Chapter 1
Piper
“Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry, Piper. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”
Each word is like a drum to my temples, making my entire head ache. I can’t stand the sound. But it doesn’t stop. I wish I could punch whoever it is that is causing the migraine.
But I can’t even lift an arm. It’s all I can do to pop open one eye, then the other, the light from the windows blinding me, searing into the back of my eyeballs.
“Sorry. Sorry, sorry. I’m so sorry, Piper. Sorry.”
The man who is speaking those words is dressed in camo pants, combat boots, a thick fleece-lined hoodie under a leather jacket.
He’s lying prostrate on the ground, his curly black hair for once uncovered, his face to the floor, the white, soulless mask lying several feet away.
And there’s the gun he shot me with, beside it, still smoking.
“I’m sorry, Piper.”
Quill Nelson lifts his head at the sound of my breathing changing. His face is inundated with tears as he continues his mindless refrain, and I swear to God I want to clap a hand over his mouth right now. Punch him. Strangle him.
Anything to make the word repeated on a loop stop. It’s like a nervous tic, each word beating against my brain.
“Sorry, Piper.”
“Fuck. You.”
It takes a lot of effort to speak those words. A lot of effort, because I’m dying.
And the person who killed me is lying in front of me, crying and apologizing. Only it doesn’t do a thing to me. I feel cold all over as I stare at the boy I once loved. The boy who turned out to be a monster. A cruel man who just shot me.
After killing my parents. After telling his best friends to rape me.
There’s no doubt about it. He’s rotten. Rotten to the core.
For the first time, it feels like, I can think clearly. I’m in more physical pain than I’ve ever been in in my life, but I can breathe. I’m no longer suffocating from being in the same room as him.
It’s as though the bullet cleaved through the stifling air, leaving a tunnel in its wake, a tunnel filled with oxygen. That oxygen helps me think.
And I think I’m going to be sick.
For all my suspicions, I realize I never thought the boy currently sobbing at my feet would be the one to end me.
I blink at him a few times before managing to speak. Not necessarily because I have anything of value to add to this fucked-up situation. Rather, because I’m desperate to cut into his flow of apologies that is driving me insane.
“You shot me.”
He shakes his head, the tears spilling from his eyes. “I didn’t, Piper. I didn’t.”
I train my eyes toward the gun lying on the floor, smoke still faintly curling out of it.
“Don’t fucking lie to me.” My voice is harsh, cutting. I barely recognize it. “You shot me. You aimed the gun at me, you pulled the trigger, you shot me.”
He edges closer to me, and I manage to pull back, although every inch of my skin aches.
“Are you hurt?” he murmurs.
“Yes.” I choke out the words. “Yes, because you fucking shot me, you psycho. It hurts everywhere. Everywhere. Go away, Quill. Please go away.”
I don’t want to die like this, helplessly bleeding out in front of the man who destroyed me.
But he doesn’t listen. He doesn’t respect the desperate plea breaking from my mouth. He never does, because he’s a monster.
He closes the distance between us, and I’m powerless to do anything about it. I’m in so much pain.
“Where does it hurt, cricket?”
I shake my head, willing him to go away, because how can I resist him as he kneels down over me? When his hand is stroking my hair, the other one toying with the hem of my shirt as if he’s hesitating to pull it up?
“Where does it hurt?” he insists.
“Everywhere. I don’t know. Everywhere.”
“On your stomach?” He looks down at my hands, which I’m just now realizing are pushed over my belly, like they’re trying to prevent the wound there from being ripped apart by gravity.
“Yes. My stomach. Yes.”
My voice breaks and I realize I’m crying too. Quill pulls away my hands then lifts my shirt, more gently than I would have thought possible for him. I gasp, startled, when he lays his warm hand over my skin.
“There’s nothing here.”
“Stop lying. There is. It hurts so bad. You shot me.”
I sniff loudly, feeling the snot run down from my nose, but I’m far past embarrassment.
“My chest hurts. My chest hurts too. Everywhere hurts.”
I’m sobbing louder than ever, convinced I’m dying. Convinced I’m bleeding out from my wounds. Because Quill shot me. I know he did.
I remember everything.
I remember him walking in after that Devil—Logan Colt—took me. I thought Quill had come to save me. Instead he aimed his gun at me.
That’s when I stammered out the words I’d never said to anyone but Josh. Which makes no sense, because why the hell would I tell some random guy I just met about one of the two most traumatic things that have ever happened to me?
But I guess telling Josh allowed me to break through the layers and layers of silence that had built up inside me since that moment. When Quill aimed his gun at me and I looked into the barrel of certain death, the words came tumbling out of me.
It was pointless, anyway. He already knew. He’s the one who told them to do it, wasn’t he?
Only I’m not dead. Not yet. I’m bleeding out from somewhere, I’m sure of it, but I’m still not dead.
And my killer is crouching over me, one hand gently on my stomach, his other hand gingerly undoing the top buttons of my shirt so he can examine my chest.
“You don’t have any wounds,” he says softly. “None that I can see.”
“You’re lying. You’re lying. It hurts everywhere. You shot me.”
His fingers are back to weaving their way through my hair.
“I didn’t shoot you,” he breathes. “I shot at the wall. See?”
It takes every ounce of energy I have, but I manage to turn my head toward the place he’s pointing to. There’s a large gaping hole in the wall, and the plaster around it is fracturing, some of it still falling to the ground, into a mound of dust and rubble.
Then I look back at him, blinking.
“I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry, Piper. When you told me… what you told me… I was so angry. I had no idea, Piper. They lied to me. They lied to both of us. I was so furious I… I shot at the wall. And then you fell. I guess you must have passed out from fear.”
I bring up a trembling hand to my face to rub at my temples. “I wasn’t fucking scared.”
The shadow of a smirk lights up his face, which otherwise must be a mirror of mine, with the tears still winding down his face.
Only he’s beautiful even when he cries. Unlike me and my splotchy face.
I’m sure my nose must be bright red by now, and random spots must be making my cheeks and neck ruddy.
Meanwhile, he looks as handsome as ever.
His piercing blue eyes are sparkling with wetness, and the water on his skin makes his long, jagged scar glow and his cheekbones stand out in stark relief.
His glistening lower lip makes me want to lift my hand up and…
No. No, no, no.
He’s the one who reaches down, and I wince as his hand swipes away at my tears and snot. He doesn’t even wipe his fingers on his jeans. He doesn’t look the least bit disgusted. But then again, he’s never shown me any disgust.
Only hate.
There isn’t a sign of that old hate as he looks down at me now, a picture of devastation and concern.
I look away, because I can’t handle such a look. I know it’s going to pull me right back into a vortex of pain, and with the oxygen in the room dissolving quickly along with my memory of the shot, I’m losing the power to think. Let alone breathe.
“Piper,” he whispers. “Please look at me.”
I shake my head, keeping my eyes resolutely to the side. “If you didn’t shoot me… then why am I in pain?”
He grabs one of my hands between his, but I pull it away, holding onto it as if it’s been injured by his touch. It feels like it has.
“Maybe you’re not physically in pain,” he murmurs.
His suggestion makes me furious, because there’s no fucking way I’m imagining it. At the same time, I realize I abruptly feel a bit better. Which only makes me angrier than ever, because it means he’s right.
“Fuck you,” I snarl.
This time, I wince, because with the pain rapidly dissolving, I’m alert enough to realize swearing at the psycho in front of me is a bad idea. I swallow nervously, waiting for his reaction, but there’s none. Well, maybe he looks a little sadder than before.
“Fuck you,” I say again, his lack of anger reassuring me.
Goddamn, does it feel good to get those words out.
It’s all I can do to keep from repeating them over and over again, just like his apology has turned into a refrain that’s been breaking my brain.
Thank God he’s paused his tic for the moment, even though I can tell the word is still at the tip of his tongue.
“It’s not in my fucking head,” I snap. “I’m not crazy. Unlike you, you fucking psycho.”
The truth is, the pain is all but gone now. Not that I’d ever admit it.
“I hate your fucking guts,” I add for good measure.
Again, I wait for his reaction, convinced he’s going to blow a fuse. Hoping he will, because I need some proof right now that he’s the monster I know he is. Otherwise I’m terrified I’ll forget it.
And maybe, just maybe, I’m kind of hoping he’ll drag me up over his lap like he used to do sometimes when he punished me and…
No!
“Piper,” he says tentatively, “can’t you… won’t you…” He swallows with difficulty. “I wish I could hold you, Piper.”
It’s all I can do to keep my eyes away from him as the heat emanating from his body warms my freezing skin. I’m wishing he could hold me too, and that terrifies me. My whole body is humming with the need to climb into his lap and sink into his arms, and let him take my pain away.
He used to be so good at that, back when he was the boy I was in love with. But it was all lies.
Still, part of my brain desperately wishes he’d take the choice away from me. Grab me, force me into your arms, take me.
But the sane part of my brain resists, and for once, it wins.
“No,” I say.
“Please, Piper,” he chokes out.
I’m still turned resolutely away, but I can tell by the sound of his voice that he’s devastated.
“No. You won’t hold me, Quill.” I force the cruel words out with difficulty. “You won’t hold me. Never again.”