23. Bastian #4
But if I comfort him—if I pull him into my arms and whisper pretty little lies about how everything’s going to be okay—I lose something far more valuable.
Control.
Another tear tracks down Kai’s face. He wipes it away furiously, scowling at me before dropping his head to check himself.
As he tugs down his sleeves, I notice the scratches on his arms.
My gaze flicks back up to his neck. I left my own marks there, and I know he has some nail marks on his shoulder, too, courtesy of my momentary lapse in judgement.
I could chalk this evening up to a massive indiscretion, spiral, and end up slitting the girl in my basement’s throat.
Or…
Or I could stop feeling so goddamn sorry for myself and do what I’ve always done.
Prey on the weak.
And right now, this poor boy is the weakest, most pathetic—
“You know what?” Kai mutters, pushing off the dumpster. “I’m coming for you, Rooke.” He grimaces as his feet tangle beneath him. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’m gonna—“
My laugh cuts him off. “Do what? Fight me? Fuck me? No, Kai. As soon as you’ve sobered up, you’ll just reach for another bottle again.”
He was stumbling toward me, but now he freezes mid-step.
“Because that’s what you do, boy.” I circle around him slowly, like a shark scenting blood. “When things get tough, when emotions get complicated, you drown them in alcohol. In sex. In violence. Anything to avoid actually confronting something.”
“You don’t know shit about me,” he hisses, pointing at me with a shaking finger.
“I know everything about you, Kai.” I stop directly in front of him, blocking his path to the fire exit.
“I know you’ve wanted me since the first time I put my hands on you.
I know you hate yourself for it. And I know that what just happened—“ I gesture to the space between us “—is going to eat you alive…even if you can’t remember a fucking thing.”
His jaw tightens. His eyes glitter with unshed tears.
Good Wolf howls.
Bad Wolf bares its teeth.
“Want to know the best part, boy?” I lean in close enough that my lips brush his ear when I speak. “When you wake up wondering if this was real or just some fucked-up dream.”
“Rooke—”
“But I’ll remember.” My hand finds his jaw. Grips it. Forces him to meet my eyes. “And every time you see me, every time you see Haven, you’ll feel this—“ I press my thumb against his racing pulse “—and you won’t know why.”
“F-Fuck you, you fucking p-piece of sh-shit,” he stammers, ripping his face out of my hand and stumbling back a step before he finds his balance.
He’s crying properly now. Silent tears streaming down his face, shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs.
It should satisfy me.
It doesn’t.
Because even now—even with tears on his face and cum drying on his hands—some part of him is still defiant. Still meeting my gaze like he’s daring me to do my worst.
Like he’s not afraid of me at all.
That is unacceptable.
“Go on, boy. There’s a blackout in there, waiting for you.”
Kai stares at me for a long moment. Tear-streaked, trembling. Beautiful in his devastation.
Then he shoves past me and stumbles back to the bar.
I don’t watch him go. I’m too busy thinking.
The metal door clangs shut behind him, leaving me alone with the stench of garbage and sex, wallowing in what might be regret, if I could ever experience it.
“You’re just as evil as the rest of them,” Good Wolf whines. “Haven will never forgive you for this.”
No. She won’t.
But I don’t care.
I can’t.
Kai won’t remember what happened, and if he does, he’ll rewrite it to fit his own narrative. Come morning, I’ll be the only person who knows that he kissed me, that he took control, that he made me—
The rage surges again, hot and black and suffocating.
He has to pay for this.
Not with his life. That would be too easy.
But there are other ways to destroy a man.
The tightness enveloping me slowly starts to release.
I have a girl in my basement who can’t remember her own name. A boy covered in scratches and bruises who’s bound to wake up with an awful hangover and a chunk of his time unaccounted for.
I know exactly how to turn those two things into a fairytale worthy of the Grimm brothers.
“She’ll never forgive you,” Good Wolf’s final, pleading warning is as pathetic as this entire night has been.
But I consider it anyway, weighing it against the fury still boiling in my blood.
Ultimately, I decide I don’t care. Haven has proven time and time again that all it takes is a little pressure before she bends to my will. She’ll have no choice but to forgive me, because I’ll make her do it.
I straighten my clothes. Smooth my hair. Practice the neutral expression I’ll wear when I return to my car.
Kai made me lose control.
Made me submit.
Made me feel things I’ve spent decades learning to bury.
This time tomorrow, he’ll be in a cell, wondering how the fuck his life fell apart so quickly.
And Haven? She’ll be guilt tripping herself into a fucking vegetative state for running to me.
Oh, how they’ll hate me for orchestrating the chaos to come…
Yet I’ll be the only one either of them can turn to.
And that’ll make them hate me even more.