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I stay there a second longer than I should. Then I push myself up again. My hand goes to the top of her head and my lips follow, leaving a small kiss there with my eyes closed.

I shouldn’t be doing any of this and I shouldn’t feel the way I feel about her either.

“I’ll find him,” I say, “And I’ll kill him.”

I turn before I say anything else that I can’t take back. I make it to the door, but then she says my name, “Damien.” And I stop immediately, fully tuning. She’s standing now, and moves toward me. Her hand catches my shirt before I can say anything. And then she kisses me. Like she hates that she did. Like she hates that she still wants this.

The control breaks every time she does something she didn’t mean to do, like her body keeps betraying whatever argument she’s having with herself. And I stop thinking in clean lines. When I finally respond, it’s not careful either.

It’s the same problem she has, too much emotion, nowhere clean to put it.

Her hand in my shirt, tightening without any fear of hurting me, like she’s trying to hold onto something that keeps moving. It turns messy fast.

There’s regret in it somewhere, buried under everything else. I can feel it in the tension of her, when she doesn’t fully lean in or fully pull away, like she’s still arguing with herself even while she’s here. And I understand it. Because I’m doing the same thing.

Letting it happen while knowing I shouldn’t, while knowing that stopping would feel just as wrong now.

When she pulls back, she doesn’t let go of me right away, neither do I move.

“I still fucking hate what you did,” she says and she means it.

Her hand loosens on my shirt, distance starts to come back into her body like she remembers she was supposed to let me exist at a safe distance.

She steps back, one stupid step and I catch her before she can fully decide it. My hand closes around her wrist and pulls her back in and kisses her again. I want more. I missed her… I miss her even when she’s next to me.

Her breath shifts against me when I lean in, this time the kiss isn’t like hers was. It’s slower and heavier.. It’s still an argument, right?

When our tongues meet in a desperate way and nothing about it is soft. I like this argument. It just stops coming out as words, it turns into tongues dancing against each other, air mixing between us, bodies melting against one another.

I savor it all. Her presence, her smell, her life. She’s here, she’s still mine even if she hates me, she’s still my Mireya.

When I pull back, I don’t let go of her completely. My hand is still there for a second too long. I can feel it in her, the anger still there, the betrayal she felt.

“I know,” I say before I let go properly this time.

I step back, and fuck it takes effort. More than it should. She doesn’t move forward again, doesn’t follow, doesn’t stop me either. I turn before I change my mind.

This time I actually leave, the door closes behind me, and I keep walking.

92

Damien

Play - Digital Bath by Deftones

Beg

The soft click of the door closing echoes around the hallway as I adjust my shirt. My hand is still, and I don’t move for a second. I just want to go back in and stay there with her, making sure she’s okay, that she’s not replaying anything that happened tonight.

But I have other things to do.

Rage consumes me as I think back on the events that took place tonight. Mireya’s face covered in blood. The marks on her neck…

I don’t remember the walk or the route I took to get here but the moment I look up again I’m standing in front of the surveillance office.

The corridors are quieter now, people are probably asleep, or outside at this hour. But I need to understand why the fucking cameras were off in front of Mireya and Hayzel’s dorm.

When I reach the door and push it open, my eyes catch the low light and the screens showcasing every corridor of the academy, the entries, the classrooms…