“That’s all I am, right? Just a hole for your dick. You don’t see me. The real me. Never have!” Her voice cracks, raw with emotion. I know she’s not just talking to me, but the message hits home as hard as if she was pressing that bottle to my jugular.
She stumbles, catching herself against a tree trunk before sliding down to sit at its base. Her head drops forward, hair hiding her face.
“Kai?” she calls again, voice softer now. “You’re there, aren’t you?” Her head lolls forward before her neck stiffens and she pushes back against the tree. “You’ve always been there for me.”
The sudden fondness in her voice makes my stomach twist. Even now, even after everything, some part of her still trusts me.
“Where were you, Kai? Where—” An ugly sob rips out of her. “Where—where?—”
Hidden in the shadows, I slide down the tree I’m pressed against, hand clapped over my mouth as I watch her break down a few feet from me.
Doing nothing.
Like I did nothing when Rooke was using her like a toy.
I can never let her know what I’ve done. What I’ve let happen.
But I can make it right.
Fuck knows how, but I will.
I take out my phone with a shaking hand, unlocking it without thinking.
I could start by posting that video in one of my group chats. Even better, I could create a throwaway account on VibeFeed and create an anonymous public post. It’ll get taken down pretty damn quickly, but not before clocking a few hundred views.
They’ll rip Bastian motherfucking Rooke a new asshole, and she’ll never have to know it was me, that I was the fucking coward hiding in the?—
A new message comes through.
My phone pings so loudly, instinct nearly has me tossing it into the brush.
Haven’s sobs cut off. Her face is a twisted mess as she fights back her tears, her shoulders tightening, head snapping up to scan the darkness with glittering eyes.
“Bastian?” she whispers, fear threading through her voice. “Is that you, you sick fuck?”
She scrambles to her feet, back pressed against the tree trunk, eyes darting between the shadows.
“Wanna another piece of me?” she demands, voice trembling as she raises her broken bottle. “Try me, motherfucker. Not going down so easy this time, though. No horse tranqs.”
The fear in her voice slowly burns away, replaced by a cold, hard anger that sends a chill down my spine.
“What? Too chicken shit?” She swipes the back of her hand over her forehead, spinning to face the other way. When she faces back in my direction, there’s a glare on her face.
“You’re gonna pay for what you did,” she says, voice low. “Think I’m just some fragile little girl?”
She pushes away from the tree, stumbling slightly before finding her footing. I take a chance to stand, to slip behind the tree so she doesn’t accidentally spot me. But her lunatic ravings are so loud, so fucking feral, I shouldn’t have bothered.
“You don’t know me!” She laughs, the sound brittle and sharp. “You’ve gotnoideawho I am. You don’t know what I’ve had to do to survive.”
The rain intensifies, plastering her hair to her skull, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
“Prey’s becoming the hunter again,” she murmurs, the words barely audible over the rainfall. Her hand drifts to her stomach, fingers splaying across it in an almost protective gesture.
“I’ll be careful this time. So fucking careful. No one will ever know.”
Her words become more disjointed, her train of thought clearly derailing the drunker she gets. She spins around, losing her balance, crashing to her knees. Her broken bottle goes tumbling out of her hand, and thank fuck because it was too easy imagining it going through her hand, her arm, her neck.
“You there, Kai!?” she hollers at the dark. At me. “No.” She barks a laugh. “’Course not. Why’d you care about a slut like me? Prob’ly just tell me?—“
