He pulled me against him, and I fell onto his lap. The chilling conversation couldn't rival his enjoyment of dominance. I shifted to get away from his swelling crotch, only to edge closer to him.
“I know you're scared. I know you,” I whispered. “I know all your actions, all your life, were derived through fear. To keep Woodrow safe. You’re his protector. I get that. What you never got was, he didn't need protecting from me. And you can't protect him from this. . . and that scares you most. It scares me, too."
“I don’t want to fucking hear this!” He stood, pushing me fromhim.
I fell to the floor, my dress ruined by the dirt.
I found his eyes again; they watched as another tear escaped mine.
“I'm here to listen. I have time. Tell me what you need.”
“I don’t have time.Wedon't have time.” The realization hit him. Hard. He fell back to the swing seat. His mind somewhere other than this yard.
I took in his words . . .and his face and all the fear on it, exposed to me.
“Your Kindle is in the trunk.”
I got to my knees and put a finger to his lips, silencing him.
He'd broken me. . . finally. Not Ville. Him. And without meaning to. He wanted to live and he couldn't.
And without Woodrow, I couldn't, either.
My lips found his just as he was about to spit more venom. A spontaneous kiss told him not to be hateful.
"Don't.” He pulled back. “I hate a liar, and you've made your feelings clear. Don't pretend to care because I’m dying. I’m not him."
“I know.” I slumped down, my ass flush to my feet. “You’re not him. You’re not my Woodrow. You’re a completely different person, who I have tried to help, tried to care for. But you've never wanted to be my friend, Hell. I would have been yours."
A villainous laugh slipped through his lips, creating another puff of smoke around us. He was cold, too cold. The breeze didn't bring much of a chill, that wasn't the reason his body couldn't hold on to heat. And neither was the lack of clothing because he was no longer in nothing but sweatpants. He sat in a pair of jean pants and a leatherette jacket that spoke of its newness by crunching whenever he moved.
“I never wanted to be your friend, Jolie. You really don't get it, do you? You've never understood. You're so in love with Woodrow. Where does that leave the rest of us! When we all feel some kind of way for you?”
“The only thing you ever felt was hate!”
The lowering of his gray eyes told me I was wrong.So wrong.
“You were supposed to be mine. Supposed to be there for me to take out my frustrations on. . . and all you did was frustrate me more. . . because it was constantly him you wanted. They didn’t buyyou for him. They bought you for me!” he raged. “My father convinced me long before you came that you'd belong to me. Me, not Woodrow. He would never have approved of my father's plan.”
“Your father's plan to buy a trafficked teenager, so you could abuse, because the power would attract you to that lifestyle?”
“He told me that you'd hate me, and he proved that to be true. . . by you running from me that very first day. He didn’t tell me that I'd want and desire you, in ways I couldn’t understand.”
“You told me to run.”
“You could have objected. You did about so many other things. But you chose to run, and it angered me. I saw you likethem—my parents. Another person to hurt me. . . hurt Woodrow, who was already fucking smitten with you, and who I was hell-bent on protecting, so I beat you to it. I stopped seeing you as a person. I saw you as property. Mine.” Hell laughed again, but he didn't sound like a villain this time. He sounded like a victim. . . a survivor of the same abuse I'd suffered—life with his parents.
“I shared you with Woodrow because you cared for each other, and you chose him. You forgave him for my actions but not me. Never me. And he turned on me because of you. I could feel a distance, like he didn't want me around anymore because all he wanted was you, but he was all I had. And then, when all that stuff happened in the kitchen, I felt him shutting down, like he was letting me back in. I heard all his plans, and there you were, on the table, waiting for him. Waiting for me. And you didn't run this time. You welcomed me. And it changed everything. . . you were more than property from that moment. But you were still mine. And then everything turned to shit again when I saw that recording.”
The recording played through my head. I'd only seen it in my nightmares, but I knew exactly how it played out.
“I struggled with you wanting Woodrow, but I understood it. I couldn't get over the idea of you bringing that disgusting prick pleasure and enjoying it. You fucking moaned for him. My fucking father, and I fucking heard it. And it’s been stuck in my head ever since.” He stopped, digesting the anger. “And youonly ever cried for me.”
"I didn't.” I sat up higher, rising to my feet. “I didn't moan for him.” I shook my head until I was dizzy.
Hell's legs pushed him back and he swung. His eyes dismissed me, turning to look at anything other than my face.
“It was your mother. She was down there, too. He abused me, and she watched, and she was the one making noises because she. . .” I couldn't even finish that sentence. I couldn't let Wynter back into my head. I still needed her memory to not exist. Her hands never bruised me, but she hurt me the most. “I swear I never. I hated your father. And I hated what he did that last day because you were different then. Like you’re different now. You cared about me. For whatever reason, you did. And he got into your head, and he changed that.”
