Page 467 of Lessons in Cruelty

The kid is Haven.

She stares toward me, but not quite at me, shock writ in uppercase over her face. It’s too dark for her to see my face, and raining too hard for her to even make out which car almost put her in an early grave.

“The fuck are you doing?” I mutter, my jaw clenching tight over the words.

Out in the rain, fucking again, wearing the skimpiest clothes imaginable? Running in the street when visibility is pretty much nonexistent? She has a death wish. Or she’s the reason the cops are at the GAZ house. Must be. No other reason for her to be running. What the fuck has Haven gotten herself into?

This girl will be the fucking death of me.

I scowl as I kick open the car door.

I honestly hope the cops can’t see us down the road, because I’m going to drag her into my car, drive to the nearest hideaway, and spank some fucking sense into her. And then fuck her, for good measure.

But for the second time tonight, I can’t sate my curiosity, because Haven doesn’t stick around to apologize for almost putting me in jail for manslaughter.

She bolts away and disappears into the rain.

I fall back into my seat and slam the door. My hands are shaking when I grip the steering wheel. I’m pissed, and I don’t know if it’s the coke or that I scared her off.

This must be how a hunter feels when he alerts the prey he’s been stalking, and she slips out of his grasp.

What’s Haven gotten herself into?

What the hell have I gotten myself into?

I’m supposed to be lying low in Agony Hollow, not getting involved with mentally unstable girls and sexually repressed boys.

My life was a dumpster fire before I moved here. It’s taken three years to reach some semblance of normalcy, and now I’m ready to throw it all away?

I need control, not chaos.

Driving away instead of trying to find out where Haven ran off to is physically painful. Something she’ll pay dearly for.

But I make myself do it anyway.

It’s not the most unpleasant thing I’ve been forced to do in my life.

And it won’t be the last.

Chapter 51

Haven

Fuck, it’s cold out here.

Damn dark, too.

I’d be an idiot to stay out here much longer.

It makes sense to be afraid of the dark when you don’t know what’s hiding in the shadows. But when you’ve lived with monsters most of your life, darkness isn’t that scary anymore.

But loneliness?

It’s not a monster. It’s a poisonous fog that creeps in under the door, through the crack in the window, down the chimney.

Odorless. Colorless.

You breathe it in, day after day, and it seeps into your body without you even realizing it. When it takes hold, you don’t even notice at first. Until it messes with your mind. Convinces you that you’re disconnected from the world. Alienated.