He’s slouched on the bench, head tipped back like he owns the place. Same too-handsome face, but thinner now, sharper, eyes sunken in a way that makes the smile he gives me all the more grotesque.
“Well, well.” His voice scrapes down my spine like broken glass. “Thought I was dreaming when they said your name. But here you are. My girl.”
My knees nearly buckle, but Hayes’s hand steadies me. Beck steps forward automatically, body shielding me. Ford mutters something violent under his breath.
Dylan’s eyes flick past me and then narrow. He sees them. All three of them, surrounding me.
Something cracks in his expression. A twitch.
Then another.
His grin twists, teeth bared.
“What the hell is this?” His voice climbs, jagged. “Them? You really are withthem?”
“Shut your mouth,” Beck snarls.
But he doesn’t. Dylan’s voice gets louder, echoing against the walls.
“I thought you might be dating just one of them; I wanted to find out which one. But this…”
I suck in and hold a breath as he continues.
“You never wanted me, but you wanted them?Allof them? At once?” His hands slam against the bars, rattling them hard enough to shudder the frame. “You let them touch you, didn’t you? You smiled for them. You… you gave yourself?—”
“Enough,” Nash snaps, but Dylan’s gone, unraveling.
“Why not me?” His scream cuts through the bars. “Why not me? I was there first! I saw you first! I was supposed to be the one?—”
Ford surges forward, fists balled, murder in his eyes. Hayes yanks him back just in time. Beck’s shoulders are coiled like a spring, one word away from snapping.
I can barely breathe, but somehow, I force sound past my throat. “Because you were never the one.”
The words silence him. Just for a second. His face contorts, something between a sob and a snarl.
“Liar,” he spits. “You don’t even know what you are. You don’t deserve them. You don’t deserve me.”
“Dylan.” Nash’s voice is steel now, pulling the key ring from his belt and shoving us toward the door. “That’s enough. You’re done.”
Dylan’s laughter follows us, manic and broken. “You’ll come back! You’ll see! They’ll get tired of you, and you’ll come back to me. You’ll see that I’m the nice guy?—”
I whip around, my voice slicing through his madness before the door can shut. “No, Dylan. I don’t come back, I rise. And you’re never going to see me fall again.”
The words hit like a slap, sharp enough to echo in the silence that follows. For the first time, his laughter falters.
The door slams shut on his voice, but it’s still in my head, bouncing around my skull like shrapnel.
Hayes’s hand finds mine, grounding me. Beck’s chest heaves like he’s ready to go back in there and tear the bars off. Ford looks one breath away from doing exactly that.
I don’t need to worry about that idiot anymore. He can’t ever get to me. I havethem.
By the time we pull up to the house, I feel hollow. Not empty. Just… scraped out.
The door clicks shut behind us, the familiar cedar smoke scent wrapping around me. For once, it doesn’t gut me. It feels like air in my starving lungs.
Ford’s the first to move, dragging a hand through his hair.
“Jesus, Lo.” He sounds like he’s been holding his breath this whole time. “That was insane, right?”
