay planted in place.
Because this needs to end now.
“You punched that guy to defend me,” he says. “And I wasn’t even there, as far as you knew.”
My fingers twitch.
I want my knife in my hand for comfort, not because I have any desire to hold it on Rayne.
“I want to punch you, too,” I tell him.
He grips my arm harder, sliding downward until he’s holding my wrist.
He looks me up and down, and I can’t tell if it’s disappointment or desperation on his face. “Or maybe that’s a different urge. Maybe you just can’t tell the difference between wanting to hurt me and just wanting me, plain and simple.”
The snow just started falling again.
The flurries swirl gently behind Rayne, and time seems to slow, magnifying everything.
I can’t do this.
I can’t be here.
I can’t even protect you right, and that’s the only thing I’m good for.
The tiniest snowflakes fall between us, little white dots in the air that collect on his shoulders. I watch a couple of them fall onto his cheeks and melt away instantly.
I swallow past my tight throat. “We have to quit what we’ve been doing.”
“You say that, but your actions say otherwise.”
I can feel myself breaking down.
Piece by piece.
Like it was a joke that I ever thought I could feel whole, anyway.