He’s leaving and I have no new memories and even more questions than before. Though, I know it won’t be that easy. But I can’t give up.
“Olivia!” I look up to see Alli waving me over.
I take a few steps, but then I stop to turn back around, remembering Trace. But he’s gone.
Of course he is. I only see him when he wants to be seen. I huff in frustration, and then I head toward my friend to join her for a childish game of truth or dare.
16
TRACE
"Aw shucks, you're giving me, oh what's the word? Goosebumps?" ? Slappy, Goosebumps (2015)
After my little visit with Olivia earlier this morning, I went home to take a cold shower. I was desperate for it. And I know I should have probably gone back to the basement to tend to Broden, but then I made the mistake of checking the video feed, watching Olivia as she attempted to quell the ache I left her with. She enthralled me, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Before I knew it, I was watching her get ready for her morning and by the time she was leaving the cabin, I realized too much time had passed and Broden would just have to wait a little longer.
Part of me wonders why the fuck I don’t just get the answers I need out of him and move on. He said he’s willing to talk and it likely wouldn’t take more than ten minutes, twenty tops. But part of me knows that I’m using my distraction with Olivia as an excuse to not get the names I’m looking for. Part of me is fucking scared to find out and that’s something I’ll never admit out loud. I worry that once all of this is done, I’ll still feelthis unending layer of guilt and anger and that I’ll never escape feeling like a fucking failure when it comes to my sister.
I failed her. And while I know that I have to do this, I have to make sure that everyone involved is dead, I don’t know if it’ll ever be enough. It won’t bring her back.
I feel her presence before I see her, looking up to watch Olivia emerge from the trees with Alli. Something twists in my head, my gut, everything. My heart has never stopped beating for the girl. The same girl who created this fucking undeniable need to wreck her for the damage she’s caused me, ensuing my craving to break her all the same. But even as I plan to do just that, she will know at the end of all this that I was the one that saved her. The one who taught her to save herself. Sometimes, we need pain and fear to evict those shadows. Sometimes we need someone who believes that silent suffering is a disease, helping us to get rid of that burden.
I stay seated on the log, one of many surrounding the bonfire that makes up the circle intended for truth or dare. Arms resting on my knees, fingers laced together, hood over my head. I look up at her as she approaches, watching the way she looks apprehensive, nervous.
Her pink hair is down around her shoulders, nearly matching the pink in her cheeks, covered by a gray beanie. Her arms are folded tight across her chest; my stubborn little Livie, she’s shivering from the cold. She won’t be for long. And even though she’s fully covered up with leggings and boots, I still can’t stop imagining her, the way I saw her this morning. Her damn near bare thighs and how she breathed for me. How I wantedto keep touching her, how she practically chased it in her sleep. I know she would have let me, I know I could have made her come. She was yearning for it the moment she woke up. And if it wasn’t for Alli showing up unannounced at the right fucking time, I would have found a way to interrupt hermetime. She’ll only get to come by my hand. My mouth. My cock. Hell, even my gun as she’s proven to like.
And I can see it now, the look of absolute sexual frustration painting her face like a goddamn master piece. She ismywork of art and I plan to display her all over this fucking forest.
I know the moment she senses me. Her body language changes, her eyes start to widen with the quickened beat of her heart, and her lips parts. And just as she usually can, her head turns up to look directly at me.
Something ignites in her. Hatred. Lust. Anger. Everything all at once twisting behind her ocean eyes and exploding into the depths of them. She hates that she looks for me. She hates that she likes that I watch her. And as she silently walks my way, I just smirk at her, admiring how fucking magnetized we are to each other.
Olivia stops in her tracks as Alli walks on. I don’t dare take my eyes off her. More and more people start crowding the space, but it all goes unnoticed as. Chatter builds up around us as more and more people start to find their seats around the fire.
And I’m still staring. Her lips, her eyes, her chest, her fingers. Then I spot her rings.Good girl.
I’ve had eyes on her for a while. Mostly through screens or behind a mask. Even when she sleeps. Butit’s been a very long time since we’ve been eye to actual fucking eye and my eagerness builds in mounds. I’ve longed for her. She was all I was ever able to think about and even through the years, I have been destroyed by the thoughts of what we could have been had if she hadn’t gone and lost herself.
Alli turns her head behind her, likely noticing that Olivia stopped walking and as Alli opens her mouth to speak, Olivia charges right past her and heads my way.
Oh, fuck.I read Alli’s lips who is now looking my way with worry in her eyes as her friend stomps toward me. More and more people catch Olivia’s drift as she makes her way over, making the connection between me and her. But I don’t move. I don’t look at anyone else as I watch Olivia storm over with fury radiating from her body. I can tell she’s desperate to confront me, and as much as I don’t need a scene to break out, bringing attention to me, I’m going to let her have her way. In the dark or in the light, my little reckless is a fireball and it turns me the fuck on to see her like this.
She steps up to me, inches away from being toe to toe, looking down on me as I carefully bring my eyes up to her. A slow methodical glance up her body until our eyes connect.
“We need to talk,” she demands. The anger lacing her tone causes a few whispers to break out around us, but I still don’t move.
I stay silent as I wait for her to break. I know she hates being ignored.
Olivia sighs before reaching down and shoving my shoulder. “Did you fucking hear me?”
I twist my head down to look at where she touched me. She's lucky we’re surrounded by others, but really,she’s delusional if she thinks that I care. When I slowly look back up at her, she’s unfolding a piece of paper.
“Did you write this?” She tosses it in my lap and I almost laugh because she does it while shivering from the snow that falls.
I don’t even pick the note up. Or look at where it landed. Instead I reach behind me to grab the jacket I stole from her room this morning shortly after she left.
I hand it to her, but she stares at it. I set my jaw and let my eyes darken at her, signifying that I’m not playing her stubborn fucking games. I know she can feel the shift in my intensity, because after a moment, she gives in and snatches the coat from my hand.
“Answer the damn question, Trace,” she demands, a little more quiet now, as she swings her arms into the jacket.
