Prologue #3
Rising, growing, swelling like an immense tide, something opened within me.
The kiss burned like a violent fire that would leave nothing alive in its wake.
I thought of a volcano eruption, how lava slowly poured down the mountainside, how ash filled the sky and changed day into night, and how it destroyed everything in its way when it rained down.
It would bury me like it had buried the honest, innocent people of Pompeii.
My left foot budged. I could move again.
I had the control of some of my body. Worse, I had the awareness of all of it.
I could feel what this kiss was doing to me in places it had no right to reach.
I could feel myself hardening, and I could feel the hopeless, desperate sadness the kiss engraved on my heart.
After I could move my foot, I could move the rest of my body.
Taking a step forward, I tightened my hand around Jaxon’s wrist, pushing him back with all my strength and weight.
It was a heavy trod that pushed us into the middle of his bedroom, Jaxon on the tips of his toes, fighting to keep those sinful lips on mine as if his life depended on it.
My head turned, but it didn’t move back. Why wouldn’t it move back? My hand slipped from his shoulder to his chest, fist closing around his T-shirt. I wanted to push him away and stop this terrible thing, but my fist yanked him closer, slamming our bodies together.
Jaxon’s lips fell from mine for a moment when he inhaled a shaky breath of air. In an instant, he kissed me again. No, I wanted to cry. No. Don’t.
Don’t stop, a whisper added in the depths of my consciousness.
I didn’t even realize it, but a growl was seeping through my bared teeth, and I held him tighter, making him whimper in pain. His T-shirt tore on his shoulder, and he sank his teeth into my lower lip.
This has to stop, I screamed at myself. Stop. Now!
The pain I caused him, not even aware of it, made Jaxon bend his knees, but I leaned down, following him, my lip trapped between his teeth, pain howling through me.
But I didn’t worry about the pain. The pain was a passing thing, something that would stop in a heartbeat or two. The rest…the rest would never go away.
And as I found the strength in myself to stop this, the door slammed open, and a girl squealed. She burst into a giggling fit, and I tore my head back from Jaxon, my lip stinging as if his teeth had cut it.
Summer held Lane’s hand in the doorway for one endless moment, two pairs of eyes on us. The space between two heartbeats stretched infinitely before Summer spun away and dragged Lane from the open door.
With my hands still on Jaxon, I turned to face him. The horror and hope warred in his eyes. Hope? Was he fucking insane? I went to push him away, but Jaxon lifted his free hand and held my left wrist tightly.
“Let me go,” I grunted, but Jaxon didn’t listen.
“Wait,” he blurted. “El, please…”
“Let go,” I yelled, tossing this way and that to no result. Trapped and humiliated, betrayed beyond my wildest imagination, I tossed my head back, then brought it down, my brow slamming against Jaxon’s nose, causing a nauseating, cracking sound.
Jaxon yelped, letting go of me and stumbling backward until he tripped over the desk chair behind his back. He fell on the floor, rolling to his side, one hand on his nose and blood pouring, dripping over the white carpet. “El,” he said, his voice nasal and strained.
“Are you fucking insane?” I demanded, not even caring how filthy the curse was. It felt right on my lips. It felt as right as…ah, dammit. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“El, please,” he whimpered like a hurt puppy. Like a coward. Begging, pleading, as if he hadn’t just ruined everything. As if he hadn’t just been the most selfish bastard in the world, ruining four years of memories, a friendship, and everything we had done for one another.
I was trembling. I fumbled for the bracelet, unable to untie it, so I ripped it off my wrist while Jaxon watched, something dying in his eyes.
Good, I thought. It should die. He killed everything else, anyway.
When the strings snapped, I balled the bracelet into a fist, then threw it at him. He was lucky it wasn’t a fucking stapler. And without another look at the wreckage I had left on the floor, I turned away and walked out of his room.
Summer was already holding April, basically shaking her, as I stormed into the living room.
“Summer,” I shouted. “It’s not what you think.”
The two girls giggled.
“He kissed me,” I insisted, aware that everyone already knew.
Lane shot me a disgusted look, perhaps because he thought I was into that shit or perhaps because the sight in Jaxon’s room effectively cock-blocked him.
Nothing was hotter than fresh, new gossip, especially when you were the first to know it.
“I didn’t kiss him back. I’m not like that! ”
But it didn’t matter.
I was never going to see these people again.
Not for Christmas. Not next summer. Never.
I hadn’t even paused, speaking as I walked, and I passed through the stunned crowd, killing them off in my memory. Every last one of them. They weren’t real. Not anymore. When next I blinked, they would all only exist in my imagination.
Yes. Jaxon, too.
I stormed out of his house, the smell of blood rising from my lip, its iron flavor thick on my tongue.
And I walked.
I walked away.