A sob, hoarse and painful, shot up my throat and came out of my mouth like bile.
I hurt him. I promised him I wouldn't and I did the very thing he was afraid of. I'd hurt him. I'd broken his heart. I'd killed him. I'd become the monster I'd been afraid of and even though I never laid a hand on Dare, it was as if I had. Being associated with me had brought his demise. If he had never taken me in, Victor wouldn't have destroyed his livelihood. He wouldn't have taken his life.
I'm a monster. I'm a fucking monster.
"What the hell—are you crying?" Victor grimaced and dragged me deeper into the woods as the rain mixed in with my tears making me feel cold and alone.
So alone.
I tried to follow him, to keep up with his pace, but my legs stopped working after a while. Hell, my entire body stopped cooperating with me the more I grieved for the love of my life. For my Dare.
"What are you doing? Move," Victor shouted.
I didn't listen.
The blow reverberated through me before I knew what was happening. My face burned. My vision got blurry. I folded in two, nursing the once familiar pain that felt like a stranger after so long.
I blinked and felt another strike. And another. And another. One after the other, they came at me from every direction leaving my flesh scorched with agony. I tried to breathe, to ground myself, to escape this torment, but I couldn't.
Because it was all in my head.
All the times I'd said I loved him and was met back by a slap. All the times I'd said I was sorry only to feel the force of his fist on my cheekbone. All the times I'd cried, and he'd beat me to a pulp until I "learned my lesson."
That was all it took to undo years of therapy. Years of work on myself. One slap and it all came crashing back.
I ground my teeth as the pain pulsed through me. It knocked something off in my brain, and it thrummed in my head like an electric current.
Love shouldn't be met by pain. Love should be met with love. Affection. Tenderness.
With Dare.
All those times I'd said "I love you" to Victor and yet I hadn't said those three most important words to Dare. And now I'd never get that chance.
I was angry.
I was furious. I should have spent more time telling Dare how I felt and less time being a dickhead's punching bag.
I shouldn't have experienced so much pain for trying to be loved. That wasn't how love worked and I hated that Victor had stolen that from me.
Like he'd stolen Dare.
A growl ruptured out of my lips before I could tame it—not that I wanted to anymore—and I swung my arm. My fist landed on something hard.
Victor's head.
He winced and brought his hand up to his face, where my fist had landed.
I froze and everything else seemed to slow down to a halt too.
Had I just done that? I almost couldn't believe it. I'd never fought back. I'd never done anything to defend myself, other than running away from him. This felt...unreal. Like a dream.
But then the ache swelled in my hand and the world came back to life.
I looked at Victor, holding the side of his head where I'd sucker-punched him, and he stared back at me in utter disbelief.
If this was a movie, this would be the right time to say something poignant or snarky, or to turn my back on the villain and walkaway. But this was real life. And the only thing that happened when someone punched you was...
His fist came out of nowhere, it crashed against my sternum, my diaphragm, and for a moment, a long, painful moment, I couldn't breathe.
