Ravage (Dance With My Demons, #3)

by Steph Macca

Oh, you're back again… It's the morgue scenes, isn't it? Don't worry… they are loud enough to wake the dead in this book too.

My sister once described it perfectly to me. Meatballs can be your favorite meal, and then you eat lasagne one day. Almost the same ingredients, right? Yet… they taste vastly different. But you can still love meatballs as much as you love lasagne. It doesn't change how much you love the other meal, just the fact that you can enjoy both. Life would be boring with no variety, especially when each meal can bring you a connection and fulfil your needs.

So, sometimes we want meatballs, and other times we need lasagne. It doesn't take away from the other delicious food at all.

Little Killer – You are my absolute everything. Everyone deserves the chance to love you too. So, if your heart belongs to three people, then that's okay. I'm not going anywhere, no matter what happens.

My control slipped—again. I've rarely lost it at all the past few years, and now, it's happening more frequently. And there's one common denominator in all of it. Avery.

It just happened so suddenly. I'm mad at myself for losing control. Mad at myself for hating how much I place my own value in her. Mad for hating the way she makes me believe I'm not as bad of a monster as I think I am. I hate that she sees good in me when I know there's none. But furious that sometimes I let myself indulge in that thought, believing it briefly. Everything is so different in her eyes. She's too trusting, too quick to search for good. That's what's landed her in trouble before. I don't want her to be so complacent. She needs to hate me. I need her to hate me.

The bad things that happen to her are because of me. And now because of my actions, she'll never leave Lilydale. By giving away that two percent, I've signed everyone's death warrants.

I want to reassure her, but the words get stuck on the tip of my tongue. I know I need to tell everyone about what happened, especially Grey, but a part of me is afraid. What if I tell her and she never looks at me like this again? I want to savor the moment for as long as possible before I'm the big, bad monster again.

"Show me," I say, curling my fingers inside of her. "Show me what you look like when you come. I want to make you come so hard that it will ruin your life in the best fucking way possible."

Having her light here is what's keeping me grounded in the dark. I was so close to letting myself fall after speaking to my father, but she pulled me back from the brink.

I promised my father a painful death and I intend to keep that promise. And if he gets that judge to grant his request, it just means we need to find another way to shut down Lilydale. This place is a mockery of my mother's life and death. I'm going to destroy it, so that her true legacy can live on. I'm not going to stop until we're all free.