Page 91 of Shattered In Darkness

He hates me for making him care. He hates himself more. Every time I blink, I see the pulse in his jaw, the splinters running up his hands, barely restrained violence. It should scare me, but nothing scares me anymore.

I try to swallow but my tongue is thick. “I didn’t want this,” I mumble. I don’t even recognize my own voice. “I just want to go home. I just want to go back.”

Brody laughs. Though, it’s a dark and humorless sound. “You don’t have a home. You never did.” He grabs the water and puts it to my lips again. “Drink.” I do, because what else is left.

The cold pack squeezes deeper into my armpit. Another one lands on my forehead, stinging. I try to squirm but his hands dig into my hips, pinning me to his lap. I twist but it doesn’t fucking matter. He crushes the ice pack closer to my skin. It burns, but I barely feel it. My whole body is lit up and empty at the same time. Every cell aches.

Brody wants control. He wants me desperate and docile, even now, while I’m sagging against him. The heat of his chest. The bones of his claws through my ribs, his chin digging into my hair.

He makes me drink again. “Open. Swallow.”

My lips are numb, but I do it even though my brain is full of fog and fire, and things I never want to say out loud. The world slips off its rails. The room is a smear; his voice, the only thing that cuts through.

I shudder so hard the couch rocks beneath us. I almost fall, but he bears down, locking my body to his. The habit is possession. He never lets go. Not even when he hates what I am.

He shakes me again. My eyes roll back but I force them to stay open.

“I never wanted Marcus. Not ever. I wanted you. That night…” My voice splinters.

The world tilts sideways. Words bleed out and scatter.

That night. I can still see it. The memory floats. Slippery, bright, burning like a coal in water. I see myself at the edge of the dance floor. Stupid. Hopeful. Wanting to call him. Wanting to run. My phone is cold in my hand, my chest hollow.

But he wasn’t there. Brody. My boy. Gone.

I want to tell him. I want to tell you everything.

The trap, the lies, the way the drugs made my hands float, made my dress slip, made the room throb brighter than my own thoughts. The hands of multiple boys at that house party. None of them were you.

I want to say you were right. I want to say you left me, but I never let go, not really. I needed you.

My body vibrates in his lap, shivers so hard he has to anchor me tighter. My head tips back, and I feel the shape of him, the arms, the hands, hot and furious under the skin. I want to melt into that. I want to fade.

He shakes me. Hard, like I’m a doll that might fall to pieces if he doesn’t catch every scrap.

“Lola. Which night?” His breath is rough in my hair, right up against the fever leaking out of me. “Talk.”

But I can’t. My tongue is on fire. My cheeks are wet and my ribs are empty cages. I huddle in close, hiding my face, but there is nowhere to hide. Not from him, not from the truth, not from the shame that beats against my chest like a bird trying to die.

That night. The night everything split. The night Marcus made sure I’d never be free again.

I don’t give him the words. My mouth won’t form them. The memory slides in sideways, and I choke down the bile rising to my lips. My hands clutch at his shirt.

Brody rocks me back and forth, more like he’s fighting to keep me alive with pure force of will. I can feel the pulse in his jaw, the panic hiding under the anger. His hands dig into me, not careful, not soft. Just stubborn.

He calls my name. Once. Twice. Each time rougher. “Lola. What happened? Tell me.”

“Wasn’t supposed to be like that. I was good. I tried to be good. He said, he said…”

My eyelids scrape down. I see stars. I see nothing. I see Marcus’s face, the flicker of disgust when I hesitate, the way the world went still.

Brody squeezes me. “Don’t you fucking leave me. You stay here.”

I laugh, or maybe I sob. It’s the same thing. “Doesn’t matter. He owns me. He always did.”

The room slides away from me. Spinning sickly. I’m weightless.

I float there, half in the dark, half crushed into Brody’s chest. My head spins, the fever screaming, every thought a loose thread tangling around the next. I can’t hold onto reality. I can’t hold onto him. I can’t hold onto anything.