Chapter 38
CROSS
I've been stewing for the last couple of hours, since we returned to the mansion from the woods.
The minute the car was put in park, River started his knight in shining armor routine, and blocked me from carrying Olivia from the backseat into the house, insisting he had her.
It's not like I didn't glance in the rearview mirror, while I drove home on the silent, tense drive, to witness him stroking her hair gently, or the fact that, even in her unconscious state, she was snuggling into his body, seeking heat and comfort.
I wanted to switch places with him instantly, and that unusual thought had me reeling, and gripping the steering wheel for dear life.
Damon didn't utter a single word, lost in his thoughts, with an expression that was both terror and wrath mixed together.
The minute we were all through the front door, he disappeared into the rec room, and he's been drinking himself into a coma, with my father's expensive scotch, ever since.
Does he have remorse for all the shit we pulled in the woods?
Is he even capable of feeling that emotion? Fuck if I know.
River took instant charge of Olivia in her damaged condition, the cunt.
She didn't even wake when he placed her in a bath filled with warm, scented water to raise her body temperature, or when he took it upon himself to wash every inch of her while I watched, mesmerized and feeling like my insides were tying themselves into giant razor-filled knots.
I wanted to reach out and strangle him, and at the same time, I wanted to take that washcloth away from his hands and tend to her myself.
What the hell is the matter with me? I've never had the desire to do anything like that for anyone before.
She means nothing to me. She is nothing to me, just a thorn in Mayhem's side.
I can almost convince myself that I believe that, almost.
After Olivia was clean, and he had tended to the worst of her wounds, River dressed her in one of my large t-shirts, carefully dragging a pair of her sexy panties up her legs, and I saw the hunger I feel reflected back in his expression.
As we were leaving the room, after tucking her tightly into her bed, she immediately started to fret, her breathing becoming ragged, and her limbs fighting against the covers.
She was trapped in some hell of a nightmare, and I wondered if I had a starring role.
Before I could even open my lips, or make a move toward her, River had stripped down to his boxers and got in bed with her, wrapping his arms around her, and she settled down immediately with the contact.
I've never wanted to kill my best friend before, but in that moment, if I had a gun handy, I would have shot him in the head without the slightest hesitation.
I forced myself to leave the room, refusing to look back and witness them together, a sour bile rising up the back of my throat, and my fists clenched so tightly that my knuckles were white and aching.
Instead of hitting one of my lifelong best friends, like every cell inside of my body demanded I do, I checked on Damon, and then went for a long, exhausting run on the treadmill.
You would think all that running through the woods would have expended all my energy, but you'd be fucking wrong.
At some point, River must have gotten up and locked the damn door.
As if he must have known that I would come back, and tear him away from her.
I almost broke the damn thing down, but at the last moment, I managed to gain some of my hard-fought control back, the one that is unraveling by the second, thanks to a purple-haired she-demon who's destroying my life and sanity.
River has unwisely positioned himself between us, as if he owns the ground she walks on and the air she breathes, but he doesn't, that already belongs to me.
It's been the case since the moment I first saw her in a photograph her mother proudly, but unwisely, showed me.
He's taken charge of Olivia's care, hovering over her like some psychotic nurse, and guarding her like she's some delicate thing that only he’s allowed to touch.
As if I weren't right here, and she wasn't mine.
As if I didn't feel all the chaos she brings too.
She's my stepsister, my possession, mine to destroy, and I won't let him or anyone else stop me from claiming her.
I'll set fire to this world before that happens.
I've been standing in the hallway outside Olivia's room like an idiot, some disturbed feral thing pacing the perimeter of its own cage for hours, and I hate myself for it.
I should walk away, I should give her space.
I should pretend I'm not thinking about her every second since the woods, but my feet refuse to move and take me away from her door.
My mind spurns any attempt to think about anything else.
I'm stuck here, anchored by something I can't name without choking on it.
She's in there with him, resting, breathing, and safe.
Safe from me, from the things I crave to do to her, even now while she's hurt. The truth of that should settle me, and make me grateful we didn't kill her tonight. It would’ve been hard to explain to my father if we had. It doesn't, instead it fucking burns inside of me like a volcano erupting under my skin, pouring scalding hot lava into my veins. Walk away, she’s nothing. Find some other chick to bury yourself inside of, she’s not worth it, just a dirty skank.
My palms press against the frame of her door, smooth wood biting into my skin, and for a second, all I see is her face when she collapsed.
The way her long, dark lashes fluttered, and her breathing faltered, her small body going limp in my arms. I've never been truly frightened of anything in my twenty-three years on this miserable planet until that moment.
That image is carved into me like a brand.
I keep replaying it, over and over, and every time the same emotions coil up my spine: fear, then guilt, and finally, jealous rage.
Rage and jealousy that Damon had a piece of her out in the woods, without my permission.
That River wants to play her hero, and she seems to gravitate to him.
Fury that I want to control her, and she thwarts me at every turn.
Devastation that everything has already begun to change between us three, because of her.
Olivia Springhill is a poison, for which I don't think there's an antidote, and I'm worried she'll take us all to the grave with her.
I drag a hand through my sweat-soaked hair, pacing the hallway that feels too small for what's happening in my head.
Too narrow for the rage grinding through me, and too quiet for the way my heart is pounding, like it's endeavoring to break free from its cage.
I shouldn't be here, fuck, I should be taking care of business, we still have guns missing, and more possible moles feeding information to the feds.
She's probably still unconscious anyway.
Nothing is happening in there between them, right?
She needs rest, distance, and a momentary ceasefire between us.
River wouldn't dare push me any further tonight.
He has to know how close I am to the edge of destruction.
Still, I can't seem to force myself from outside of her door, and that pisses me off more than anything.
This magnetic pull between us that I can't snap in half, no matter how hard I try.
It's her fault; she's somehow bewitched me, and gotten under my skin.
It's my fault for allowing it to happen in the first place.
I should have put a bullet between her pretty green eyes the moment I laid eyes on her in the flesh.
It's his fault for being in there with her instead of me.
My thoughts fight like wild dogs, tearing at each other, shredding every last piece of sense I have left.
We shouldn't have drugged her, and taken her out to the woods to play our sadistic games, but she ran so beautifully from us.
We went too fucking far, but God, I've never felt more alive, watching her trying to save herself from us.
She looked terrified, but at least she looked at me, saw deep into the monster who lies beneath the handsome facade, and she didn't flinch.
No, Olivia Springhill will never flinch.
It's not in her to back down, even when she's outnumbered, and that's intoxicating.
My stomach twists with venom, because I want her, and I can no longer deny it.
I want to punish myself for caving into those useless emotions.
I need to rip this door off its hinges and take her from him.
Everything within me wants to bloody River for daring to go against me.
The truth I'm attempting so hard to battle against is that I need her, like she's something carved for me, shaped for my hands, meant to be held in my grip until she stops running, not because we drugged her, not because we pushed her, but because she chooses to submit to me.
Something that I know will likely never happen with my violent little psycho.
She'd rather go to her grave, than allow me to own her.
The contradiction drives me insane. I'm furious at myself for wanting softness with her after everything we did.
I'm enraged at River for acting like the moral one, when he's just as twisted and fucked up as Damon and me.
I'm infuriated at her for being the one person I can't seem to control, and can't seem to get out of my head.
Kill her, get it over once and for all, then she won't have a hold on any of you.