46. Kai #3
The words I’ve been suppressing for weeks, that I thought I’d locked away for good, light up like a neon sign. And then it all comes rushing back, a fucking wrecking ball to the walls I’d so carefully bricked up.
…it fucked him up so bad, he begged for more…
And out pours all the disgust, the confusion, the fucking shame.
My fist slams into the side of Blake—Rooke’s—jaw. Pain jolts down my arm, making me hiss as I scramble to my feet.
Blake goes down, knocked the fuck out.
The rage boiling inside me won’t let me pause even a second to see if he’s okay. It propels me out of the door, down the stairs, and into the road.
Rain pummels my face as I storm down the sidewalk. There’s an inch-thick carpet of water pouring down the paving, splashing up under my bare feet as I pound my way over to the GAZ house.
Everything’s a stuttering blur, and it not just from the rain hitting my eyes. It’s like I’m sprinting through a game, and the frame rate on my screen can’t process the graphics fast enough.
I’m drenched. I should be cold, because it’s freezing out, but all I feel is a numb impact every time my feet strike the wet concrete.
I try the front door, but it’s locked. I slip around the side of the house, scaling the gate on my second try, and wriggle through the laundry window.
I halt for a second in the foyer, listening to make sure I’m alone.
But it’s Friday night, and if the girls aren’t ripping it up here, then they’re somewhere else, ripping it up there.
It’s so fucking convenient, it feels illegal.
But I do it anyway.
A house full of sorority girls couldn’t have stopped me.
I’ve got the fucking devil in me now.
I race upstairs, reeling and nearly losing my footing as I whip around the corner at the top of the stairs at full speed. I grab the railing, using my momentum to slingshot me down the hall.
Haven’s bedroom door is closed, but unlocked.
Bitch still hasn’t learned her lesson.
I have time to study the room this time. No unconscious Haven begging for attention. No one coming in behind me to have their fun with her.
One side of the room is tidy. White, pink. The odd bit of glitter on a notebook or a pen. Melissa’s side.
Haven’s side of the room isn’t just a different story, it’s a completely different genre. The same duffel bags I helped her carry upstairs are on the floor at the foot of the bed, both zipped open, clothes spilling out.
Coffee mugs and water glasses clutter her nightstand, that same pretty pearly-white bedside lamp with its silver-beaded shade so close to the edge it could go flying off any second.
I can smell her as I prowl closer to the bed.
No. Not her.
Rooke.
He’s fucking everywhere.
I grab her pillow and press it to my nose.
He’s on there.
I snag the blanket and smell it. He’s on here too.
He’d probably be on her sheets…if she had any.
Where the fuck are her sheets—
I stare at the blurry pink red splotch in the middle of Haven’s mattress that the gray blanket had been covering.
Jesus.
I feel like I’m trespassing on a crime scene.
And yet, seeing that stain, all I can think about is the way Haven’s bloody pussy tasted.
Did it taste the same to Rooke?
I slump down on the bottom corner of the bed, shoving my hands in my hair. I don’t know if I was about to start sobbing like a fucking pussy again, or yelling like a psych patient, but I do neither.
Frowning, I bounce on the mattress.
Below me, another faint pop.
The fuck?
I stand, stick my hand under the mattress, and pull out a wad of bubble wrap. There’s a phone, a black Amex, and a note inside.
My eyes blur before I can get halfway through, so I have to start over, reading the same words on repeat until they make sense.
But they don’t.
This is fucking bullshit.
That’s who we are?
Like he fucking knows her? Rooke doesn’t know shit about Haven Lee. I know how she got the scar down her chest, her favorite flower, how she’d always turn her face up to the sky and stick out her tongue to taste the rain.
Me.
Not him. Me.
But she kept this bullshit. Hid it safe, out of sight, so no one could find it.
Like a dirty little secret.
We used to be each other’s dirty little secret. Guess Heavenly’s outgrown Hide and Hunt.
I must have only briefly outrun my unsober ass on my rush over here, because that’s when everything finally catches up with me.
The edges of my vision blur, light dimming. My breath is hot and thick as I pant through a sudden swell of nausea, and that heat makes my blood boil.
But I’m not mad at Haven.
She could have a hundred reasons for keeping this shit. Evidence. Blackmail. Who the fuck am I to judge?
It’s Rooke that’s giving me double vision.
He thinks he knows my girl better than I do? Thinks he can manipulate her? Push her?
Nah.
I bought the rights to her heart when I was a kid. That shit’s non-transferable. That motherfucker will have to pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Haven is mine.
Mine.
FUCKING MINE
I stagger.
My arm wheels out, knocking into the nightstand, sending the pretty little lamp crashing to the floor. It explodes on impact despite the thick carpet, its beaded shade jiggling merrily.
That’s when the grenade finally goes off.