“Happy now?” I demand, swiping angrily at the tears on my face. “Now you know. I’m not some sheltered, delicate little charity case. I’m just as fucked up as you.”
My hands are shaking. My entire body is shaking.
But I hold his gaze.
Because if I break eye contact now, I might collapse completely.
He doesn’t look victorious.
He doesn’t look smug.
He looks like I just punched something out of him.
I don’t wait for whatever he’s about to say.
The pavement is cool beneath my shoes as I start walking toward the house at the end of the block. With each step, the bass grows heavier, vibrating faintly through the soles of my feet. Bodies move in clusters near the gate, red cups raised, someone shouting about shots near the pool. It smells like chlorine, cheap liquor and freedom.
My breathing is still uneven, but the air outside feels bigger than the air in that car, slightly less suffocating.
Silas Corvin may be the product of a broken father and a system that failed him long before he failed anyone else. He may carry survival carved into his bones the same way I do. But that does not give him the right to drag his chaos across my skin like it belongs there.
Surviving one nightmare only to step willingly into another would be the cruelest joke of all.
The gates to Kadin’s yard stand open, light spilling across the lawn in neon blues and pinks. Music crashes into the night, drowning out everything else. Someone bumps into me without apology, too drunk to care, too caught up in the thrill of the evening.
Good.
Let it be loud.
Let it be messy and reckless, because it’s easier to disappear into noise than to stand in silence with everything that just cracked open.
Behind me, the car door closes again. Whether he follows or not doesn’t matter right now. What matters is forward.
Forward into the crowd.
Forward into the music.
Forward into something that isn’t a parked car and a pair of hands that felt too much like the past.
CHAPTER 7
Octavia
Breathe.
The word pulses in my head louder than the music.
Air scrapes down my throat in a shallow drag, not nearly enough to steady the tremor in my chest. My fingers swipe under my eyes, catching the last of the tears before they can fall any further. Mascara smears slightly against my skin, my fingers rubbing harder than necessary, as if friction can erase what just happened in that car.
Breathe.
The party roars around me, bodies pressing shoulder to shoulder in the entryway. Bass pounds through the floorboards, shaking the walls of Kadin’s house. Someone laughs too loudly near the staircase, the scent of chlorine and cheap liquor hanging thick in the air.
“Octaviaaaaa!”
Cheyenne’s voice slices through the chaos.
She barrels toward me from the direction of the kitchen, two red SOLO cups clutched in her hands like trophies. Maria is nowhere in sight. Cheyenne’s outfit leaves almost nothing to the imagination, her blonde hair a halo of chaos around her flushedface. When she reaches me, she throws one arm around my shoulders, vodka heavy on her breath.
