Chapter 13
Thirteen
Blair
The day after I steal the truck belonging to Evil Incarnate himself, I wake up screaming.
Which, honestly, is a pretty understandable reaction to being torn from sleep by a large amount of ice-cold water hitting your body. Gasping and disoriented, I sit bolt upright, staring down at my bare legs and the sodden white T-shirt clinging to my body.
I don’t need to look far for the source.
“I warned you. Six o’clock,” Mallory barks over his shoulder, already marching back toward the bedroom door, a bucket swinging from one hand. “Get your ass downstairs.”
This fucker.
With a screech of pure rage, I scramble to the edge of the mattress and seize the closest object I can find—a box of tissues—and hurl it at his retreating form.
It misses and hits the doorframe instead, tumbling to the floor with a dull thud.
The antichrist definitely sees, but doesn’t acknowledge my escalation to attempted physical violence, his pace not even faltering as he steps over it and rounds the corner.
The lack of reaction is even more infuriating than not hitting him.
“I hate you!” I yell, already struggling to rid myself of my soaking wet pajamas. Satan must have gotten quite the view, because the cheeky panties and oversized T-shirt I like to sleep in leave little to the imagination when they’re dry.
A laugh echoes back to me from somewhere down the hall.
My teeth are chattering as I finally rid myself of the shirt and let it drop with a wet splat.
Cursing under my breath and wondering how on earth you’re supposed to dry out a mattress, I glance toward the bed.
This turns to a double take, however, when my gaze catches on something glistening on the sheets.
When I lean in to get a closer look… ice cubes.
Mallory didn’t just dump some cold water in a bucket and call it a day, he took the time to add ice.
Holy shit.
That is so messed up.
Though certainly not his intention, Demonic Damien probably did me a favor with the ice.
I don’t know whether it’s the horrific wake-up call, or my underlying frustrations about my situation, or I’m just worn down from his bullshit.
Whatever the cause, every muscle in my body aches, protesting painfully as I pull on my leggings, sports bra, and running shoes.
Even lifting my arm to open the door requires a Herculean effort, and the muscles in my legs are weak and shaky, threatening to give out on every single step downstairs.
I find Satan in our usual meeting place out front, too busy scrolling on his stupid fitness tracking watch to spare me a glance as I close the front door behind myself.
Is there a social media app specifically for sociopaths? I bet Thornhurst’s resident monster would pay a lot of money to brag about his accomplishments to his fellows.
I bend over and grip the back of my calves, attempting to stretch out the tight, abused muscles.
“Stretch,” barks Mallory without looking up, not realizing I’m already doing exactly that.
God, I hate him so much.
There was a storm last night, and the grounds are an absolute mess. Muddy puddles line the front drive, and I know the path out back will be a million times worse. By the time we make it back to the house, my pink running shoes will be brown, but by now I know better than to ask for a day off.
After all, ironically, the Harbinger of Misery enjoys his morning routine.
I imagine that after we finish our run through the freezing rain, he’ll round it off with a bowl of unsweetened porridge and cup of lukewarm black coffee while watching a compilation of nature documentary footage, which is just orcas eating baby seals.
We set off without exchanging a single word.
My hair is still fairly wet, and the damp ends slap against my neck every time my feet hit the soft ground, reminding me of how it got that way.
I didn’t think I was the type to hold a grudge.
When my childhood friends and I would fight, I was always the first to break the silence and beg them to play with me again.
Even then, my pride wasn’t worth being alone.
Now, I would light my pride on fire if it would get rid of this man.
We jog over the forest’s edge. I’ve noticed Satan extending my running periods and shortening my walking periods, but today, I’m too sore and exhausted to make it as far as I did yesterday. My pace slows.
“Keep going,” Mallory barks, without even looking at me. “You made it to that big log yesterday.”
That big log is just barely visible at the end of this stretch of trail.
I grit my teeth, forcing myself forward. There are things I’d like to say—like how the only big log I see out here is him—but it seems ill-advised to waste the tiny amount of air I have left for a pretty lackluster insult.
My legs are burning by the time he lets me walk again. I should be used to his callous, shitty attitude by now, but maybe somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought I kind of deserved his ire. This morning’s ice water seems to have been the last straw to disabuse me of that notion.
God, I’ve just had enough. Damien Mallory is an actual sack of shit, and I refuse to be treated like shit by shit.
Exhaustion temporarily outweighed by righteous indignation, I start moving faster as we approach the place where I know he’ll tell me to run again, getting a few yards ahead of him.
My heart is hammering, and for once, it isn’t from the cardio.
As we get closer, moving along a narrower part of the forest trail, I wipe sweat from my forehead and glance behind me to find Mallory frowning at his fitness watch.
Which means he definitely won’t notice my foot hooking under a nice, chunky glob of mud at the trail’s edge.
I kick it backward and for once—for freaking once—the universe is on my side. The mud arcs through the air in a glorious, sloppy curve and hits its target, splattering right across the front of his pristine white compression shirt.
Mallory stops dead in the middle of the trail, hands held aloft like he’s been shot, and stares down at his filthy chest. I keep moving, whipping back around to pretend I didn’t notice, even as I’m mentally composing my own obituary.
“Are you serious?” comes the disbelieving bark from behind me, and I turn, blinking in (hopefully) innocent surprise at the mess on his shirt.
“What happened?”
Satan’s nostrils flare, and there’s a nerve pulsing ominously in his forehead as he gestures to the muddy front of his shirt. “You can’t be this immature.”
Oh, I absolutely can be. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if my current situation has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes I need to work with what I’ve got. In this case, I’ve got mud.
I throw him a megawatt smile that isn’t even a little genuine. “Was that me? So sorry! The risk of running after a rainstorm, I guess!”
“That was intentional.” His voice has dropped several degrees. “You moved in front of me.”
My laugh startles a bird somewhere in the dense canopy above us, and it takes flight with a disgruntled caw. Neither Satan nor I breaks eye contact, though, staring each other down from ten yards apart. “I thought you’d be pleased.” My smile is maniacal. “That I’m improving.”
A muscle in his cheek jumps, and I can tell it’s taking him a lot to stay calm and not react to my childish behavior.
“If you’re improving, maybe we should extend the run,” he counters thoughtfully, a demonic glint in his eyes now.
“Let’s take the left trail at the fork up ahead, it takes us through the woods for an extra half mile. ”
That has my glee fading, not that I’ll let him see it. “No thanks. I have lots of very important coursework to get to! That’s my job, right? I seem to remember you saying something to that effect.”
He ignores this, advancing on me in calm, measured steps until there’s less than a foot between us, and I have to tilt my head back to meet his death stare. “It’s a bit late to backpedal, princess. Get moving.”
God, he’s terrible.
So am I, though, because the muscles below my belly button have gone warm and tight as this exchange progressed. Seriously, what is wrong with me?
“Do you get off on being a smug, controlling prick?” I spit, abandoning my act.
He doesn’t react, not even a twitch, but something seems to darken in those cold, impenetrable eyes. “Get. Moving.” He repeats the words low and calm, edged with mocking superiority. Right at this moment, he thinks he’s backed me into a corner, and I have no choice but to comply
Unfortunately for Mallory, he’s wrong.
Keeping my eyes trained on his, I sink slowly down, ignoring the burning protest of the muscles in my legs. His jaw tightens as he watches my tongue dart out to wet my lips. My hand closes around a cold, slimy clump of mud.
There’s no way he’s missed what I’m doing, but Satan makes no move to stop me as I rise to my full height again. He only breaks eye contact, squeezing his eyes shut, when I lift the mud and smack it into the side of his face.
It’s so gratifying that I’m actually turned on as I smear it down his stupid, perfectly square jaw and up into his hair.
Then—because I know I’m about to pay for this and might as well make the most of it—I crouch down and grab some more.
I don’t stop until most of his face and all of his hair is caked in the slimy earth, and some of the frustration built up inside me has been released.
“Okay,” I tell him when I’m finally done, allowing my dirty hand to fall back to my side. “Let’s move.”
Retaliation seems inevitable, but I kind of assumed it would come in the form of an extra-long run, or something equally painful.
Mallory is too mature to reduce himself to my level…
or so I believed. I must be rubbing off on him, however, because I barely make it three steps away before something cold and wet hits the back of my head.
I know instantly what he’s done.