Chapter 29
Dash
Fear is digested daily in my world. However, usually I ’ m the one producing it, then relishing as someone is forced to swallow.
It ’ s the other way around today.
I dig my crutch into the soil, stopping Jared ’ s next step. I don ’ t need it to walk with anymore. My leg feels better each day. I keep the truth as a weapon, just in case someone is foolish enough to underestimate me.
“ Where is she?” I demand.
Jared ’ s lip tugs up, relishing in the facts I don ’ t know. “ You ’ ll lose her.” He taunts. “ You might have her fooled, but she will come back to me.”
My first thought? Kill him, bare hands and all.
My second thought, it would upset Mila, so I resist. My will power is suddenly a vine that is wrapping around Mila ’ s delicate finger. Fuck!
Jared walks around my crutch. I can ’ t let that happen because others are watching. Letting this go invites attacks from others. I know it ’ s coming. I ’ ve sensed other guys who participate in The Cleansing lurking closer each day, like vultures circling.
I act fast swinging my crutch just as I have practiced with Dante and Cillian. It smashes into the back of Jared ’ s head. I lower it, jamming it into the back of his knees, causing him to collapse to the hard ground. He rolls onto his back, trying to get up. I press the crutch to his neck, cutting off his air supply.
“ Here ’ s how it ’ ll go. You will talk, and if I ’ m satisfied, I ’ ll let you go.”
I lean over my cast as if it ’ s still a hindrance. The truth is, I can bend over completely now. Balance was easy to find, thanks to those lessons with Cillian and Dante.
I turned my cast from an obstacle into a shield. After a few days, I could bend down without hurting my leg, but I never told Mila that.
I crave her help, even if I don't need it. Relish each time she bows down before me to cover my cast so tenderly before I shower.
Hissing all my fury into my words, I add, “ You are only alive because you ’ re her partner. She is your lifeline. Tug on that thread, and I ’ ll cut it loose.”
“ You wouldn ’ t hurt her.” He chokes as he grips the crutch. He ’ s smart enough not to try to shove me off.
My lip tugs up. “ Wouldn ’ t I?” I challenge him. “ You found my Achilles heel, Jared, but guess what? I found yours. The only difference is I ’ m not scared to cut it.”
His eyes burn, judging me until his fingers surrender. “ She left campus.”
“ What do you mean, she left?” I shove the crutch deeper. He begins to cough, desperate for his next breath.
He taps the side and I loosen it. “ With some guy. I don ’ t know his name. They hang out when she ’ s upset.”
She ’ s not alone. That ’ s good. I don ’ t trust her to be alone with her darkness. She hasn ’ t learned to control it yet.
“ I need a name?” I seethe. Who the fuck did she leave school with?
“ I don ’ t know!” He tries to shake me off. “ He ’ s a friend. He ’ s just a friend.”
“ How the fuck do you know that?”
He begins to smile. “ Because she ’ d hang out with him when we used to hook up, and I trusted her not to fuck him.” He spits like he just stole something right out from under my nose.
I snort a laugh. He ’ s good. I shift the crutch up and smash it into his nose. He rolls over bleeding, but is smart enough not to cry out his pain. Students here are attracted to those sounds.
***
Mila still isn ’ t back. Just a friend, my ass.
It shouldn ’ t bother me. I hate that it does.
I lean against my bed, grasping my phone. I don ’ t understand what ’ s happening to me. My heart feels itchy, and no matter how cruel I am, the need to scratch it doesn ’ t go away.
I try to call Titan again. Damian ’ s phone rings to no avail, and I know if I keep calling his prick of a father, my uncle, will only relish in the power he ’ s holding over Damian ’ s head.
A deep sigh fills the line. “ Dash.” Lucas, my uncle, grunts. “ Please stop trying to call Titan. He won ’ t be available for a while.”
“ Why?”
Pause. “ He ’ s away.”
“ Did you kill him?” In all seriousness, my question is honest. It feels like our fathers, the infamous King brothers, have been trying to kill us for years.
“ Not yet,” Uncle Lucas chuckles. “ He ’ s my son. Everything we do is to make sure you boys are safe.”
Utter bullshit.
“ Where is Damian?”
Silence. Even Uncle Lucas can ’ t defend how Damian ’ s dad treats him. “ He ’ s fine, too. You need to focus on your recovery. You ’ ll see your cousins soon.” He mutters.
Soon. It ’ s a secret meant to quell my pestering, but it only does the opposite.
“ Is there another reason why you call five times a day?”
Yes, but I can ’ t ask you…or can I?
“ Who is Titan ’ s mom?”
He coughs. Wow, it ’ s rare to catch Uncle Lucas off guard. “ Why?”
“ Was she just a one-night stand, or did you love her?” I press. Uncle Lucas has refused to tell Titan anything about his mom. Eventually, Titan stopped asking.
“ It ’ s irrelevant.”
“ What is? Love or the lack thereof?”
“ Both.”
How did you stop the itchiness in your now dead heart, uncle?
“ What is relevant, then?”
“ Survival.”
Did Lucas kill her? Did he love her? Did he even have a choice?
“ I ’ m going to turn Titan ’ s phone off. Dash,” Lucas pauses as if a man like Uncle Lucas knows the definition of struggling. “ Please survive. It will make sense eventually.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone. I wish I didn ’ t speak to him.
Knock, knock, knock.
My body jerks as my door rumbles. I grab the gun that Dante gave me before I answer it. I crack open the door, finger on the trigger. “ Mila,” I put the gun on my desk and swing the door open wide. A flood of emotions rushes into the chambers of my heart, pumping wildly through my body. Anger, fury, fear, worry.
Bright colors flood my eyes, mirroring my thoughts. Mila ’ s small, trembling hands are covered in paint. Her eyes look at me as if she has found refuge after being stranded in the Arctic.
I grab her shoulders, drag her inside, close the door, and press her back against it. “ What happened?” I demand as I search her body for injury.Grabbing her hands, I push the paint off her fingertips, searching for signs she cut herself.
Nothing. I move to her wrists only to find them unmarred except for all the paint.
You did it, little fox. You changed your coat. She didn ’ t hurt herself. She tried to purge her emotions through the paint instead.
She bites her bottom lip.
Fuck it!
Bending down, I take what her mouth tried to taste. I sink my teeth into her bottom lip, then suck it into my mouth as I kiss her. A prelude to heaven fills my mouth as her tongue brushes against mine. I pour all my rage into the kiss.
How dare she!
I wrap my tongue around hers, swallowing her moans as I suck it into my mouth. She moves with me, dances with me like I'm her partner, guiding her tongue over mine, then allowing me to lead her.
Is that what Jared feels when he dances with her? If so, he's dead!
I want to bottle this up so only I can relish it.
God, her taste! I tried to recreate it when I jerked off, imagining all the details of her body, but the memory didn ’ t compare to this. Blood rushes to my cock as her hips start to grind into mine. She wants it. Badly. Not as bad as I do.
“ Where were you?” I seethe as I bite her shoulder. My lips move to her jawline, her canvas of lies. Her skin might be smooth on the outside, but inside, she is covered in scars, riddled with the pain of fresh cuts from surviving another day.
Her fingers comb through my hair; the most relaxing sensation courses through my bones. Mila ’ s shoulders rise as she inhales deep, her trembling lips part, but no words come out.
I feel like I ’ m going to explode. I sink lower, then suck her hard nipple into my mouth. Only the thin fabric of her shirt stops me from tasting her flesh.
“ Dash, please,” she sighs, her thighs clench.
It would be so easy to ruin her completely, to take everything I have pieced together again, only to break it myself this time. Maybe I will one day.
“ Answer me.”
She shakes her head.
Abruptly, I pull away. Eyes narrowing. I want answers. I ’ m about to drag them out of Mila when I realize her current state of mind.
I should push her out of my room. I won ’ t save you, you lovesick fool! Don ’ t you see I ’ m using you? That ’ s all I can give you, a treaty, a give and take. I can never give you more.
Her bottom lip trembles.
My chin dips. “ Come,” I ’ ll fix you again, Mila, but it comes with a price. It always will.
I guide her to my bathroom. She stands frozen like a statue, long forgotten, chipped away, and weathered by the cruel elements. Once the room heats from the water, I undress her, then myself.She only moves to cover my cast.
I never should have shown her compassion because, like a stray kitten, she keeps coming back for more. I ’ m the idiot who keeps feeding her.
It takes effort to clean all the hard, dried paint from her fingers. It ’ s a cruel task to touch every part of her body, making it clean, only to not allow myself to dirty her again.
Her nipples are pink and rosy, hard and filled with an ache as the hot water slowly turns them red. “ Where were you?” I whisper, not sure if my words become lost in the pelting of the water.
“ I tried to run.”
My hand freezes on the slope of her narrow shoulders. Slowly, I slide the bar of soap up so it ’ s pressed against her neck as if it were a knife.
Small chills erupt over her flesh. “ Not that way.” With a hesitant hand, she touches my heart, eyes downcast. “ I tried to escape you. I tried to escape everything for a few hours. I tried to be honest.”
A layer of my mind is peeled open, jealousy covering it. She tried being honest with some other guy?
“ No one sees me, Dash. They don ’ t listen.” Her tears mix with the shower.
Her long lashes flutter up, water drips from them slowly. “ You listen.” she shakes her head. “And I wish you didn ’ t. I wish I were invisible to you.”
I step back an inch, trying to remain in control of my actions.
“ I wish I never met you. I wish you didn ’ t try to fix me. I wish you would let me break.”
I snap!
I grab her neck, pressing our naked, wet bodies together as I claim her vile words, wrapping them around my unrelenting tongue. Then I gobble them down, never wanting to hear them again.
I wish I had never met you, either, but here we are, trapped together—more than you realize yet.
“ Dash,” she moans as she wraps her hands around me. Her hips grind against my hardness.
Just do it. Have sex with her. Get it over with.
“ Dash, please.”
“ Please, what?” I roar. I grab her hand and suck her now clean finger into my mouth. Her mouth parts, making my mind imagine it wrapped around my cock. “ Please break me. Please help me. Please, please!” I hiss as I move from finger to finger and suck them clean.
“ I don ’ t know.” She mutters as her lips pepper my chest with small kisses. Each one feels like a knife cutting me deep, twisting and slicing until she can peer inside and see with her own eyes that I have no heart.
“ I ’ m not good for you.” Please stop tempting me. You were my plaything, not the reverse.
Mila surprises me when she flattens her palms on my chest, pushing me back into the wet wall. “ You ’ re the only thing that is good for me, Dash King. You ’ re cruel and honest,”
“ Most would say that ’ s a terrible combination.” I joke as I gently push the hair off her face so I can see every inch of her.
“ You make me feel.”
“ All you ’ ll feel is hate if you keep tempting me.”
“ Hate is all I ’ ve known for a very long time.”
I close my eyes, trying to ignore her. I gasp, my body stiffening when she grasps my cock. I look down, memorizing her hands, holding me as if she is the owner.
Slowly, she begins to stroke me. I tip my head back. Fuck, that feels good. It ’ s an escape I wish I could accept.
“ You don ’ t know what you ’ re doing.” I pant.
She hesitates. “ Tell me.”
“ I didn ’ t mean that way.” I push my hips up, coaxing her to continue. She grips me tighter as she slowly pumps her hands up and down. “ I can never love you, Mila. I have no love to give.”
“ So give me what you can.” She stands on her toes and kisses my jaw as her hands keep moving.
“ Do you want my mouth?” She mutters innocently, “ Or my body?”
You devil!
If you give me either, I ’ ll consume you.
“ Harder. Squeeze me harder; yes, that ’ s it. Fuck, Mila.”
She starts to bend down. “ I want to taste you.”
Words every man wants to hear.
I ’ m no man. She said it herself. I ’ m her devil.
“ No!” I seethe. I have to draw a line. I grab her hair, wrapping it around my fist, and force her lips to mine. “ Don ’ t stop.”
Her kiss is hesitant at first, but then she succumbs to me and my madness. “ Grip me harder.”
“ I don ’ t want to hurt you.”
I squeeze my eyes tight. “ You already have.”
“ Good. We ’ re even then.” She beams like a victor.
Fuck everything! Fuck control and promises. I could be dead in a matter of weeks.
I lift her and spin her around so her back hits the wet tiles. I grind my cock up and down her wet folds; each jerk hits her clit, making her nails dig into my back.
“ Dash!” she cries in pleasure. “ I need you inside of me,”
“ No.”
“ Please.”
“ You don ’ t get rewarded for trying to run from me.” I pant as I continue to roll my hips up and down; pleasure builds to an unattainable amount.
I kiss her like the mad, crazed, broken prince she claims I am. Thrusting violently, making sure I grind against her swollen core each time. She comes in a matter of seconds.
Shatters.
Crumbles into the palms of my dirty hands.
Her head falls to the crook of my neck as if I were her savior, “ I wish you would just take me,” she mutters. “ I want to feel you deep inside of me. I want to feel.”
Her words are my undoing. I come, marking her for a few moments before the water starts to wash my mistake away.
I wish I could give you what you ’ re begging for, Mila. But then, how do I help you escape? How can you ask the devil to taste heaven again only to give it up?
“ We can fix each other, Dash,” Mila mutters as she rests her cheek against my heaving chest.
Fix?
Oh, Mila. I promised myself I ’ d fix you. I never vowed to keep you whole. As for me, there is no need to reassemble all my broken bits. Broken things have a better chance of remaining camouflaged in our world. They can lay scattered in the bush, waiting to attack. In the end, it ’ s all about survival.