Chapter 24
Hunter
I was fourteen when I first heard the phrase “love is like a drug.”
But I always knew that violence is a drug, too.
I chased the easier one.
You can’t make someone love you, but you can always make them fight.
A fist on a face. A knife at a throat. Even a comment, said at the right time, will get you violence on demand.
Love? Love was impossible.
I’d never known it, anyway.
A mom who abandoned us when we were toddlers, a father without a soul. A brother who treated me like I was unwelcome, and a sister who loved me and then bled out in front of my eyes.
I vowed that if anyone ever deluded themselves into loving me again…
I’d make sure they knew their mistake.
I’d burn it before it had a chance to grow.
Then Rayne Colson walked straight into the flames.
This gazebo felt like a palace when I was in here with Rayne.
Now it feels like a jail cell.
I’ve been pacing the small, sheltered space for many minutes now, unseen by the group of guys smoking outside near the house.
I don’t want to leave.
But I also feel a tether pulling me toward Rayne, like a strong magnet beckoning me away.
Go to him.
Just fucking go to him, like you know you want to.
But those brown eyes have a pull on me now that’s way too fucking dangerous.
As I pace back toward the edge of the gazebo, I realize the Daggers guys outside aren’t talking about the party anymore.
They’re talking about Rayne.
My ears perk up immediately, and I stand still.
“Think he was out there with that new guy,” one of them is saying.
Whatever this conversation is, it isn’t good.
“Think they’re fucking?”
“No. I don’t think Hunter Knox would touch Colson.”
Two of them snicker.
And suddenly, I find the first relief from the chaotic mess of my own thoughts.
Because one feeling shines out over all of the others, in a snap.
Clear, focused rage.
“Rayne only got into Crimson because Weston made it happen, right? There’s no way a guy like that gets accepted otherwise.”
“Scholarship case, all the way,” another guy says. “They wanted to make the poor little poor guy feel like he has a chance in life.”
It’s all I need to finally snap.
I come down out of the gazebo, my shoes crunching in the snow on the lawn. I don’t need to hear another word. I don’t know who these guys are, and I don’t fucking care, either.
Finally, I have a goddamn purpose tonight.
And I’m about to claim that purpose, right here and now.
My hand is already feeling for the knife in my pocket when the guys turn and see me as I’m walking over.
I haven’t felt this clear in a long time.
The way everything falls in place when I have a reason to fight.
I see a flash of movement from the other side of the yard and someone comes out from behind the trees.
My heart drops when I see that it’s Rayne.
No.
Don’t be here.
Not for this.
“Hunter, stop.”
I don’t know if he heard what the guys said about him, but there’s nothing that is going to stop me now.
I get to the group before Rayne does.
And the tall guy at the center of the group who called Rayne a “scholarship case?”
He doesn’t know how lucky he’s about to be.
He’s lucky because I decide to leave my knife in my pocket. Heat flashes through my body as I close the distance between us, going in fast.
My knuckles hit his skin before he can even react.
The flash of pain is sudden, like an old friend.
The punch I land on the side of his face is merciful.
My fist connects with his cheek and upper jaw, and I catch him off guard so badly that he stumbles backward, his back hitting the big grill behind him.
“The fuck, man?” one of the other guys says.
Right as I land the second punch.
“Say it again,” I roar at the guy as he sits his ass down on the ground, his hand sliding in the fresh snow.
I’m over him a moment later, keeping him pinned.
Blood rushes in my ears.
I feel every beat of my heart as my pulse quickens.
And I relish it.
The other guys are surrounding us, making feeble attempts to pull me off, but they don’t have a clue how to do it.
“Hunter,” Rayne says from beside me.
“Fucking say it again. I dare you to say it,” I’m telling the guy below me.
These guys bitched.
Gossiped.
But they have no sense of what a real fight is like.
The guy under me glances up at Rayne, then back to me, and finally, the pieces start to come together beneath his thick skull.
“I didn’t mean it, bro,” he pleads. “Swear. Colson, I’m sorry—”
“I don’t fucking care what you said about me,” Rayne says, coming over and trying to pry me away, too. “Hunter, we’re on good terms with Daggers guys. We don’t need this. I don’t need this.”
“Rayne’s smarter than you’ll ever be,” I tell the guy. “More deserving than you’ll ever be.”
“He knows I’m smart,” Rayne says in a dry tone. “He had sociology with me last year and I helped him when he skipped class for two weeks straight.”
I lift my eyebrows, still pinning my gaze on the guy. “Ungrateful, too?”
There’s a little blood on the side of his face, and one drop falls down into the snow, blooming dark red on the pristine white.
It’ll only be a bad bruise tomorrow.
I lost control.
I fucking lost control, like I haven’t since I was in London.
And soon reality catches up with me, in a way I fucking hate.
I don’t regret this.
But I don’t want this, either.
I never wanted any of it.
I stand up quickly.
It’s hard to find my footing in the snow, but I slip a little as I move to leave.
I don’t make eye contact with Rayne because if I do, it’s only going to make things worse.
I’ll be pulled back in.
And I can’t be.
This is who I’ll always be.
And this is exactly why you need to stay the hell away from me.
I break off across the snow and head for the side path.
Running away.
Fucking fleeing.
I know Rayne’s following me. He keeps saying my name, and I can hear his footsteps on the snow behind me.
My heart is lodged in my throat. I follow the path along the side of the house and make it to the front yard, then to the sidewalk of Red Row.
The street is illuminated by the lanterns at the front of each house’s gate, and I try to run in the shadows, heading in the opposite direction of Onyx House.
But Rayne is a good runner.
It feels like he catches up to me in an instant, once I’m past the final lantern at the end of Red Row.
His hand comes down on the back of my arm and he stops me, swinging me around, right at the edge of a forested patch of land.
“Don’t do that shit. Not for me,” Rayne tells me, angrier than I’ve ever heard him.
“I do what I fucking want to do,” I spit back at him.
But is it even the truth?
Have I ever done what I wanted to do, or am I chained to some fucked-up need to fight?
I feel like a monster in his hand.
Like he caught something feral. Like he should put me down, because no one wants a dangerous animal.
Everything around us feels surreal.
The lantern glows behind Rayne and makes his hair look like a halo.
But I stay planted in place.
Because this needs to end now.
“You punched that guy to defend me,” he says. “And I wasn’t even there, as far as you knew.”
My fingers twitch.
I want my knife in my hand for comfort, not because I have any desire to hold it on Rayne.
“I want to punch you, too,” I tell him.
He grips my arm harder, sliding downward until he’s holding my wrist.
He looks me up and down, and I can’t tell if it’s disappointment or desperation on his face. “Or maybe that’s a different urge. Maybe you just can’t tell the difference between wanting to hurt me and just wanting me, plain and simple.”
The snow just started falling again.
The flurries swirl gently behind Rayne, and time seems to slow, magnifying everything.
I can’t do this.
I can’t be here.
I can’t even protect you right, and that’s the only thing I’m good for.
The tiniest snowflakes fall between us, little white dots in the air that collect on his shoulders. I watch a couple of them fall onto his cheeks and melt away instantly.
I swallow past my tight throat. “We have to quit what we’ve been doing.”
“You say that, but your actions say otherwise.”
I can feel myself breaking down.
Piece by piece.
Like it was a joke that I ever thought I could feel whole, anyway.
“Why me?” I say, my voice feeble. “Why does this happen to me? Why did any of that have to happen to me—when—”
“Are you talking about Lune, Hunter?” Rayne says.
And my instinct is to say no.
But I think that the actual answer is yes.
My father’s abuse. My mother abandoning us.
And, always, losing the sister I loved so much.
“Who I’ve become,” I tell him, because I don’t know what else to say. “And everything that’s happened to me.”
I feel untethered, like I don’t even remember what normal means, anymore.
“You’ve been given a lot of shit you don’t deserve, Hunter,” Rayne says, furrowing his brow at me.
“What is fate trying to tell me? What does it fucking mean?”
“Nothing,” Rayne finally says, his eyes going wide. “Nothing. It doesn’t mean anything about you.”
The tears feel hot and unfamiliar when they fall down my cheeks
Tears of anger.
Tears of despair.
“What the fuck did I ever do to deserve any of it?”
He shakes his head.
He looks so hurt, and that’s what I want to prevent.
He shouldn’t be hurt.
I’m the one who should be.
“Nothing,” he repeats. “But just fucking listen to me. Listen to me when I’m trying to tell you something.”
“There’s nothing you can say,” I tell him in a broken whisper.
I’m shaking.
Everything is wrong. Maybe it always has been.
I feel like I’m dissolving, like I’m no longer in my own body, like nothing feels real.
Why are you so good to me?
“I see the spark in you, Hunter,” Rayne says.
“You shouldn’t be with me.”
He ignores my protest. “I see the spark in you, and I am going to be here. Every time. To pull you from the darkness.”
My throat goes tight.
And now the tears are falling again, but my anger vanishes, like a wisp of smoke in air.
“It’s going to consume me,” I say, my voice coming out shaky.
Rayne grips my arm.
Steadying me.
“Then I’ll rescue you,” he says firmly. “Again. And again. I’ll rescue you from the darkness.”
No one’s ever said anything like it to me.
And I don’t even know how to process it.
You shouldn’t love me.
No one as good as you should ever love me.
But even as I protest, as I defy his words, I know he means what he’s telling me.
There’s nothing I can do to push him away.
Nothing that could make him stop caring about me.
I pull in a breath of cool air. “Never should have let you touch me, Colson. Should have made that clear from the moment you kissed me.”
Because I don’t know how to handle real love.
Because you’re giving your soul to a monster.
“But instead, you liked it. You liked every moment with me. What’s so wrong with that?”
“You know what’s wrong.”
“No I don’t. Use your words. Talk to me,” he begs. “Communicate with something other than your knife, or your fists, or your goddamn cock in my throat—”
“I’m fucking falling for you,” I blurt out, feeling like a spark just became an inferno in me.
“I don’t fall for anyone. I don’t let myself.
And you go outside with me, give yourself to me, and ask if this is all just a favor?
It’s not a favor. It’s a mistake I can’t stop making.
And I know you’re just going to regret it. Regret me.”
He watches my eyes as it all comes spilling out of me.
I let him inside me long ago, but I’d been so careful not to let him in my head. Tried to protect him from entering my heart, and ruining his fucking life in the process.
Now it’s too late.
I feel sick. Dizzy.
Rayne cocks his head to one side, still silent, like he’s watching an animal behind glass at the zoo, trying to reach inside.
And you really, really shouldn’t be behind that glass.
“It’s a mask, isn’t it? There’s so much inside you. You act like you’re numb, and cold, and like you want to be alone. But it’s just a mask.”
It’s getting harder to breathe as I try to warn him off. “Rayne.”
“I don’t think I’ll regret a single thing about it.”
He takes a step closer suddenly, pulling my arm forward.
He isn’t trying to fight me.
Isn’t running away.
And when he wraps his arms around my shoulders, leaning in and hugging me tightly, all I can do is collapse into his arms.
The warm bulk of his body.
The affection he somehow gives me, even in the midst of chaos.
And I let go for the first time.
The press of Rayne’s lips is warm against the side of my head. He still fucking smells like sunscreen, even now, on the first snow day of the season, and that smell is comforting in a way that nothing ever has been before.
The first few buttons on the top of his shirt are undone, and from this close, I can see the edge of his tattoo along his collarbone.
Those wings that I love so much. Beautiful ink on his smooth skin that he put there to remind himself he’s free.
You deserve to be free.
Flying high and away, higher than all of us, because you deserve the whole world.
I curse softly under my breath. “Fuck. Fuck.”
“You’re right when you say I shouldn’t fall for you,” he says, stroking my hair like he’s holding something precious. “But I did fall for you. I still am. Tell me you’re fucked up, tell me you’re broken, and I’m still going to be here with you.”
I exhale, resting my head on his shoulder.
The whole world feels too raw, too hostile.
But I want a world where this can be something real.
“No one’s ever wanted that,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
No one’s ever wanted me.
He hums, kissing my head again. “Lucky me. I got to you first.”