She stares at me with her dark eyes in an unreadable gaze.
Moments pass.
Her eyes harden as she closes the distance between us.
Her hand on my left cheek.
My breathing flattens as a pull surges through me.
“Don’t let your brain convince you I can be fixed,” she says darkly. “I am not the poor girl with a bad story that made her this way. I am the villain because I love to be one.”
While I heard what she said, I didn’t process it. All I can think about are those eyes, staring into mine. All I can feel is her touch on my skin. All I long for is her lips to meet mine.
My chest heaves up and down.
My lips part with heated air caressing them.
Her other hand grasps my cheek to cup my face.
She is so close now.
So close that our noses touch, and I can scent her skin.
“Walk away,” she whispers with a shaky voice, “Walk away, or I will be the villain in your story, too.”
Too.
The villain in my story, too.
15
AVERY
PLAYLIST: ZOMBIE (2025 REMASTERED) – THE CRANBERRIES
My fingertips dig into her skin from the force I hold her with. She has seen too much, heard too much, and I am clinging to my last strength, close to forgetting the promise I once made.
“Walk away,” I say threateningly while my hands clutch onto her as if she is the last hope of survival.
“I can’t,” she whispers. “I won’t.”
“You have to,” I whisper, darkly. “Because I won’t change for you, I won’t be more human because you need me to. I don’t change for anyone but me.”
My voice gets threateningly dark. “I can already see it in your eyes. The hope that there is some part of me you don’t hate. But you do hate me. You should hate me, because I am a selfish, arrogant, entitled, grandiose.”
Her eyes flicker at me.
And then she kisses me.
Her lips meet mine.
And for just one moment, there is nothing else.
Just her and me.
No FBI, no conwoman, no Hedda, no past.
Just us.
