I stumbled back a few steps and looked between them, shaking my head. I needed to call the police.
But I couldn’t because I was wanted for murder.
I wasn’t ready to go to prison. Not today. By the grace of God, I hadn’t been taken in yet, but these two could have led them straight to my apartment.
“Where is your coffee?” Everett asked, finally turning back towards me. “You drink coffee like people drink water. Where is it?”
I glared at him. I was giving it up. I threw it all away. Did that stop me from ordering it? No, but I was doing my very best.
His eyes sparked in rage. “Should we go back to the basement, little writer, or are you still convinced that was a delusion?” he threatened, stalking towards me.
I fell back against my bedroom door, my heart racing, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to talk to them. I didn’t want to give him the power of using my own voice against me. My words, my thoughts. I didn’t want him turning my words into something else like Steven did. Like Mom did, like everyone in this whole goddamn place seemed to do. If I kept quiet, I could pretend that I had some semblance of control over whatever the Hell was happening in my life right now.
“You don’t get to not talk to me,” he threatened. “You don’t get to take that away from me,” he said, closing the distance between us.
I pressed myself flat against the door, my skin warm as he stepped up to me, sliding his hand around my throat, squeezing and releasing, squeezing and releasing, as if he were the one losing what little control he had.
My lips parted, one hand wrapped around the doorhandle, the other pressing against the doorjamb as I stared into his coldsilver eyes and didn’t say a word.
His gaze fell to my parted lips, his hand tightening again. “I heard you scream,” he said, his eyes finding mine again. “Don’t take that away from me.”
I swallowed against the palm of his hand, wondering what was wrong with him. This wasn’t who I met. This person was not the person who fuckingassaultedme in the park. Who talked to me in The Club.
I hated him.
I hated me for hating him.
I hated him for making me feel thisagain.
I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t want anyone to touch me ever again.
I shoved him away violently only to jerk my arm back when the pain flared. Shit. My glare lifted back to him, finding those cold eyes glaring back at me. He hadn’t moved an inch.
Because I was weak.
I was achild.
Mom thought so. Steven thought so. Mr. Kingsmen told me to my face that I was still just a child.
Weak, pathetic, little girl.
“Are you going to hit me, little writer?” he hummed. “Are you that angry that you would hit the man who gave you the best moment of your life? The man who killed the man you didn’t have the guts to kill.”
I wasn’t akiller. I didn’t kill people.
“Because you’re weak. Pathetic. Nothing but a goddamn kitten.”
My eyes narrowed to slits, and I put as much hatred in the look as I possibly could. He already proved to me that he didn’t have the balls to actually torture me, and Steven had beat the shit out of me more times than I could count. His words meant nothing.
Nothing.
He seemed to see this in my eyes because he lifted his chin, his lip curling in disgust and looked me over. “No,” he said, his eyes finding mine again. “No, you’re the prodigal too scared of your own shadow to return, aren’t you? You’re not brave, you’re terrified and the anger is your armor.” He leaned in closely, his hot breath brushing over my lips, so close that I had to look up to meet his eyes. “I’ve got a brother with anger issues, his true self revealed by the woman he claimed. This is nothing. Your anger is weak. It’s nothing.”
And despite everything, I swallowed, tears prickling my eyes, but I swallowed them back. I wouldn’t let him see me cry. Not now, not ever.
He grabbed my jaw and yanked me forward until our noses touched, until I could feel the ghost of his lips on mine, my entire body catching fire, my hands wrapping around his wrist. “You want to feel real rage, baby,taste it.” He rushed forward but just before his lips touched mine, my door opened, and Lucy started snarling.
Between one second and the next, he went from assaulting me to pointing a gun at the intruder with me now pressed between him and the door, fully hidden from view.
