Page 143 of Wallflower

“I’ll fuck her wherever I want,” Ripley growls, eyes never leaving mine.

“You will not,” I reply.

“Ooh, a lover’s quarrel,” Kyle chortles in a high-pitched mocking voice, picking his seat up.

“Want to fucking bet, flower?”

“Do we need to leave?” Bucky asks.

“I’m not leaving,” Kyle says at the same time Rip says “Yes,” and I say “Nope.”

“Fuck, all right.” Bucky’s fingers fly over the keyboard. “Here’s the footage, Rip. Maybe it will keep your dick in your pants.”

“I win,” he beams.

“Did you?” Kyle taunts, plopping his ass back in the chair. “She’s all hot and bothered, and you’re about to be murderous.”

“Sounds fun to me,” I reply, a dirty little smirk pulling at Ripley’s mouth.

“You would find the yin to your yang in the most fucked up way,” Kyle mumbles.

“Play it,” Rip snaps, winking, then turning from me to the screen.

Ripley’s fingers clench around the back of Kyle’s chair as he watches Rylan aggressively manhandle me to the floor. The leather groans as his entire body tightens, ire filling him to the brim.

“Please don’t throw the chair with me in it,” Kyle says, trying to alleviate Ripley’s anger.

I wonder if they’ve seen Ripley in the same dark way I have. If not, they’re in for an eye opening. I know as soon as my blood spits across the floor, he’s going to lose his shit.

I move closer, dipping under Rip’s arm to stand between him and the office chair. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I tug him into me. His embrace is crushing, but the haze lifts from him just enough to keep him level-headed.

“Where is he?” Ripley growls.

Kyle smiles. “Downstairs… With the others who wouldn’t turn.”

Bucky pipes up, “Yeah, they’re hanging out with the boss they’re so loyal to.”

Gross. How long has it been?

The grin that splits Ripley’s devilish lips can’t be mistaken for anything but sick, twisted, violent. “Excellent,” he purrs. “Care to join me, flower?”

Idon’t know whether to punish her or fuck her for making me feel like this. And because I want to do both and neither of those things as a result of this clusterfuck in my mind, I opt to leave her.

She’s sound asleep in our bed as I creep from the room, the knots binding us cinching tighter with every sweaty step I take.

I want to drive back to Bleakcrest and release all these fucking emotions I don’t know how to decipher or deal with. But, I eliminated every person in that room as the sight of her blood on the white tile replayed in my mind, stoking my anger into an all out fucking rage with no end in sight. Even now, I’m tense, angry. At her, at life, at the shitty fucking hand I was dealt from the get-go.

I lace my runners tight, then dart out the door, sprinting down the driveway. I don’t know where I’m going, having not exercised in weeks. I just need an outlet for all this damn emotional energy.

When Rose gets me, lifts me up, or just fucking stares at me like I hung the moon, I don’t know what to do. How do I reciprocate? The cloud she has me floating on makes my heart thunder erratically in its cage. I’m off-kilter and it’s her fault. Rocks crunch beneath my pounding steps, following the familiar path to the beach without thinking.

What I feel for her would be seen as love by anyone who felt the things I do. I know that. But when I think of that word, I want to fucking puke. All I hear is it pouring from my sick sister’s lips as she wields the word like a weapon to take from me. My mother using love as an excuse for abuse, just wanting us to be the best boys imaginablebecause she loves us.

If she really loved Bradley and I, we wouldn’t have turned out the way we did. He wouldn’t have run away from home, and I wouldn’t have killed him for winding up in Maximus’s organization, destroying the only thing I ever cared about other than him.

The nightmare that’s plagued my sleep since our escape replays again. The mere thought of him conjuring it up.

Gurgling rings in my ears, smothering out the shifting rocks beneath my runners. The hiss from the remaining cigarette ember as it hits the pool of crimson, having fallen from between Brad’s fingers. His cooling blood coating my chest, causing the shirt to stick uncomfortably.