Chapter 24
Kai
The silence after Rooke stops talking is louder than the bass back at Sanctuary. Louder than the headache thumping inside my skull. Louder than the voice in my head screaming that this can’t be real—can’t be true—can’t be fucking happening!
He said I kissed him.
I kissed him, not the other way around. This wasn’t some fucked-up assault I couldn’t control. I grabbed him by the hair and crushed my mouth against his like I’d been waiting for him my whole goddamn life.
And then I cried like a fucking pussy when he pushed me away. The memory is there now, vivid and fucking devastating.
The brick wall against my back.
The smell of weed and his cologne.
The way my hands shook when I reached for him.
The way his mouth tasted like beer and ash and sweet, horrific depravity.
The way I wanted it.
Him.
“Kai?” Haven’s voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater. “Kai, are you okay?”
Am I okay?
Am I fucking okay?
I let out a laugh that sounds more like a sob. “I did that?” My voice is several octaves too high. Too shaky, too unsteady. “All of that?”
Rooke’s watching me with an unreadable look in his black eyes, his face still a fucking mess—tacky blood drying in the gouges Haven left, nose swelling, lip split.
Good.
Because fuck him and his motherfucking lies.
“You did,” Rooke says quietly, almost gently, which is worse than if he’d just openly fucking gloated.
“No.” I shake my head, backing up until my shoulders hit the cold granite wall. “No, that’s—you’re lying.” I tap a finger against my temple. “You’re fucking with my head again.”
Rooke sighs. “Kai—”
“That’s what you do, right?” My laugh is unhinged. “You manipulate. You gaslight. You twist everything until people don’t know which way is up anymore.”
Rooke’s eyebrows draw together like he can’t believe how stupid I am. “Do you even know what gaslighting is? Because nothing I told you was—”
“Fuck off with your fucking psychology lesson, Professor!” I’m shouting now, my voice bouncing off the granite walls.
I fist my hair, twisting until the pain makes me stop. My head hurts. My ears are ringing. I probably have a fucking concussion, but all I can think about is all the shit Rooke just unloaded on me like it’s nothing to him.
Haven’s just staring at me with those puppy dog eyes of hers. Silent.
Bastian’s jaw ticks, but it’s literally the only reaction he has. Even his voice is flat and emotionless. “I wasn’t—“
“No!” I bark out, making both of them flinch. “You don’t get to—to just stand there and act like you’re so fucking calm and reasonable when you—when I—“
I can’t say it out loud.
Because saying it makes it real, and if it’s real, then everything I knew about myself is a lie.
“Kai.” Haven steps toward me, her hand reaching out. “It’s okay. Whatever happened, it’s—“
“It’s not okay!” I jerk away from her touch like it burns. “None of this is okay! He just told you I jerked him off like a—a—”
The word catches in my throat.
Homo.
That’s what my dad would say. What every asshole in my high school locker room would say.
“Like what, boy?” Rooke’s voice drops dangerously low. “Go on. Say it.”
I clamp my mouth shut, breathing hard and fast through my nose until my nostrils are flaring as I scowl at him.
“You can’t even say it, can you?” He takes a step toward me, and I hate that I retreat. “You’re so terrified of what this makes you that you’d rather believe I assaulted you than accept the truth.”
I shake my head violently, making the room spin for a moment.
“I said shut up!”
“You don’t get to play dumb anymore, Kai. The truth is you wanted it.” Another step. “You wanted it, and you liked it.”
“Stop—”
“Some part of you has wanted me since the first time I put my hand around your throat and watched your cock get hard.”
“Stop!”
My fist flies out, but he catches it midair in his palm like we’re in a fucking Marvel movie. He gives his hand a sharp twist, and my knees buckle at the stab of pain from my tortured wrist. I rip myself free, glaring at him as I cradle my throbbing hand against my chest.
The pain is a relief—something physical, something real. But it’s short-lived.
“Feel better?” he asks, smirking. “Or do you want to go another round?”
What I want is to kill him.
What I want…is to kiss him.
What I want is to claw my own brain out so I never have to think about any of this ever again.
“You—you drugged me. Put something in my drink. Made me—”
“I didn’t touch your drinks, Kai.” Rooke sounds almost tired as he scrapes a hand through his hair and gives Haven a ‘can you believe this guy’ look.
“You were already wasted when I got there. You grabbed my hair.” His hand comes up, touching the back of his head like he can still feel it. “Right here. Yanked so hard it hurt.”
My stomach lurches.
Because I remember that. The silkiness of his hair. The way he growled when I pulled.
“You pinned me against the wall,” he says coldly. “Told me to shut up. Ground against me like you couldn’t get close enough.”
“Stop,” I beg. “Please, just…stop.”
“And when you were done and spent with our cum all over you, you cried like the pathetic little simp you are.”
“Bastian!” Haven slips between us, one hand pressed against Rooke’s chest to hold him back. “Enough, okay? Back off!”
I stagger back, my hand flying to my mouth as bile rises in my throat.
…you gonna fucking cry now?…
He’s not lying. I remember kissing him. Rutting against him like a fucking animal in heat. Crying.
“He needs to hear it, girl.” Rooke’s eyes don’t leave mine. “He’s been torturing himself for days, convinced I violated him. He needs to know—“
“He needs compassion, you fucking sociopath!” Haven shoves him hard enough that he actually stumbles back a step.
“You’re the one who insisted I tell him.” Rooke stares down his nose at her. “What did you expect?”
“An ounce of fucking decency,” Haven’s voice cracks. “But I guess you’re not capable of that, are you?”
“And you are? Because you sure as hell don’t give a fuck about his feelings any more than I do.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“He’s your safety blanket, Haven. Your shield, when you need one. But the second he’s not strong enough, or protective enough, or needy enough, you reject him. No wonder he’s so scared to show even a sliver of vulnerability around anyone.”
They’re arguing about me like I’m a broken toy.
My stomach heaves.
Haven turns toward me. “Kai? You’ve gone white.”
I shove past both of them, my shoulder clipping Rooke’s as I lunge for the door.
“Kai, wait!”
I make it three steps past the mausoleum door before my knees give in.
I barely get my hands up in time to catch myself before I’m heaving into the grass, my whole body convulsing as I empty my guts onto the frozen ground.
I kissed him.
Another heave.
I wanted him.
My fingers dig into the dirt, the cold earth biting into my knuckles as my stomach tries to turn itself inside out.
I’m not—
But I am.
I fucking am.
The evidence is right there, carved into my mind. The way his mouth felt. The desperate, hungry, wanting sounds that came out of my throat when he touched me.
I wanted it.
I wanted him.
And when he pushed me away—when he looked at me with disgust and called me pathetic—I broke.
I cried in front of Bastian Rooke.
Another heave racks through me, but there’s nothing left to bring up. Nothing left to wash away the shame of a truth I can’t outrun anymore.
Grit crunches under someone’s shoes as they come up behind me.
I stay on my knees.
How can I face whoever’s standing there—Haven with her pity, Rooke with his smug satisfaction—when I can’t even face myself?