“The paparazzi following you constantly the year you turned sixteen was when I first started to realize how hard it would be to protect you. Then when your dad tried to kill you? I knew there was no way I could do it alone.” My hands wrap around the backs of her thighs as I pull her tight against me and place my forehead against her stomach. Gentle hands rest on the back of my neck as I speak to the ground beneath us.
“You’re too much, Sable Briarwick. Too beautiful, too smart, too fucking perfect. I needed them to love you too, so I guess you’re right about that part. I knew they would be obsessed enough to keep you safe.”
She places a hand on my chin and tips my face up so I’m forced to look at her. “You gave me four extra boyfriends like a deranged pack of horny bodyguards?”
“Yeah,” I answer sincerely. “I’d do anything to keep you safe. I’d burn down the world for you, and if it means I need those assholes to come along, that’s fine. You are all that matters.”
“Idoneed you all,” she agrees with a sigh as she leans into me and lets me support her entire body weight. It’s not much, but damn, it feels good. “I need you with me, Parker,” she continues, making sure to entirely slay me as if how hard she just made me come wasn’t enough.
“I’m not going anywhere, baby,” I promise.
We stay in each other’s arms for a few more minutes, and it doesn’t matter if it’s the dead of winter in the middle of this track, I’ll remember this until the day I die. She makes me feel so fucking alive, I don’t want to ever move from her. “Let me get you off before we head back,” I beg once again.
“No, that’s not what this was about,” she disagrees, shaking her head. “I’m forcing you to feel good for the sake of making yourself feel good, and if you want to please me, you’ll do what I say.”
“What I wanted was to please your pussy,” I tell her, and she laughs above me, nailing the coffin shut on my hopes of getting my tongue inside her.
Eventually, the cold wind gets Sable shaking in my arms, and I decide it’s time to go back to the school. We start with a light jog. I still want her to build up slowly, and I’m ready to act like her annoying trainer. I’m making plans for us, and everything is wonderful when female voices approach us. Sable freezes, halting to listen, and I’m pretty sure I know which group of girls is headed our way.
“How do you like being the new Offering?” a cheerleader named Nicole asks.
“It’s great,” Arabella says fakely. “I get the best possible accommodations in the school, everything is paid for, and I get to fuck the hottest and most well-connected guys at Bellthorn.”
I reach for Sable’s hand, meaning to comfort her. Anger pulses through me. I want to kill anyone who’s ever hurt her, and I have to work very hard not to do something positively insane like murder them all right here.
“Are you actually fucking all of them, Ara?” one of the girls asks. Sable grips my fingers tightly at the question.
“Not yet, some of them haven’t come around.” She pauses, and I wish I could see why. “The ones I am fucking, though? Unbelievable.”
They come into view over the hill as they keep walking, and they all stop for just a second when they see Sable and me together. Arabella can’t hide her surprise. The same goes for her little friends, whose eyebrows disappear into their hairlines when their eyes catch ours, hands clasped together.
“You’re not fucking any of us,” I say, hoping to violently and rudely dispel any illusions about what’s going on between her and us.
Arabella scoffs. She knows I caught her in a lie, but she’s not the type to go down without a fight. She can get fucked if she thinks I’m letting her say shit about me.
“Oh, I don’t know Parker,” Katie Langston says with a cruel smile. “We all saw the video.” They all giggle at each other like that means a damn thing and jog off like we were nothing more than a little pit stop on their run. Dread courses through me, and I pull Sable back toward the school, as I hope she didn’t hear what Katie said.
“What video was she talking about, Parker?” she asks.
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,” I lie, hoping to God she never sees it.
CHAPTER 46
SOREN
The pills aremy best friends.Fuck having a brother, I decide as I crush two beneath a paperweight. I lick the remnants off the bottom of the weight, feeling the bitterness coat my tongue with a sense of morbid pleasure. I’ll be numb soon. Daddy’s credit card cuts the line, and I roll up a bill to quickly sniff the lines off the table. Shit burns my nose, then slips down the back of my throat for the next hour, but at least it’s fast, and I can’t feel anything else.
Regular noises of life come from my brother’s side of the suite, each one a reminder that he wants nothing to do with me. My lip is swollen from the punch. My mouth tastes like blood and pills dripping down my throat. Who knows where they went or what they did last night, just that it didn’t include me. The upside is that it was quiet. That nothingness isn’t nearly as complete as normal, and my own awareness is an inch beneath my skin, along with everything else.
Minutes pass by, and I wait for that blissful moment when my mind leaves me behind entirely, but too many things hurt. One more pill hits the desk, and I crush it into a single line, snorting it and feeling a singular sense of disgust with myself.Fuck, I moan as it kicks in.
Orion curses, and while it’s likely not aimed at me, it might as well be. What is the TV, or someone on his damn phone, worth in a conversation, but I get punched without a chance to defend myself? “Fuck you too,” I say out loud, not knowing what to do with myself anymore. Everything inside me itches to go out there and talk to him, to beg him to understand and forgive me, but I know he won’t. My brother just isn’t the type.
Several bottles of whiskey line the shelf, and while the rest of the room is a complete disaster, these remain untouched. I don’t think the pills are going to do it tonight, and if I have any chance of surviving in here with him on the other side of the wall, I need something more. With the best intentions, I begin drinking from a shot glass. I swallow the shots so quickly that it doesn’t even feel like a challenge, and soon, I toss the shot glass aside, letting it smash on the floor. The cleaning girl must have come in earlier. I might feel guilty for fucking up her hard work, but I forget about her and drink straight from the bottle instead.
A little while later, the bottle is empty too, and I do feel better in some ways. If better is so fucked up that I can’t see straight and am barely even aware I have a brother. Yes, definitely better. He’s quiet now, probably asleep, but I’m urged to get the fuck out of this room and away from the scene of all the misery. Moonlight shines through the stained glass as I open my door and check if there’s anyone around before I leave.
The hall is empty, crooked, spinning a little bit, but a hand on the stone wall seems to anchor me mostly as I close the door behind me. Trying to keep myself straight proves harder than I expected, and as I walk, I find myself leaning and dragging against the wall for support. A maniacal peal of laughter leaves me, and I’m pretty sure it’s the first time I’ve laughed in months, and maybe it’s because I’m so fucked up I might actually be in danger.
