Page 61 of Malice and Surrender
“Don’t you dare look away from me,” he said calmly, but it felt like he was screaming in my ear. “Five years. I’d known you for five years. In all that time, did I strike you as a rapist?” I opened my mouth, but he held up a finger. “That was a fucking rhetorical question. No, I know I didn’t. I also don’t remember ever hurting you. In fact, I always stuck up for you and beat the shit out of bullies for you. I remember bringing you cake, taking you to the movies, and making you smile when you got a bad grade. I held you when you cried or had a bad dream. I played board games with you, and we made plans to see the world.” He paused, and the look he gave me lanced my heart with more precision than any weapon.
“What I know is that you were my best friend, and you didn’t stop for even a moment to consider that it wasn’t me. I would’ve thought you, out of anyone, knew me.” He stood, and my eyes followed him, unable to look away.
“I guess I was wrong,” he said softly and veered around me to march out the door.
I heard the heavy thump of his boots on my stairs and then the slamming of the front door. I didn’t think that I could hurt any more than I already did. I didn’t know there was another level to the torture that attacked me all these years and made my body tremble, but I was wrong. Something far more powerful now gripped me in its clutches as it tried to rip out my soul.
I now understood guilt.
Kaivan
My bike roared to life, and I sat there, letting the unrelenting rain crash down on me as if it would somehow wash away or roll back time. Pulling onto the road, I flew through the rising water that no one else would be stupid enough to drive a motorcycle in. It didn’t matter that I could hardly see where I was going. As if I was on autopilot, I found myself pulling into the Lost Souls parking lot.
My hands gripped the handles so hard that they shook, and my knuckles cracked. I stared at the chain-link fence, water running into my eyes, and I felt nothing and everything. My life was one big game of fucked. There wasn’t a single thing that I could remember that hadn’t been painted with a toxic brush.
A terrifying rage was consuming my body and spreading at a rapid pace. The temptation to get drunk, pull my gun, and go on a rampage was erotic and enticing to my battered heart. I would never admit this out loud, but for the first time, I understood Chase Mathers and his streak of destruction.
It was only as I stared into Raine’s heartbroken eyes that I realized I’d been living with no real emotion in my soul. My heart had blackened with my time in prison until I was numb, and nothing bothered me. My only real emotion had been anger, but now…now I was fucking feeling them all, and all at once. Shock, sadness, loss, betrayal, love…fuck, I still loved her.
I fucking hated to look into her face, knowing that she didn’t have enough faith in me to at least speak to me before she accused me of a crime I didn’t commit. But the thought of her being assaulted like that and left for dead enraged me even more. The terror in her eyes when she stared at my knife was real. The image of someone stabbing her six times made my blood run cold, and it had nothing to do with the cold water soaking me.
There was only so much you could take before you snapped, and tonight Raine filled my cup until it spilled over the edge. She’d inadvertently opened all the floodgates in my soul, and I didn’t like any of the emotions pouring out.
“Hey, man, what are you doing?”
I jumped and almost fell off my bike as Wilder spoke from right beside me. “Geez-us fucking shit balls, man.”
I glared at the guy as my heart restarted. What the hell was he wearing? Wilder looked ready to go deep-sea diving to attack a submarine. He was wearing a solid black outfit that was molded to every part of his body. There was more of Wilder’s cock outlined than I’d ever wanted to see. He had weapons strapped to every inch of his body and was sporting night vision goggles on his face. He looked ridiculous and terrifying at the same time.
“Do you think you could give a guy a little warning instead of sneaking up on him in the dark when it’s pouring rain?” I growled.
He tilted his head as if he were thinking about the concept before lifting a shoulder in a casual shrug. “But then you’d know I was coming.”
“Kind of the point,” I mumbled. “Is there a reason for you coming over here and giving me a heart attack?” I looked around the lot and then back to Wilder. “How did you get over here?”
“Oh, I just jumped the fence. I do it all the time,” he said like that was the most normal thing in the world.
I turned to look up at the tall ass fence with the barbwire on top and shook my head. I suddenly had the urge to put this guy in a max security prison just to see how long it took before he was sitting on their front lawn doing yoga.
“I was wanting to know if you had any other tips to woo a girl?”
My brow rose. To woo a girl? Did he really just ask me that? At the moment, I was the worst person in the world to ask. He could pick the homeless guy on the street and get a better response than I could muster.
“I’m afraid to ask this, but what do you mean by woo?”
The rain suddenly stopped as if God or whoever was up there decided to flip the switch. I wiped my face off and wasn’t sure if being able to see Wilder better was a good idea.
“I would prefer for the female of my interest not to scream and cry hysterically in my presence.”
I bit my lip as I wondered what the fuck he was doing to some poor girl and then decided I really didn’t want to know. Not my circus or, in this case, not my amusement park.
“I suggested that we watch television, but she didn’t seem interested in watching anything.”
“What did you put on for the two of you to watch?” I asked.
“Her friends,” he said, and the corner of his mouth tugged up. That was as much of a smile as I’d ever seen on his face.
“Okay, well…” My brain screeched to a halt. “Did you just say watch her friends? Do you mean the show Friends?”
