Page 52 of Fueled Fury

31

Lainey

I cautiously walk across the dirt-covered floor of the abandoned Dome. It’s my hiding spot, but he’s here. It wasn’t the first place I checked, but it did come to mind when I remembered how well it kept me hidden from everyone except him.

“Why’d you come?” I ask. Please let the answer be me. Please let me still be his reason. But he doesn’t answer.

He sits still, his hands on the arms of the broken chair that we’d sat in before, the one he held me in until I was ready to leave and go back to his house.

Slowly, I move to sit on his lap, straddling him. Bringing my hands up, I cup my palms against his cheeks, tears falling down mine.

He’s my safe haven. He’s been the one protecting me. All the while, I’d been running from him. Scared to put my trust in him while he was telling me the truth, even when I didn’t want to hear it. Even when I couldn’t see what was right in front of my face. Him.

There are no words that seem to fit. No words that will erase how I’ve made him feel all this time when I haven’t trusted him. When I believed a monster instead. There’s something inside of me that’s always pulled me towards Austin and away from Eli, but I ignored it. Now, I want Austin to know for certain that he has every morsel of my soul. And actions speak loudest.

Leaning forward, I close my eyes as my lips softly meet his. My arms snake around his neck, clinging tightly as I shift my body closer to his, my tongue moving across his mouth, parting his lips as I kiss him, giving him the last bit I’ve withheld.

His mouth opens, responsive as he kisses me back. But only for a moment. Then his fingers harshly dig into the skin at my hips as he shoves me off of him, rising at the same time I fall onto the grimy floor, hard.

For a split second, with my lips on his, everything had been perfect. Until I lost it all.

Austin looks down at me with such hatred, such anger, that I coil, sliding away as he glares down on me. “You chose him. He said you’d pick him. He knew all along. You’re never going to trust me. It’ll always be him.”

“Austin, I—”

He doesn’t wait for my response, coolly walking to the door like he didn’t just drop me in the filth, leaving me shattered.

“Please, Austin. I’m so sorry. I saw the video and didn’t know who to trust.”

He halts, looking over his shoulder. “You made your choice.”

With that, he disappears out of sight without a second glance my way. Even when he went away before, I questioned how he could. The only thing I question right now is who I just witnessed leave because there was nothing in him that I recognized.

Frozen on the floor, my eyes search around the deserted hangar. For five minutes or fifty—I have no clue—I sit there thinking of every time he’s wanted me to kiss him. Every time he’s asked for me to let him in. And I finally did. I gave him everything—exactly what he’s been asking for—and he didn’t want me.

Walking out of the abandoned hangar, I drop into my car and stare at my hands gripping the steering wheel, debating what to do.

I finally trust myself. I know who else to trust now.

I just need him to see that I made a mistake. He’s made plenty, including dropping me painfully on my ass, which hurts more from the rejection than the unyielding concrete. It takes me minutes to decide. To trust myself even if every sane thought in my head says to flee the other way. I can’t. Steering Lucy to the house, I slow as I turn down the street.

I can’t get there.

Not because he won’t let me in but because it’s blocked off. All I can do is sit and stare as the blaze engulfs his house—our house. Bailing from the car, I scream, running across the yard. A solid, hard body crashes into mine, keeping me back from the flames.

But it’s not who I need to reach. It’s not Austin.

The fireman yells at me to stay back. But he doesn’t understand. Everything is in that house. It was the first place that felt like home.

“He’s in there,” I scream. Though I struggle to get free, the man yells at me to stop.

“There’s no one in the house,” he reassures me over and over again.

But how does he know? How is he certain that Austin isn’t in there?

As my knees hit the cool grass, the heat from the flames sweep over my face as I watch them rage out of control. All I can think about is how Frankenstein’s creature wasn’t designed to be evil but became a monster when the person it wanted love from denied him time and time again.