When his hand shoots out and fists it.
He uses it to bring me forward.
To bring me closer to him, to his icy heat and his chilly blazing eyes. “You can’t take a hint, can you?”
“I just —”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why do you want to know what I had to do?” His grip on the backpack tightens and he inches me forward again as he leans over me with narrowed eyes. “Why are you so curious, Fae?”
I swallow, afraid and trapped and God, thrilled.Thrilledto be so close to him. Something I don’t want to be.
“Let me go,” I tell him sternly.
“No,” he says in a rough, edgy tone. “Not yet. Not until you tell me. Tell me if it’s happening again.”
“What’s happening again?”
He runs those angry, somehow both heated and chilled eyes over my upturned face. He pauses at my lips. He studies the color of Train Wreck Princess, the lipstick I chose for tonight.
And my ballerina heart spins in my chest.
“Your heart,” he murmurs as if he knows, and my eyes go wide. “The one that you gave me so stupidly and the one that I broke. Because I didn’t want it. Is it starting to beat faster now?”
“What?”
“Yeah, now that you know it wasn’t me. That it wasn’t me who got you arrested for stealing my car. Is it starting to race and pound and spin? Is your heart coming back to life now, Fae? For me. For the guy who broke it in the first place. Are you going to tell your friends about me now? About how I saved you and got you free.”
My own eyes narrow at him. “You’re such an ass?—”
“Yeah, you’ve said that before,” he cuts me off, giving my backpack, givingme, a vicious shake. “A million times. I suggest you remember that. I suggest yourememberwho you’re talking to. Who I am. What I did and what I’m capable of. It’s none of your business what I did to save you. Because Ididn’tsave you, did I? You’re still trapped. You’re still caught in a cage from which you have to sneak out to go dancing with your friends. You have to jump over that fence to chase your ballerina dreams.
“So let me explain to you in a way that your brain full of pink glitter and love stories will understand. When you go back to your dorm tonight, I want you to tell your friends a little story. I want you to tell them that when you were almost sixteen, you met a villain in the woods. He forced you to dance for him. He made youdothings. He made you sneak out and lie to your brothers. He made you break all your good girl rules and turned you into a bad girl. And despite all that, you fell in love with him. Despite all the fucking warnings and all the cautionary tales, you fell in love with him. You gave him your heart and he broke it. He broke it into a million little pieces and you got so upset that you stole his car. You got arrested for him. For his love. You should tell them that. You should tellthem that this car, his Mustang that you drove into the lake, herebuiltit. He put all the pieces of it back together to remind himself that while he can fix his car, he can’t do the same with your heart. He can’t mend your broken heart. Because that’s not his forte. He doesn’t really care about hearts and love. So if you ever make the mistake of fallingfor him again, he’ll take those broken pieces and fucking smash them. And he’ll keep doing that until there’s nothing left in your chest. Do you understand that?”
My lips are parted. “I —”
“Do youunderstandthat, Fae?”
I wince. “Yes.”
He studies my face in darkness, my trembling lips, my wide eyes, my up-tilted neck. “Good. I’m glad. Now I want you to stop running from me. You want to throw tantrums, be mad at me, hit me, dump your drinks on my fucking lap, you can. But when I say I’m going to give you a ride, your answer is going to be yes. Because it’s about your fucking safety, all right? And you’re going to wait for me,here, next week at midnight. If you don’t, I will come after you. And you’re going to let me help you. Because I broke your heart, yes. But I’m going to make sure that nothing happens to your dream.”
Chapter Eight
The Hero
Iwas five when I found out that my father was a villain.
Because he’d made my mother cry.
I saw them through the crack in their bedroom door. My dad was talking to my mom in a low voice. He was saying something to her that I couldn’t hear but I could see the effect of it on her face. I could see that with every word he said, her features crumpled up.
It was a sight that scared me.
I don’t remember ever seeing my mother like that.
