Milo
The sudden shove catches me off guard.
The blow even more so.
My lip splits as her fist connects with my face and blood hits my tongue instantly.
I smirk as I spit it onto the ground, wiping the smear from my skin with the back of my hand.
She doesn’t waste a second. She turns and runs, disappearing into the trees, back toward the noise and the lights of the party.
I straighten slowly and smile.
This girl. She doesn’t understand it.
The more pain she inflicts, the more I want her.
The more she resists, the more desperate I become.
Fuck.
I lift my eyes to the sky, my smile already bordering on madness.
I kissed her.
And it was… fuck.
If she thought I was obsessed before—now I am unhinged.
I need her the way I need oxygen to breathe.
She smells intoxicating, she tastes dangerous.
I watch until she disappears, then I move after her. There is no chance I am letting her walk alone through the dark.
As I walk, I slip my mask back over my face.
The only thing I miss about Velmark Academy is that it was our territory. I could play however I damn well wanted.
Here, I feel restrained. We have to move by the Thirteenth Circle’s rules.
It’s been a hot minute since I last broke someone’s nose. And this absence of violence has begun to get to my head.
As I follow, the memory of what that bitch Talia did sours my mood, only slightly. Because my girl consumes everything else.
But the thought refuses to leave—that she lied about something like this.
And I don’t know which cuts deeper, the lie… or the fact that Octavia believed it.
My vision vanishes.
For a split second, the woods dissolve.
I am younger, smaller, there is a chair, a girl sobbing on the floor, and my father’s voice slicing through the room.
“Fuck her,” that disgusting voice roars.
The blow that follows to my ribs forces tears to my eyes and the air from my lungs.
“You pathetic excuse of a son, touch her,” he snarls.
I am back in the woods, my teeth grinding so hard my jaw aches.
I can handle being hated.
I can handle being feared.
I can handle being called a monster.
But that?
That lie?
If there is one thing I despise more than anything in this world, it’s rapists.
The irony almost makes me laugh.
I run a hand through my hair and force the images away.
At least now I know.
Now I finally understand why she wanted me dead, even if it is not the whole truth.
And I respect that.
If she believed I was a rapist, I respect her for trying to rid the earth of me.
But nothing stands in my way anymore.
Because enough is enough.
I will have my girl.
I will make her see that I am not that kind of monster.
And I will make her breathe me the way I breathe her.