Page 463 of Lessons in Cruelty

No hope of pushing it back like I always do. Can’t keep it at bay, like the other bullshit I’ve put up with my entire motherfucking life.

It crashes into me like water through a busted dam wall.

I grab the tree behind me, my fingers digging into the rough, wet bark for support as I fold forward. The sounds I’m making belong to a wounded animal, not a man.

Deep, rough, primal.

What the fuck is happening to me?

I can’t keep losing my shit like this. It’s like my emotions have been on autopilot all these years, and now that I’ve taken over the controls, I don’t know how to steer this fucking thing.

I’m losing altitude, and fast.

Thank God that old faithful, Fury, comes to the rescue. And he gives me that oh-so familiar line that somehow always reins me in.

What the fuck makes her so special?

My plan had been to torment her until she had no choice but to leave. But Haven stubborn-as-a-motherfucking-mule Lee has made it clear she isn’t going anywhere, no matter what any of us throws at her.

I was all set to ride it out. Fuck knows, I’ve been through worse. But I was holding on by a thread, and the only thing keeping that thread from snapping was the promise of that fucking job in the city.

If I’d known Ezra had lied to me before the Rain Dance, no fucking way he’d still be alive. Even now, all I can think about is heading to the hospital and putting an end to that lying, cantankerous cunt.

But that would snuff out any hope I have of ever leaving this shithole of a town. I could graduate fucking cum laude and it wouldn’t make a difference, not with a criminal record.

Unless I made it look like an accident.

It’s not the first time I’ve thought about killing him. The fantasy has played through my head hundreds of times since I was a kid. I’d lie awake at night, too bruised to sleep, planning exactly how I’d do it.

But this doesn’t feel like just another fantasy.

It feels inevitable.

The sobs wracking my body subside. I sniff, dragging my hand down my face like wipers on a windshield.

A single moment of clarity as I see through the rain before it stings my face again.

I could sneak into the hospital during visiting hours tomorrow and⁠—

A twig snaps, close enough that I hear it clearly through the drumming rain. I push away from the tree, my legs shaking as they struggle to take my full weight.

Eyes narrowed, I scan each gap in the trees around me. The smell of wet earth and leaves fills my nose. That almost-putrid sweetness of decay lurking under the layer of decomposing foliage and moss that carpets the forest floor.

It’s pitch black out there. Hard to see much but the odd glimmer of light from a wet leaf. Even the campus security lights are barely visible through the dense trees.

At first, that’s frustrating as fuck. But then I realize it works in my favor.

If I can’t see whoever’s out here with me, they can’t see me, either.

I slip behind a tree trunk, slowing my breath, straining to hear the slightest sound through the rain.

A rustle.

Another snap of a twig.

Labored breathing that I recognize the instant I hear it.

Haven.