Scarlett
My phone won’t stop buzzing.
It’s buried under the pillow, muffled, but the vibration still rattles through the mattress like a pulse I can’t ignore. I don’t want to look. I already know who it is.
Kai’s still asleep beside me. His chest rises and falls, steady, unshakable, like he could sleep through a hurricane.
One arm is flung across my waist, heavy and possessive, pinning me down.
I stare at his hand splayed over my stomach, at the faint bruises circling my wrists, at the marks along my collarbone that ache every time I breathe.
The phone buzzes again.
I slip my hand free, fingers trembling as I pull it out from under the pillow. The screen lights my face in the dark.
TYLER: You disappeared on me. Where the hell did you go?
TYLER: Don’t ignore me, Scarlett. I know what you’re doing.
My throat goes dry. Another buzz hits before I can think.
TYLER: You liked it. Don’t pretend you didn’t.
My stomach twists. My fingers hover over the screen, useless, frozen. Because even if I delete them, even if I throw the phone against the wall, I can still hear his voice, the way his hand—
The bed shifts. Heat rushes to my face as I shove the phone under the blanket, as if Kai hasn’t already felt the tension screaming off me.
“Who’s texting you this late?” His voice is rough with sleep, but sharp. Too sharp.
“Who’s texting you this late?”
His voice cuts through the dark like a blade, still heavy with sleep but sharpened enough to make my pulse spike.
My fingers squeeze the phone beneath the blanket, as if I can will it into silence. Another buzz trembles against my thigh.
I force a laugh, brittle, fake. “It’s just… Maddie. She can’t sleep; she’s freaking out about finals or something.”
Kai shifts beside me. The mattress dips as he props himself on one elbow, his shadow looming over me. I don’t dare look at him.
“Finals.” His tone is flat, disbelieving. “At three in the morning?”
“Yes,” I snap too quickly, too loud. My throat tightens. “She’s dramatic, you know that.”
Another buzz. My blood runs cold. I press my thigh down hard, trying to smother it, praying he doesn’t notice.
But Kai notices everything.
The blanket rustles. His hand slides over my waist, slow, deliberate, dangerous, like he’s testing how far he has to reach before I break and hand it over.
“You’re lying to me, Scar.” The words are low, not shouted, not angry. Worse. They vibrate through the air, steady and sure, threaded with something dark enough to make me want to curl in on myself. “And I don’t like when you lie.”
“I’m not lying.” My voice shakes, but I force the words out anyway, like spitting glass. “It’s Maddie. She’s just needy, Kai. You don’t have to—”
“Don’t have to what?” His hand is still heavy on my waist, fingers pressing just enough that I can feel the threat humming underneath.
I swallow hard. My heart is thundering. “You don’t have to act like this. Not everything is about you. Not everyone is… watching me.”
Another buzz. Louder this time because I’m sure I’m imagining it amplified by the silence between us.
I squeeze my eyes shut, pushing the lie further down my throat. “She probably just needs me to talk her off a ledge or something, okay? Can you just—let me deal with it?”
The silence stretches. I know he doesn’t believe me. I can feel it in the way his breath brushes my cheek, calm, slow, patient like a predator waiting for me to run.
“Then answer her,” he says finally, quiet enough to make me flinch. “Prove it.”
My whole body goes stiff.
Because if I touch that phone now, the name on the screen will not read Maddie.
It’s going to read Tyler.
“No.” The word rips out of me before I can soften it, before I can think about how sharp it sounds in the air between us.
Kai tilts his head, studying me like I’ve just handed him a loaded weapon. “No?”
I fold my arms across my chest, though it does nothing to stop the shaking. “I don’t have to prove anything to you. You don’t get to demand that. You don’t get to—”
Another buzz. Like the universe mocking me.
His lips twitch, but it isn’t a smile. It’s something darker. “Scarlett, if it’s Maddie, then what’s the problem?”
My throat burns, words sticking like tar. “Because it’s private. That’s why. Some things are allowed to be mine. Even from you.”
The second it leaves me, I regret it.
His hand curls tighter at my waist, not bruising but close, close enough that I can feel how much he wants to crush me into the truth. His voice comes low, raw, and lethal: “There is no part of you that’s just yours, baby. Not anymore.”
My chest feels too tight, like his words have wrapped chains around my ribs. Not anymore. God, maybe he’s right. Maybe he’s already taken everything without even needing to ask.
My lips tremble, and I hate that he can see it. “You don’t own me,” I whisper, but it doesn’t sound like fire — it sounds like a plea.
Kai’s eyes narrow, a flash of something savage breaking through that stony mask. He leans closer until I can taste his breath, his voice a razor against my skin. “Then why do you look like you’re about to cry every time I touch you?”
My throat works, desperate to hold the lie together, but it’s fraying. “Because you won’t leave me alone,” I manage, barely audible, hating how it shakes.
He studies me for a long, merciless beat, like he can hear the truth scraping underneath my words. His thumb brushes the edge of my jaw, gentle where everything else about him is cruel. “You’re hiding something, Scar. I can smell it on you.”
I shook my head too hard, too fast. “There’s nothing. I swear. Just—just stop looking at me like that.”
But he doesn’t stop. His gaze carves me open, patient, hunting, waiting for the crack to become a confession.
“I said there’s nothing,” I snap, louder this time, sharp enough to sting my own tongue. My voice shakes, but I keep going, feeding the lie like it’s the only shield I have left. “You’re imagining things, Kai. You always do. You twist everything until it sounds the way you want it to.”
His jaw ticks, but he doesn’t flinch. He just stares, steady and unblinking, like a wolf waiting for the rabbit to wear itself out.
My nails dig crescents into my palms. If I stay still, maybe he won’t see how hard my pulse is racing, how close I am to shattering. “I’m not hiding anything. Not from you. Not from anyone.” The words taste bitter, but I force them out anyway.
He leans in until his shadow swallows me whole, his hand braced on the wall beside my head. “Lie to me again, baby,” he murmurs, quiet and lethal. “Go on. See what happens when I decide I’m done being patient.”
I swallow hard, but my chin stays lifted. “There’s nothing to tell.” My voice doesn’t break this time.
His smile is cold, cruel. “Then I’ll break it out of you.”
His hand is already sliding down, rough fingers grazing my hip like he’s seconds away from proving every threat he just whispered. My breath stalls, chest rising too fast, bracing for the inevitable.
And then—
“Scarlett? Kai?”
The sound of my mother’s voice cuts through the walls like a blade.
We both freeze. My heart lurches up into my throat, panic burning hotter than his touch.
“Kids, we’re home!” my dad calls a second later, cheerful, oblivious.
“Fuck,” Kai snarls, ripping himself away from me so fast the mattress groans. He’s already shoving upright, dragging a shirt over his head with hands that shake more from rage than surprise.
I sit there, stunned, my skin still buzzing, my pulse still screaming for him, and now every nerve ending screaming with terror too.
He rakes a hand through his hair, jaw locked, eyes blazing like he might explode if he looks at me for another second. Then he leans down, close enough for me to feel the heat of him again, his voice low and venomous.
“This isn’t over, Scar. Not even close.”
And then he’s gone, scrambling out of the room before our parents can climb the stairs, leaving me trembling in the wreckage of almost.
I barely yank the blanket higher, hiding the flush on my chest, hiding everything. My body still reeks of him—heat, sweat, want—but I force myself still, force my lungs to slow even though they won’t.
The door swings open before I can even breathe right.
“There you are,” Mum says brightly, poking her head in like she always does. “We thought maybe you were out with friends.”
Her eyes skim over me—too fast, too casual—and my throat clogs with panic. Can she smell him on me? Can she see the red blooming high on my cheeks?
“I was just… tired,” I choke out, tugging the blanket tighter, praying she doesn’t notice my trembling hands.
Dad appears behind her, jangling his keys. “Your brother downstairs?”
Brother. The words slice me clean in two.
I swallow hard, nodding like it doesn’t gut me. “Yeah. He… just went down.”
Mum’s smile softens, oblivious. “He’s such a good boy. Always keeping an eye on you when we’re not around.”
Good boy. If only she knew.
I manage a brittle smile, nodding again, every muscle aching from holding myself together. They linger a moment longer before retreating, footsteps fading down the hall, voices drifting toward the kitchen.
The second they’re gone, I collapse back into the pillows, shoving my fist against my mouth to smother the sound clawing up my throat. Kai was right.
This isn’t over.
And the worst part? I don’t want it to be.
The second the front door thuds shut again—my parents’ voices drifting faintly from the kitchen—I curl tighter into myself, clawing the sheets around my body like they can erase what just happened. Like fabric can scrub his touch out of my skin.
But it doesn’t.
I can still feel him—his mouth, his hands, the way he looked at me like I was already his. I could taste his breath when he bent close enough to whisper things no brother should ever whisper, things no sane girl should ever beg to hear.
Brother. The word is poison. It runs through me until I want to peel my own skin off.
They called him that, smiling, proud, so oblivious. Your brother downstairs. And I nodded, like it was normal. Like there wasn’t sweat drying between my thighs, like I didn’t just claw at him, lie for him, lie to myself.
The lies are choking me. I can’t breathe around them.
I bury my face in the pillow, biting down until my teeth ache, until I can swallow the sobs that keep threatening to break. Because if I cry, he’ll hear. He always hears.
And I don’t know what’s worse—him coming back through that door to finish what he started… or him staying away long enough for me to realise I want him to.
I squeeze my eyes shut, nails digging crescents into my palms, whispering into the dark, over and over:
This isn’t real. This isn’t happening. He’s my brother. He’s my brother. He’s my brother.
But my body won’t believe me.
And I think that’s what’s going to kill me.