Here we go. Don't even try to stop him. He needs this.
I don't move.
Chapter 12
Holt
I swing.
Don't remember deciding to—fist's already moving, connecting with Finn's jaw. The impact travels up my arm, sharp and satisfying and wrong. His head snaps to the side, and the sound echoes off the shop wall.
He straightens, works his jaw. Doesn't step back.
"Feel better?"
I don't. I swing again.
This time he blocks and shoves me back hard. The prosthetic doesn't catch right on the gravel, and I have to grab the truck bed to stay upright. Doesn't matter. I come at him again.
We collide. His shoulder hits my ribs, my elbow catches his temple. The blast. The hospital. All of it coming out now.
He could end this. Finn's always been faster. But he lets me swing, lets me connect, lets me be angry.
My knuckles split on his cheekbone and blood smears between us.
"Holt—"
I hit him again. Not hard. Just need to feel something land. His lip splits, and he spits copper to the side.
"You done?"
I'm breathing too hard, chest heaving. The prosthetic's screaming. I lean back against his truck and slide down to the gravel, hands shaking.
Finn drops next to me and wipes his mouth, studies the blood on his hand.
"Feel better now?"
"No."
Scout's out there driving, thinking she asked for too much. Thinking she's broken. Thinking Evan was right about her.
That one destroys me.
"I wanted it."
"Then why the fuck did you run?"
The bruise on her hip. The way it looked against her skin. My stomach turning.
He stands, and I hear his knees crack. He spits again, and when I look up, he's staring down at me.
"You gonna regret this," he says. "Not the fight. This. Letting her think it was her fault when it was yours."
He gets in his truck and drives away. The taillights disappear down the highway, and then it's just me and the gravel and the stairs.
Those goddamn stairs.
I force myself to stand. The prosthetic protests—socket's definitely rubbed a blister, maybe worse..
