"Kade…"
I say nothing. I can't look at her. Can't see whatever emotion is on her face right now.
I'm out the door before she can say more, practically running down the hallway like a fucking coward. I take the stairs two ata time, needing air, needinganythingbut the memory of her on her knees looking up at me with surrender in her eyes.
I spot Tank through the open gym door as I blow past it to get outside, and I catch a glimpse of him watching me, those dark eyes knowing.
Told you,his expression seems to say.
I flip him off on my way out the door.
The door slams behind me as I storm out into the dying light. My lighter's in my hand before I can think, flicking open and closed, the familiar motion grounding me even as everything else spins out of control. Ellie's not the only one who counts shit.
I wanted to break her when I saw the hope in her eyes when she met us in the throne room and thought there was a sliver of a chance we're still the same boys she threw away.
Wanted to take the nostalgia we're still clinging to like buoys in a pitch-black sea and burn it to ashes like I burn everything else. To make her feel even afractionof the pain we've carried this whole time.
But looking at her on her knees, ready to let me take whatever I wanted just to pay a debt she owes...
That's not what I fucking want at all.
What I want is the girl who used to look at me like I was capable of anything. Who believed in us when no one else did. Who made us feel like maybe we weren't just trash destined for an early grave. Or worse, prison.
But that girl is dead.
Hereyeswere dead.
And so is the boy who sold his soul to get her back.
Chapter 19
ELLIE
Sleep's a joke.
Has been since the moment Kade walked out of this room looking like I'd kicked his dog instead of offered him my mouth.
I roll onto my side, staring at the window where moonlight bleeds through sheer curtains. The collar is a constant reminder that I'mnotdreaming. That I really signed myself over to four twisted men who used to be my best friends.
Why didn't he fucking take it?
The question loops through my head incessantly. I was on my knees. Ready. Willing to pay whatever price they demanded of me.
And Kade just... stopped.
His hands had been shaking. I rememberthat. The way his fingers trembled when they reached for his belt, like he was fighting himself as much as he was fighting me.
I close my eyes and I'm back there. His body pressed against mine, the heat of him bleeding through my clothes. The way his thumb traced my jaw like he was memorizing the shape of me. That moment when his hand wrapped around my throat—not hurting, justthere—and my entire body lit up like someone flipped a switch I didn't know existed.
My hand slides down my stomach, beneath the waistband of these sweatpants that are definitely mine but I don't remember packing. There was a lot of my shit in those dresser drawers, things I haven't seen in years, and I have no idea how they got their hands on them.
Right now, I don't give a fuck.
I'm wet. Have been since Kade put that collar on me, since his breath ghosted across my ear when he whisperedyou're ours now. My fingers find my clit and the first touch sends sparks up my spine.
This issofucked up.
I'm in their house, in a room they built like a monument to everything we lost, touching myself to the thought of Kade's hand around my throat.
