Page 87 of Wicked Vile King
She stomps her foot again and looks at my throat. "I. W . . . want. It."
He grips her by the chin and steers her attention back to his.
"Alice," he says to her, "you are no longer my pet. I release you."
"No!" she shouts, shaking her head violently. "I s . . . saw all the s . . . signs." She points at me. "She's c . . . controlling you!"
"No." Saint shakes his head. "Willow is my pet now. You've been replaced."
She starts to cry, her face and the scar twisting with her sobs. I cry even harder as Saint reels her in close and says loud and clear over us both, "I need you to understand, Alice."
"I d . . . don't!" she wails, the words splitting apart.
"Alice!" a woman calls from somewhere close.
"Then I need you to trust me," Saint says, frowning at her, his expression suddenly sour. "Trust me that I will kill you if you ever come near what's mine again. I will carve you up, Alice, and I will make sure you're dead this time. Do you understand? I need you to understand."
"Y . . . yes!" the girl says, howling even louder like she's the one who's been stabbed and not me.
"Alice!" a woman shouts again.
I move to stand, holding my shoulder and hissing through my teeth. My head spins.
I take back everything nice I ever said about Saint Laurier. He isn't helping me become less afraid of the dark. He's scaring all the good things, all the light, away instead. Then one day, when I'm broken and pathetic, I'm going to be just like this girl, jumping off a roof to escape him and then begging him to take me back.
The world swims beneath my tears, and I wipe them away with my sleeves.
"Alice!" a woman cries just before the door opens, and an older woman enters, a gray-haired man at her side.
Saint leans in and whispers something to the girl as the woman and the man take the scene in. I watch as they look from one thing to the next.
The girl crying.
Me bleeding.
The knife on the ground.
And Saint standing there, his expression carefully calm.
"Oh God, Alice, what have you done?" the woman shrieks, her hands going tight around the girl, before she looks at us. "Are you two all right?"
"We're fine," Saint says, giving her a tight-lipped smile.
"I'm so sorry," the woman says, her gaze darting back and forth between the two of us. "Truly, we're sorry for any trouble she's caused. She ran off last night. Her GPS tracker showed . . ." She stops talking as she looks at me, her expression going slack as she takes in my bleeding arm. "Are you sure you don't need any help?"
"We're fine," Saint repeats as the woman and the man I think might be her husband steer the girl out of the building, leaving Saint standing there and me bleeding behind.
24
WILLOW
Saint steps outside, following the couple taking the crazy girl away, and I just stand there, my back against the wall, trying and failing at processing what just happened.
She was his pet.
She wore his collar.
She jumped off a roof.
