Page 21 of Ballistic

Breathing hard through my nose to keep from expanding my chest too much, I glared up at my foster dad who loomed over me with cold, threatening eyes. The kind of eyes that held nothing but hate behind them. I’d swiped a pack of cigarettes from the carton he’d left on the table. Should’ve known the bastard would notice. Hadn’t bothered to check out the garage, where I’d organized all his tools, or the dishwasher I’d emptied earlier in the day, or the fucking lawn I’d mowed three days ago.

But he’d sure as hell noticed that pack of smokes missing.

He prodded a finger toward me, and I’d have loved to snap it right off his hand. “Keep eye fucking me, kid. I’ll add a bruise to the other side.”

“Go fuck yourself,” I muttered, and without warning, an object flew in from the left of me, cracking my cheekbone on impact and rattled my teeth.

“Got something more to say, tough guy?” He taunted, flicking his fingers, beckoning a fight.

Every cell in my body told me to take another hit, because it’d be worth it just to get all that hate out of me. But one glimpse of my foster sister, Livvie, standing at the door capped the urges.

Instead, I pushed to my feet and stormed past him, past Livvie, through the house and out the door. Once my feet hit the dirt, I ran until the air burned my lungs and didn’t stop until I reached the abandoned shithole I’d turned into my personal hideaway, a fire-gutted building on the corner that used to be a party store. Tromping over charred remains and broken glass, I took a seat on a chair I’d brought a while back.

I fucking hated my life. If it weren’t for Livvie, I’d leave the shithole and take my chances on the streets.

The crackling of broken glass beneath boots drew my attention to the entrance, where Livvie made her way toward me.

Ice in a Ziploc baggie hung from her hand, and she passed it to me, crouching at my knees. Lifting the white rag in her other hand, she dabbed at my eye, setting the cool, damp fabric to my burning, swollen flesh. “Why do you taunt him? You know it pisses him off more.”

“He needs to know what a piece of shit he is sometimes.”

A smile stretched her lips, as she snatched the bag of ice and gently touched the spot she’d cleaned. “And you’re the messenger.”

“Someone has to do it.” Wearing a frown, I dropped my gaze and snarled. “I don’t like the way he looks at you. I swear to God, if he ever touches you, I’ll kill him.”

“Always so protective.” Her gaze fell from mine, and she squeezed my hand, while still holding the ice to my cheek. “Just promise me you won’t get yourself killed first, Dax. I won’t survive this place, his oppressive bullshit without you.”

A sleepy moan drew me out of those thoughts and I stared back at Nicoleta, whose eyelids fluttered, arm twitching, as she slumbered.

“’The fuck’re you doing, man?” I whispered into the emptiness of the room.

Rubbing the bridge of my nose did little to abate the hurricane of thoughts that had my brain spinning inside my skull. I tipped my head back and closed my eyes.

She wasn’t mine to keep.

* * *

Rain pelted against the window as I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. My bed had always been something of a sanctuary for me—a place I’d go to get high and pass out, or fuck. In the last few days, it seemed to be the place all my thoughts congregated into a clusterfuck of confusion.

“I’ll let you do whatever you want to me …” Nicoleta’s words from a few nights ago echoed inside my head.

As much as I knew it’d just been the drugs talking, I couldn’t deny their effect on me. I wouldn’t put on hand on her, of course, but it gave me the urge to dial up a friend and burn off some of the frustration that had me all tense and twitchy. I’d kept a few friends with benefits in my contacts—sometimes a quick blow job and others an all-night fuck-fest. I’d probably need a whole week to get it out of my system. Always had a hard time sitting still for too long, which probably explained why I’d spent most of my adolescence climbing abandoned skyscrapers in the city.

I slid my hand down my stomach, past the waistband of my sweatpants and into my boxers, where my dick confirmed how badly I needed some release. So hard I could’ve hammered nails with the happy bastard. Last time he’d seen any action had been a blowjob my ex had given me in her attempt to reconcile, after I’d caught her grinding on some younger guy at the club and later found out she’d fucked him that same night beside a dumpster in the alley. Classy, as always. I’d let her finish, of course, before I broke things off. No sense wasting a perfectly good finale to the shittiest relationship I’d ever gotten myself into.

With a strangling grip of my shaft, I slid my hand up to the tip, flicking the studs of my apadravya piercing, and back down again, remembering how hard she’d worked for it that night. Even thought she could entice me by playing with herself beneath the short skirt she’d worn as she sucked me off. My stomach tightened as I squeezed harder, remembering the anger as I’d watched her, imagining her doing the same thing to that little prick at the bar. Behind shuttered lids, I recalled her puppy dog eyes staring up at me, a silent plea for my forgiveness, and I stroked my cock faster, muscles tightening with the urge to come all over her face. Only when she opened her eyes, they weren’t the hazel I remembered, but bright amber. An intoxicating whiskey.

Nicoleta.

I clenched my jaw, willing those thoughts of her away, but it was too late. Warm jets of cum shot out of me, coating my hand as I pumped out the last few seconds of my climax.

A shudder rippled down my spine, and my muscles turned soft and weak, my head dizzy.

I sat up and peeled off my T-shirt, wiping the cum from my hands, and threw it across the room, disgusted with myself. Knees pulled up, I gripped either side of my skull, feeling like a dirty prick for having rubbed one out to thoughts of the girl sucking me off. After all she’d been through.

“What kind of piece of shit—”

A hard thunk carried through the walls, interrupting my thoughts, and I lifted my head. At the chasing silence, I scrambled out of bed and padded down the hall to Nicoleta’s room. Pressing my ear to the door, I listened for a moment, before opening it a crack.