FOUR
DANTE
A sick satisfaction fills me as I chase Willow through my woods. The fear on her face before she stumbled away is addictive. I’ve never been able to get to her like this.
After tonight, she’ll never fucking cross me again. She’ll know what happens when she pisses me off.
I waited until her guard was down, lured her into a false sense of security that she was wanted here. That she was safe from my wrath.
“Do you think you can hide?” I shout.
Willow makes a terrified sound like a rabbit scampering from the jaws of the predator about to snap its neck.
“I know every goddamn inch of these woods, baby. You’re done for.”
“Fuck you, psycho!”
Willow screams.
I chuckle and track her frantic movements around some boulders. I used to climb these with Phoenix and Luna as kids. My muscle memory kicks in, finding the holds with ease in the dark to scale them, even with the mask on. Keeping quiet once I reach the top, I peer over the edge and the corner of my mouth curls.
Bingo.
Willow leans into a crevice between two smaller broken boulders. Her ragged breaths are music to my ears. I could catch her right now, pin her against the rocks. But it’s too soon, too simple. I want her choking on her terror before the night is out.
The planning for this took me weeks. Lowell, Ryder, and Easton drove out with me to lay my traps. All to tear her the fuck down. To make her feel a fraction of what I’ve gone through since the suspension.
My teeth grind at the memories and a fresh wave of hatred for her rises. I’ve imagined this moment of payback for so long.
“Suspended? I see. So you have failed to uphold your end of our agreement. That is a shameful disappointment.”
I stared at Grandma, feeling the crack of her icy tone as if she’d struck me. I wished she hit me, but she was more cunning than that. Her anger bred itself in cruelty, not physical violence.
It began that night at dinner. She forced me to sit there every night through my suspension without food while she ate. She allowed me water, but no food, as if I was her prisoner.
From there, things only went downhill. My home became my hell.
Willow is smart as hell. I know she gets straight A’s, no problem. She couldn’t take an F on an assignment—no, the bitch had to say something. It barely would’ve affected her GPA. Christ, she probably could’ve made it up.
I wasn’t given that option. The teacher was one of the few hardasses who didn’t give anything I turned in higher than a D. If I didn’t get an A, I wouldn’t pass.
Unlike Willow, my grades are shit. I need to pass every single class to get my demented crone of a grandma—my only living legal guardian—off my back. She made me a deal when high school started. I pass and I get to choose what I do after graduation. No failing grades, ever.
Now the old cunt has my balls in a vice grip because I got caught, and I’ve had to kiss my dream of entering professional motocross goodbye. If I don’t do what she says, she’ll disown me and cut me off.
It feels like she has already given everything she’s taken away from me. My races now are the last time I’ll get to experience my favorite feeling in the world
And it’s all Willow’s fault, because she couldn’t handle one bad grade. She had to make a big ass fuss that ended with me and Lowell suspended for plagiarizing our assignments.
Since the suspension, life at home has been complete hell. According to Grandma, I brought shame to her name with this mark on my permanent academic record. It was enough to invoke wrath I had no idea she was capable of. She was never overly affectionate, but now she’s proven I don’t matter to her.
She’s never physically abused me. She wouldn’t risk what that could do to her reputation, but she doesn’t have to. She finds other ways to hurt me with her words and the basic necessities she strips away.
On the last night of the suspension, Grandma studied me over the rim of her wine glass. “I warned you. I gave you my expectations and you promised to obey them. There are no second chances in the real world, Dante. This will be a difficult lesson to learn.”
It was all she said. Stomach growling from the lack of food, I nodded. I thought it was over and things would return to normal.
When I got home from school the next day, everything was gone from my room, leaving me only with the bare mattress. Everything I owned was burning in a pile on the back terrace while Grandma smoked a cigarette.
Shock and rage tore through me.
“What the fuck?”
I yelled. “Why did you do this?”
“I told you. The lesson has begun.”
“What lesson?”
I sank my fingers into my hair and tugged until the roots stung.
“I will prepare you for your future as a lowlife on the streets.”
Those vicious words have dug deeper into my brain every day since then.
Bitter old hag doesn’t have a loving, maternal bone in her body, but I didn’t know how bad she could be until I failed her test.
To the outside world, nothing in my life has changed, but the truth is everything went to shit the day Willow got me suspended.
The only saving grace is Grandma hasn’t taken my bike away, probably because after the first time she pulled her psycho shit on me I asked Phoenix to keep it at his place.
I tried to tell him what was going on when I stopped having the guys over, but Grandma was a step ahead of me with a contingency plan if I opened my mouth—military school.
I haven’t tried to tell anyone else, forced to endure what she dishes out for me.
I’ve seen Willow’s family, how there’s no doubt they love her no matter what.
They were downtown the month before school started.
I was at the bakery because Grandma demanded I pick up the order for her 80th birthday instead of her personal assistant.
Being her gofer is my job now, and I do it because I’m afraid of what heartless punishment she’ll serve me next.
Willow and her parents came in while I was waiting for Grandma’s order.
They were all laughs and smiles, her mom giving her a big hug and a kiss on the forehead.
The hollow ache of longing in my chest is ingrained into my mind from the sight.
Goth girl is more loved than I am.
And I fucking hate her for it.
My teeth clench together hard enough to hurt as I glare through the mask at the top of her head from above.
“You make it too easy,” I croon.
She whirls around, searching for me. Her head snaps up to find me crouched above her and her eyes widen. I jump and land with a grunt before her, coat billowing like a goddamn badass.
Willow flings a handful of earth at me, and I throw an arm up to block the dirt, leaves, and pebbles pelting me. With a growl I take off in the direction she runs in. She’s fast and clever in a pinch, I’ll give her that.
We’re getting close to one of the traps and a cruel grin stretches across my face. I make calculated dodges to herd her where I want, enjoying every squeak and strangled cry she makes trying to avoid capture.
When she knocks over the hidden box, she damn near kicks it away with an ear-piercing scream once the contents are revealed. I circle around the clearing between a copse of trees to watch.
“Get off, get off, get off!”
She flails her legs and the bugs become dark missiles soaring through the air in the dark woods.
The sound of the large roaches I bought scurrying through the underbrush on the forest floor makes her jump around. As she wriggles, her phone slips from her purse and falls. She’s too occupied to notice.
“Scared yet?”
I taunt. “Good.”
“Fuck you! I fucking hate you!”
Willow leaps off the rock she jumped on and sprints away.
A chuckle rolls through me as I hop off an old log. Crouching by her phone, I pick it up, slip it into my pocket, and follow her.
Around and around the woods we go. She’s getting tired, but she hasn’t given up yet. When I get close to capturing her, she pulls something to keep me at bay.
Whether it’s pride or her stubbornness to outlast me, she keeps fighting. It’s calling to something in me to see her like this.
I like it. I like her fight.
As I hunt her, my plan shifts. I’m enjoying myself too much. I’m supposed to text Lowell with my signal that I’ve got her before I drag her back to the party. But I don’t need her public humiliation anymore.
I want this all for myself.
I want her for myself.
To torment. To catch. To drive wild.
I will break her.
Willow Stewart won’t ever be able to cut me out of her skin the same way she’s embedded under mine.
No one gets to see her like this except for me.
A new plan forms as I pause to gauge where we are. There’s a cabin nearby, one that wasn’t claimed by anyone. Once I find where she’s hiding, I’m dragging her ass there.
“I’m coming for you.”
I barely recognize my voice. “Can’t escape me.”
Her attempts to remain silent end with a fierce yell from her as she charges past me from her hiding spot. I claw at her, snatching her lace sleeve of the hot as hell bodice she has on. It rips and a desperate cry leaves her.
“No!”
Willow swings around and kicks me in the shin before running again.
Chest vibrating with a growl, I change directions, heading her off by taking a towpath to the head of the trail she’s on. When I cut her off, she skids to a stop.
Her makeup is smeared in black streaks down her cheeks from tears, cheeks pink in the faint moonlight from exertion. Survival instinct at its most primal. It’s fucking gorgeous.
The urge to kiss her has me in a chokehold. I picture what I want so clearly—how I’d pin her to the dead leaves and claim those crimson lips. Arousal rockets through me.
Fuck.
I want her. I want all of her.
Willow backs up a step, hands up. My mouth curves and I match her step for step.
Sorry, baby. There’s no way out of this.
I charge forward and she curses. She’s not fast enough this time, and I’m playing seriously now. My arms lock around her waist from behind.
“Get off!”
Her elbows and nails rain hell on me, but I keep a tight grip on her. All she manages is to rip off my mask. It falls to the ground.
“Caught you,”
I growl in her ear. “All fucking mine, now.”
“If you don’t let me go, I’ll kill you, asshole! You’re insane for doing this!”
We stumble around as we fight—me to hold on and her to break free. She almost gets away, gaining enough leverage to slap me hard. My cheek burns with phantom tingles as I gather her to me again.
“I’m not letting you go.”
“Dante, you’re crazy!”
In the struggle, I don’t realize how close we are to the bucket trap until we trip the wire. Most of the fake blood lands on me and the momentary shock gives her the chance to push away. She trips over her torn skirt, falling to her knees.
Willow looks like a goddamn mess. Her legs are spattered with red between her fishnets and some of it smeared across her chest. My mouth waters with the need to clean it off her.
I swipe the blood off myself, leaving my chest streaked with a sticky smear of corn syrup and food dye. It seeps down the side of my face from my matted hair. My eyes land on her as I bring my fingers to my mouth and lick the fake blood off them.
She ruins her one chance to escape because she can’t look away.