Chapter 28
twenty-eight
Witnessing someone you ache for—someone you shouldn’t—walk away is the worst kind of torture. Punches. Cuts. The counselor’s belt. Losing a fight. Losing control. Even death. None of it comes close to the suffering of watching her leave me. And the sickest part?
I have to pretend it doesn’t matter.
My head buzzes with something that’s probably what others call failure.
It rarely happens to me. I thought… Fuck!
Maybe somewhere inside, I thought I could be done with this appointment before Ashlyn ever found out.
That I could own her, cage her, and keep her for myself before I’d have to go through with this.
I lean over the sink, lungs straining like they’ve been filled with smog. Splash water on my face. Lukewarm, useless. Towel’s scratchy, like sandpaper. Nothing soothes.
I’d welcome a bullet. Bamboo shoots under my fingernails. Anything that hurts enough to quiet this. But instead, it comes crashing over me—a tsunami of apathy, threatening to drag me under until I can’t feel a damn thing.
Steeling myself, I wrench open the bathroom door. Hailey’s waiting on the other side, wide-eyed, wringing her hands. She looks worried. And like the perfect victim for my next murder.
“Where have you been? What happened?” Hailey chatters at my side as I cut through the house toward the tent in the backyard. Her voice doesn’t even register. Not really. It’s static.
By the time we reach the entrance, she’s still going, holding out her hand so the diamond catches the light. “Aiden, my ring is gorgeous. Your brother said you must’ve bought it from a local jeweler? That’s so thoughtful. Did you have it custom-made? Was it for me? Anything—”
“Dad!” I bark, ceasing her babble, storming inside without sparing her another glance. No, the ring? I sent a Theta pledge to pick out something from a local discount store last night. Because I had forgotten.
My father and grandfather stand off to the side, clearly waiting for my return so they can proceed with dinner. Grandpa’s eyes light up when he sees me; he opens his arms, pulling me in with a warmth that feels almost foreign.
“Aiden! Congratulations!” He clasps me tight, then turns to Hailey with grandfatherly charm. “And to you, young lady.” Taking her hand, he shakes it firmly.
Dad doesn’t move. His glare hooks onto mine, all ice and silent threat. Guess I didn’t sell the speech well enough.
“Sorry,” I say, forcing civility, “I’m not feeling well. Heading out. Party looks great, Grandpa. Tell Grandma Millie she outdid herself this year.”
“Of course, my boy,” Grandpa answers with a lingering look toward his son.
Dad’s jaw works like he’s chewing on iron. Then, with calculated sweetness, he says, “Not…sticking around for dinner?” His gaze flicks to Hailey, one corner of his mouth curving up. “Ah, I see. You and your fiancée must be sneaking off for a lovers’ rendezvous.”
Hailey glances up at me, waiting for direction like the obedient pawn she is.
I meet my father’s stare, narrowing my eyes with venom. “Enjoy your party.”
The threat is mutual.
As I head to the front, I think about how I can ditch the blonde next to me.
If Hailey gets in my car, I’ll drive straight to Omega House to dump her at the front door.
Then motor to the dorms. I’ll go all the way to Gnarled Pine Hollow if I have to so I can find Ashlyn.
In fact—I dig my phone out, thumb hovering over her tracker app, when a piercing sound stops me cold on the driveway.
Sirens.
Two firetrucks scream past, lights strobing red and blue against the snow machines and Christmas décor. They barrel toward the slope in the front yard. Beneath a glen of trees.
I stumble forward, mouth ajar, tasting the winter’s shockingly frigid air.
And there it is… A black shape swallowed whole by a pyre under the pines. Flames roar skyward, chewing through metal and bark alike, sparks showering down like fireworks. The branches catch, flare bright, then collapse under the blast of the water cannons.
Beside me, Hailey gasps, hand over her mouth. “Oh my god! Is that—? Is that a car?”
I creep forward, slowly at first, then faster, until the heat licks at my cheeks. A grin carves its way across my mouth. Wide. Uncontrollable. My chest shakes. And then I laugh. Loud. Unhinged. Like the whole world delivered me a gift-wrapped inferno.
It’s my Porsche.
The one I drove here tonight with Hailey in the passenger seat. The one I’d been taking Ashlyn to class in. My last mode of boxed transportation, since the WRX is already scrap, and Lou got my Maserati. Though I still have my motorcycle.
Was the Porsche precious to me? Yeah. In some ways. But watching it burn?
It’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.
My hellkitten set it on fire. Wrecked it in wrath. Torched it in a blaze of fury, a screaming message written in gasoline and smoke. Not indifference. Not silence.
Jealousy.
And gods, jealousy means she’s still mine.
“Is that your car?” Hailey gawks.
“Yep,” I say, a smile busting from my lips. I’m proud of my hellcat. So proud. “I gotta go.”
“Where are you going?”
“You stay here,” I snap, already gone.
A valet’s hovering nearby, and I snatch his sleeve. “My father’s Bentley. Keys. Now.”
He stammers, hands them over, and I’m tearing out of the driveway before the smoke from my Porsche even clears the sky.
The tracker pings steadily. Her dot races toward campus.
By the time I swing into the lot, she’s stepping out of her car. I slam on the brake, leap out, and pin her against her own door before she’s even on her feet.
“What the—”
My hand clamps the back of her neck, forcing her eyes up to mine. Sadness pools there, rimmed in tears, and it’s a blade through my chest.
“Why so sad, baby girl?”
“Why aren’t you with your fiancée?” she spits. “Ditched your own engagement party? What—she didn’t wear the right pheromone perfume tonight?”
One eyebrow quirks. I honestly have no idea what she’s talking about.
“Hailey says she used some witch-brew scent to make you fuck her on Red Night.” Her lip curls. “I flushed it.”
I chuckle, low and wicked. “You’re incredible. And no. I don’t remember fucking her—perfume or not. Maybe she was in the pile of pussies on the pool table when the night started, but she was nothing to me. She’s still nothing.”
Her jaw slackens, as if she had another knife to throw but missed the mark.
“How’d you get the keys to the Porsche?” I ask.
Without hesitation, she confesses, “Your sister owed me a favor.”
Olivia… Mentally, I tick a box, knowing I need to pay her back for that one.
“Let’s go.” I grab Ashlyn’s waist, hoist her over my shoulder like contraband, and her fists pound my back as her scream splits the lot.
Once I settle her inside, I yank the seatbelt across her chest and snap it shut. I flip the child lock so she can’t escape. Once I check that her car’s securely locked, I slide behind the wheel of the Bentley.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Someplace safe.”
Her gaze cuts to the window, cheek pressed against the cold glass. “No such place exists.”
Then I’ll build one, I think. Brick by brick, bone by bone. I’ll make us one.
“You look like sin in that dress,” I say, my voice rougher than I mean. Sequins catch the dashlight like embers licking her skin. The slit rides high enough to show a dangerous amount of her silky thigh, and I can’t resist. My fingers slip beneath the fabric, clamping down on heat.
She tries to shove me off. I don’t let go. When she raises her hand to slap, I catch it, twine our fingers, and pin them to her lap. Together.
“Well, it’s not a green dress,” she mutters, venom and vulnerability tangled in her tone. “So I went with the next best thing.”
My throat tightens. Eyes on the dark ribbon of country road ahead, I force the words out. “That dress was for you.”
Her head whips toward me. “Me? You told me not to come!”
“I wanted you there. On my arm. If I could’ve brought you into that room without burning the whole house down, that’s the dress I would’ve put you in.
But you?” I risk a glance, long enough to catch glossy questions in her eyes.
“You would’ve told me to fuck myself and worn whatever you picked out anyway. ”
She shrugs, but the ice is starting to crack. “That sounds so unlike me…”
It’s hard to swallow. Harder to admit. “They’re forcing this. I don’t want it. I told you that. And I’m getting out of it—”
“Please don’t talk about that right now,” she bites out, then takes a deep breath. “I don’t want words. Or wishes. Or dresses.” Her voice dips lower, almost too quiet to catch. “Though…it was a nice dress.”
I grip the wheel tighter. The confession rising in my throat has no place here, no chance of survival if I let it out.
That I don’t think I can sleep in my bed without her in it.
That even after she betrayed me, I still want her.
That maybe I’m pathetic enough—or cruel enough to myself—to need her anyway.
Keeping her under my roof wasn’t only about control. It was about the way her laughter filled my silence. How her golden smiles cut through the dark. As if, for a moment, I could almost believe I wasn’t ruined.
It’s silent for so long that even the radio she flicks on fades into background static. Her head tips against the glass, lashes low, until sleep drags her under.
She stirs only when the tires crunch onto dirt. Blinking awake, she rubs her eyes.
“Oh my god. Why?”
“Welcome to the Crest,” I murmur. “This is where my life began. Where you fell in love with me.”
Her eyes spark as the trees part, revealing the black lake glinting like oil in the moonlight. The camp remains abandoned after the abuse reports. My father made sure of that; he helped shut it down, made corpses of the men who ran it.
But the dock? Our dock? It still waits, skeletal and stubborn against the water, like it’s been holding its breath for us all these years.