Page 113 of Malice and Surrender
“Don’t you dare hurt them. They’ve never done anything to you. It’s me you’re after.” I took a small step forward, and Kai’s eyes flicked to mine. “Isn’t that the truth? I’m the one who hurt you. I’m the one you hate. I’m the one you want to kill and end whatever fucked up war you have inside your mind,” I said.
All the bubbling emotion was pushed aside with the urgency of the situation. There was time for fear later.
Kai licked the blood from his lip, but it was the slight tremor in his hand that told me he heard me.
“Look at me, Snake,” I yelled, and he stepped back. I’d never used his fighting name, but I did now. It had divided us then and had the effect I was after now. Kai’s eyes grew large as he stared at me. “You’re not Kai, not right now, not like this. I don’t even recognize you.” I looked him up and down and tried hard not to remember the teen who had made my heart beat as if it would pound out of my ribcage.
“Don’t call me that,” he said, his voice soft and horrified.
“Why not? You want me dead anyway, right? That’s what Snake wants. To destroy the person who made you this angry.” I spoke like he was two different people. That was what it seemed like to me. Kai could be sweet, caring, and romantic, but then there was Snake, who was only out for blood and pain.
“Well, I’m right here. Do it. Take the shot and end this, because I’m not living in fear of you anymore.” A tear slipped from my eye, and he watched it trickle down my cheek. “I know now that it wasn’t you back then, but I’ve lived the last eleven years a shell of who I was because of what was done to me, and I won’t hide in my closet anymore. I won’t triple lock my door and stay up all night with a knife by my bed. I won’t close my eyes and see your face hurting me.” I shook my head. “Not anymore.” I stepped forward as my anger rose higher.
“Raine, stay back,” Avro said, but this was no longer about them.
Kai was here for me because of our past. I was the only one that could stop this.
Kai’s eyes flicked to the ground. But I wasn’t having any of that bullshit. He came here, and he was finishing it one way or another.
“Look at me,” I growled. Marching the last few steps forward, I stopped when the barrel of his gun touched me, and I gripped the end so he couldn’t simply pull away.
“Let go, Tink,” he said. “I don’t have a fucking safety. Let go.” Kai’s voice was panicked as I pushed the barrel, so it was over my heart.
“Do it.”
“No.”
“Do it!” I screamed at him, the tears breaking free and sliding down my face. “I’ve wasted so much of my life being scared. I can’t be that person again. So do it, ‘cause I’m done. My heart was ripped from my chest in that warehouse. You might as well destroy my soul too.” Tears poured in a steady stream down my cheeks. “Do it,” I whispered.
“No, Tink. Just let go. I won’t shoot them,” he said, but I didn’t believe him.
The images of my attack flooded my mind. My hands clawed at the dusty old couch as my clothes were ripped from my body. My screams were never heard, and no one cared. The pain that they caused as they violated me over and over and shoved my face into the cushion so I couldn’t breathe. My hand shook, and my body trembled. I wouldn’t go back to being that girl, but I couldn’t turn him in. I was fucked either way.
“I think everyone needs to take a breath,” a new voice said.
I glanced over to see the man who was at Kai’s house the day I went to speak to him.
He slowly stepped around the room, wisely keeping his distance with his hands in the air. “Neither of you wants to do this.”
“And how would you know what I want?” I asked, never taking my eyes off Kai.
“Because you don’t look like someone who wants to die. It’s Raine, right?”
I looked at him but kept my hand clenched tight around the gun barrel.
“I’m Roach. Snake and I met in prison. Kai never stopped talking about you. He always loved you. He tried to convince me that he hated you, but no hate burns that bright.”
“Shut up, man. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kai said, but there was no conviction in his tone, and I hated that my chest clenched a little tighter for a man I should want to forget forever.
“Really? So you want to kill her? Then I’m with her. Do it. Get it over with. Otherwise, this is a lot of drama for nothing.”
Kai turned his head and looked at Roach as he crossed his arms over his chest, possibly bored, I didn’t know.
“Don’t look at me like that. Do you want her dead or not?”
“No, of course, I fucking don’t. Them, on the other hand…” Kai growled. “I’d happily see them bleeding all over the floor.”
“For what?” I yelled, and my hand shook violently.
