Chapter 14 #3
“It’s just you,” Dallas assures me, cracking his knuckles. “And me. Now get inside.”
“And if I say no?”
Dallas explodes, whipping the back of his hand across my cheek, and my chair tumbles over with the force, sending me to the ground.
Blood flies out of my mouth, Dallas grabbing my face as I glare up at him.
“Now, that’s a word I’ve never heard from you,” Dallas taunts. “Try it out. See what happens next.”
And I’m so fucking pathetic, I know I’ll take whatever he gives me, because anything is better than goodbye.
I want ten more minutes. One more minute.
“Now get inside,” Dallas tells me again.
I smile as I rise. I can’t help it. I haven’t been alone with him in nine months. Turning, I head toward the field house.
“Watch the doors,” Dallas says to his brothers.
Once inside, he slams the door, and I blink long and hard, waiting for it.
He shoves me, and I leap down the steps, falling through the door. I crash on all fours, turning so I can see him coming. He grabs the collar of my hoodie.
He hits me, and I squeeze my eyes shut, gripping his wrists as he holds me. Last summer, we were almost in the same position that first time.
Out in the glades. On the ground.
He yanks my hands away, his fist slamming into my jaw again and again. Blood seeps into my mouth, the inside of my cheek bleeding, and I feel a ball rise in my throat. I fight to hold back the tears.
It doesn’t even hurt.
Nothing hurts except in my chest.
I can’t even open my eyes to look at him, because then he’ll see. Dallas Jaeger won’t tolerate a crier. He’ll think I’m even more pathetic.
He throws me down. “Fight back,” he growls.
I roll over, shaking. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
His foot lands in my gut, the kick stabbing my stomach, and bile climbs my throat. I cough.
“What did you think you were doing to my sister!” he bellows.
“You don’t care about your sister.” I inch backward, putting a little distance between us. “You don’t care about anyone. It’s just your pride.”
He doesn’t give a shit about Liv.
He stalks me. “You don’t know me.”
“I do.”
Grabbing me, he pulls me up and slams me into the wall. “You never knew me!”
I can’t help the tear that spills over. “I did.”
I paid attention to everything. He hates quiet. He’s always listening to something. He likes ketchup on fries but doesn’t like it on anything else. He doesn’t have enough patience for movies. He googles the ending before it’s over.
And he breaks out in goose bumps every time his neck is kissed.
His hand lands across my face, my neck aching as it’s whipped to the side.
Clutching my collar again, he gets in my face.
“I hate what I just did,” I breathe out. “And it’ll be in my head forever.”
I wanted him so badly, I had to make him hate me so he’d feel something for me.
“You don’t feel badly, do you?” I ask him.
He glares at me. “What the fuck for?”
What for?
I open my mouth, but no words come out. How can he be like this?
“For not calling me,” I say. “You just threw me away. You didn’t text me.”
Was it all a fucking lie? I didn’t imagine it.
He…
He liked me. Didn’t he?
But he just shakes his head. “You stupid fucking kid.”
No.
No.
I squeeze my eyes shut and bow my head, and he throws me to the ground.
“Did you think we were falling in love?” he asks, his voice suddenly light and mocking.
He squats down next to me. “Maybe someday, when you have a wife,” he tells me, “I’ll do you both. Would you like that?”
I clench my jaw, trying to get back up.
But he pushes my head back down, keeping me on the floor. “Here’s what I like so you marry accordingly,” he pants in my ear. “Brunettes with blue eyes, tits at least a handful, and if she doesn’t wear underwear, that’s a plus. I love bare pussy.”
Tears spill down my face. Jesus Christ.
Pain wracks my brain. He doesn’t want me.
He hates me.
He hates everyone.
I swallow the sobs, lifting my eyes to him. “I told you once that I felt like shit all the time,” I murmur, “and that I envied my father because he could do anything and not feel like shit.”
That green fire burns in his eyes as he looks at me like I’m dirt, and I know now that he’ll never look at me any other way.
I continue. “I now realize that people who never feel like shit are always sick.”
Just like my father.
Dallas is no different. No guilt, no shame, no remorse.
It’s not human.
And I still envy it.
Growling, I push him to the floor, pinning him with my forearm on his neck.
“I may not be as hard and as ruthless as you,” I spit out, “but I’m young, and I have almost unlimited resources.”
I attacked Liv, because if I couldn’t get him to love me, then I wanted him to feel anything else.
Nothing has changed.
I bite out, “There will come a time when you won’t be able to go a day without dealing with me.”
He digs a fist into my ribs, a crack followed by a searing pain. I topple over, breathing hard.
He rises and whips open the door, knowing in no uncertain terms that I won’t be an enemy he wants in ten years. Or even five.
“It’s a matter of pride, Dallas,” I gasp as he walks out.
I learned from the fucking best.