Just enough to still the words in her mouth.
“Don’t you dare say their names.”
Her breath hitches, and her skin goes pale beneath his hand.
“You wouldn’t hurt me,” she whispers. “Youloveme. We’re like family, Kai.”
He stares at her. For a moment, she might even believe she’s right.
“I don’t love you, Paris,” he says finally, and this time, his voice doesn’t shake.
He says it with so much certainty, with so little hesitation, that Paris flinches and hurt flashes through her eyes.
“We were never family,” Kai adds, softer now, but no less lethal. “You were just someone I grew up with.”
Paris opens her mouth like she wants to argue, to plead, to say anything that might change his mind. But nothing comes out. She only stares at him, tears tracking slowly down her face, mingling with the smudged remnants of her stage makeup.
And for a moment, just a moment, Kai doesn’t move.
His eyes blaze, his hand trembles. And it looks like he’s going to do it. Like he’s going tolethimself snap.
He lifts his hand, jaw clenched, breath ragged.
Paris doesn’t scream. She just closes her eyes.
But the blow never comes.
Kai’s hand drops, falling limp at his side.
He stares at her for another beat, and then, without a word, he turns and walks away.
Straight toward the man bleeding out on the grass.
Anderson is still alive, though barely. His breathing is shallow, one arm twitching at his side, blood blooming like ink across the dirt. He doesn’t look up until Kai is nearly on him.
He crouches slowly, his knees pressing into the grass, his fingers curling into fists at his sides.
“Look at me,” he says.
Anderson doesn’t.
Not until Kai grabs a fistful of his collar and hauls him upright, just enough to make the pain snap his head back.
“I said,” Kai snaps, “look at me.”
Anderson’s bloodshot eyes crack open, just barely, dazed, unfocused. And Kai stares into them for a few moments, and then, slowly… he smiles.
There’s nothing sane left in it.
And then his fist slams into Anderson’s face.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
It doesn’t stop.Hedoesn’t stop.
