Nightfall (Devil's Night, #4)

by Penelope Douglas

You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end, she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than the other girls. —J.

2nd read- pink 3rd read- blue

Will, Kai, Damon, and Michael. The Four Horsemen. I just loved the nicknames the little wannabe gangsters gave themselves in high school, but someone should really tell them it wasn’t scary when you had to tell everyone how scary you were.

But before I could escape from his lap, he grabbed my chin in one hand and wrapped his other arm around my waist, pulling me in. Against his body, and whispering so softly no one could hear him but me. “Don’t you know that you can have anything you want?” His eyes searched mine. “I’ll hurt anyone for you.” The weight on my chest was too heavy, it almost hurt to breathe. “Who is it?” he asked. “Who do I have to hurt?”

Will just sat there, staring silently ahead, and I faltered for a moment as I watched the muscle flex in his jaw.

why am i feeling hurt too?

“Abuse can feel like love.” I blinked, the voice so close that my ears tingled. Slowly, I raised my eyes to look at the side of Damon Torrance’s face, his shirt wrinkled, and his tie draped around his neck. The whole class fell silent, and I glanced at Will next to me, seeing his eyebrows pinched together as he looked at the back of his friend’s head. Mr. Townsend approached. “‘Abuse can feel like love . . .’” he repeated. “Why?” Damon remained so still it didn’t look like he was breathing. He looked at the teacher, unwavering. “Starving people will eat anything.”

some dumb academic trying to force me to believe there’s profound meaning in the author’s overwritten description of a piece of furniture I don’t give two shits about.

me trying to read dostoevsky

Or reading The Bell Jar in between bouts of banging my head on a wall.

oh she’s so real for that, i hate that book

Happy people didn’t hurt others,

“Door’s unlocked. Go get some pizza.” And he picked up his mask off the floor. “We’ll clean up here.”

i wonder if he was so adamant on having her stay bc he wanted her to be away from her home…like he knew

Nine years. Nine years, and I still wanted to fuck her.

Blood isn’t love, and love is the only thing that begets loyalty.

“He was really flattered you approved of his taste in women when you adjusted yourself right in front of him at the sight of my mother.” “In a bathing suit, Kai!” Damon pointed out, looking at Kai over his shoulder. “I mean, what the fuck? Jesus.” I shook with a laugh, remembering that day last summer when we were all at Kai’s house. “And you all think I don’t have any shame,” Damon said. “If she weren’t your mom . . .” “My father would still rip your dick up through your stomach and out your mouth?” Kai retorted. Damon quieted, settling back into his seat and sticking his cigarette into his mouth. “Daddy’s boy.” Kai shook his head, but I saw the smile fade as he looked out the window. “Maybe we’ll stay in the area and go to Trinity instead,” Michael said, “so we can all be close to Kai’s mom.”

i love their dynamic

I loved the way her tie was always tightened half-assed, her cuffs were too long and never buttoned, and her skin was my fucking religion lately. Especially the skin on her neck.

oh he’s so gone for her

Emory Scott hated me, but she hated nearly everyone. So, she was making me work for it. So what? I’d be disappointed if she didn’t. She didn’t respect Michael, Kai, or Damon, either. It shouldn’t hurt. But it did.

I always liked her. I always looked for her. And

She wouldn’t take anything from me. I was nothing, and she knew it, and in ten years, she’d be amazing, and I’d be nothing. She would never need me.

He pulled me in, and I opened my mouth to protest, but instead of a kiss, he just pulled me into his arms, pressed my head to his shoulder, and wrapped his arms around me so tight, it felt like he was the one about to break, not me.

There was a moment, though, when he held me, where he was me, and I was him, and we weren’t alone. It felt like I was supposed to be there.

When the bus stops, get in my fucking truck. I breathed out a bitter laugh. Aw, someone’s lost his temper. Why? I asked. The next thing I know, the bus stopped, he yanked the earbuds out of my ears, and I sucked in a breath as he leaned into my face. “Because you’re mine,” he growled in a whisper.

“Come here,” he said again. I absently shook my head. “Why?” “Because I’m your man.”

“So, I’m a challenge then?” I asked. “That’s what all this is really about?” “No.” He shook his head. “You just make me want to be . . .” “Better?” I rolled my eyes at the cliché statement. But he paused a moment. “More,” he finally said. “No one ever expects more from me.”

But as Martin yelled, and I gagged, spaghetti choking me, I couldn’t muster another single coherent thought. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t remember what Will looked like. What my gazebo looked like. I didn’t have a gazebo. There was no Will Grayson. There was nothing but this. There was nothing but this.

“It wasn’t her body or her face,” he told me. “It was how everything with her was effortless. Every movement. Every look.”

alex and aydin deserved their own book

It was like Will. He loved to love. He loved to be happy. He’d wanted to make me happy once.

“Same parties. Same girls,” Michael mumbled. “I’m fucking bored.” “I know.” Kai let out a sigh. “I’m feeling it, too. I need something to happen.” “Something to obsess over,” Michael added. And then Damon chimed in. “We should kill someone.” Michael snorted, Kai rolled his eyes, and I plucked the cigarette out of Damon’s mouth, taking a drag and shaking my head. Michael whipped his uniform blazer at Damon. “I was thinking I need the season to start, you fucking psycho.”

And in that moment, I wanted to do nothing else with my life more than change her world, so she’d never feel like this again. Goddammit. She tried to pull away, but I couldn’t let go. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in, hugging her as she gasped. Sobs wracked through her as she tensed, but I just held her tight, keeping her standing so she didn’t have to even worry about that right now. I couldn’t stand this. She had to stop crying.

Sorry, D. That’s her seat now.

“You can’t take him away from me,” Damon told me, stepping back and letting me go. And in that moment, I understood exactly what his problem was. He didn’t dislike me. He resented Will liking me so much. One day of wearing his school tie, because I loved the way he made me feel and I had to have a piece of him with me every moment, was nothing compared to the years Damon had relied on Will to be his little beacon of hope that the world was still a pretty place.

i hadn’t realized that damon probably needed will in the same way emory needed him :(

Yes, fucking you would be the one way to get rid of you. It was almost tempting. But then I watched his lips tighten as his eyes glistened. He fell silent, looking taken aback, and I faltered, watching my words work their way through his head, slicing a bloody path that I immediately regretted. He dropped his eyes, stuck the lighter into his pocket, and let out a resolved breath. “Why are you so mean?”

bro i can’t do this rn

All my friends loved the control. Loved to hold them down and make them beg for it like Rika, Banks, and Winter were their toys. Not me. She dominated me, and I didn’t want it any other way. In the classroom, in the library, in the movie theater, in my truck . . . Watching her cash in on my ass was better than actual sex. I could be a bad boy, and I needed to be disciplined.

“God, I wanna knock you up,” he said, rising up and looking down at me as he took out a condom. “I want to ruin you for all the times you made me think you didn’t want me. I want to give you a piece of me you’ll never be able to escape.”

“But you’re going to be fucking mine someday,” he growled. “Come hell or high water, Emory Scott. You’re my woman, and you’re going to come home to me every day and sit at my table and warm my fucking bed.” He kissed me. “And you’re going to give me a Will Grayson IV. Mark my words.”

I wanted in his bed. But I wasn’t asking for anything. I was taking it. My heart damn near in my throat, I pushed him down into the chair to my left and hovered over his lips as I slid my hand up his chest. He laughed, gripping the arms of the chair. “You want it?” he taunted. “You’re not getting it.” I grazed my lips across his cheek, over his jaw, and down his neck, the hunger making my clit throb so hard I had to hold back a whimper as the rain fell all over my naked body. “You don’t have to do a thing,” I whispered over his skin. “In fact . . .” I slid my hand inside his pants and dived for his cock, fisting the hard muscle. He gasped, his eyes going wide. “You don’t even have to move,” I told him, pumping him slow and tight. “Stay right here, because I’m going to drain you dry.” I squeezed his neck, gentle but possessive before sliding to my knees and drawing my claws down his chest and then his thighs. He was mine.

A loud whirring sound ripped through the air, and I looked over again, seeing Damon straddle a motorbike as Winter Ashby stood next to him, fastening a helmet. I tensed, about to wonder what the hell he thought he was doing out here with the kid. But as she climbed on behind him, he looked over his shoulder at her, something written in his smile I’d never seen in him before. Tenderness. She wrapped her arms around his waist and she squealed as they sped off out of the square, disappearing down a street. I had to smile a little, remembering the pirate ship and how I’d sounded exactly the same last night. I loved that feeling, too, Winter Ashby. It wasn’t the ride, though, honey. It wasn’t the ride.

I looked over at Damon, who still hadn’t started the car. He gripped the wheel, his bottom lip trembling as he stared through watery eyes out the windshield. “I didn’t love her,” he said, almost to himself. But his face was twisted in sadness and despair as tears spilled over, falling down his dirty face. “I don’t know why it hurts,” he told me. “I didn’t love her.”

fuck

She didn’t respond, but she let him turn her face side to side to inspect the damage. I wanted to remove his head.

Watching her, I balled my fists, almost convinced I should do it. I should go and lift her into my arms and take her to bed and sink inside of her and . . . I shook my head, sighing. I couldn’t. Because every time I closed my eyes, I saw the girl who made me want to be better. More. I saw Emmy Scott. Alex was like Damon. They loved me. They indulged my dark side. They were too forgiving and too enabling. They kept me from being lonely, but Emory taught me that not everything I wanted was going to come easy. That there were things I was going to have to fight for and there was pain in the world that my shallow lifestyle in high school kept me ignorant of. She made me feel like a man. Even though her words were sharp and the battle she constantly fought in her heart felt like a knife in my own, her eyes on me made me feel strong. Her arms around me made me want to take on anything. When I closed my eyes, I saw a girl with glasses too big for her face, and I heard the sweetest, most timid voice asking me if I still wanted to hold her. I could still feel her cradled in my arms.

I’d loved Emory since the moment I laid eyes on her when I was fourteen.

“I warned you I wasn’t a happy person, and there were so many reasons I didn’t want to let you in, but . . .” She trailed off, trying to find her words. “The only time I ever loved my life was when I was with you.” My hand still lingered on her brow, unmoving. Now? She was telling me this now? “I was always your Em,” she whispered. “No matter what I said or what I did or all the ways I let life win over the years . . . That night, I knew. I was in love with you.”

“Bad shit happened,” he whispered. “And I can’t talk about it, but you’re my best friend, so don’t ever forget it.” His breath warmed my mouth, and I felt him try to hold back a sob as his eyes closed and he struggled. “I need you,” he murmured. “You don’t know how much we all need you.”

Goddammit. If my head would just settle on one emotion where she was concerned, that would be fucking fantastic. I hate her, but she’s mine. Go away, but don’t go with him!

“This isn’t young love anymore,” I told her, pressing her tits into the shower wall. “It’s not a crush. This is a man who’s long overdue in showing you what he can do.” And I slammed my mouth down on hers again and ripped open my jeans.

oh!

Will called us. “Alex,” he said, standing back and watching them. “Emory.” Alex immediately went to his side, but I stayed rooted. A fire lit behind his eyes. “I will raise hell and reduce this house to ash if you act like this is a choice for one more second!” he bellowed at me and then pointed to his side. “Now!” I jumped, tingles throbbing between my legs, and I clenched my teeth, walking over to him. “All this time?” Aydin breathed out. “All these months and all the fights. All the times you lost, it was on purpose?” “You don’t have what it takes to be me,” he told Aydin, his deep tone sending chills up my spine.

“I reached for you,” I told her. “In my head, all these years. Even after you dumped me like trash and I couldn’t fall out of love with you no matter how much I drank and snorted, my brain reached for you always.” She remained frozen, not faltering as she stared at me. “When nothing gave me a reason to get out of bed, my friends were falling in love, making babies, and I felt so alone . . .” I choked on the tears in my throat I wouldn’t let loose. “What do you think was the only thing that made me keep breathing?” My tone hardened as I clenched my jaw. “In my brain, I reached for you. I never stopped reaching for you.” And she let her brother tell my family that, not only did I not love her, but I passed her around for my friends to abuse like she was nothing. When she was everything. I hardened my voice. “Get the fuck out of my face,” I gritted out. “And it’s fine if you want to get the fuck off the train, too. Go, run back to him.” I won’t reach for you anymore.

“You never did see how much everyone needed you.” A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “You. Just the way you were.”

“The role of the villain is only determined by who’s telling the story.”

Damon had been my savior on more than one occasion when life had proved there was so much gray.

After I’d found a room and made my call with Erika’s phone, they pounded on the door, insisting to stay with me because the “pampered little know-it-alls who thought their shit didn’t stink aren’t getting a piece of you.” As if Micah and Rory weren’t a little pampered themselves.

i love that they adopted her as a third wheel

They could all do whatever they wanted in high school, and now years later in Thunder Bay, because Damon was right. The villain was just a matter of perspective. It was as easy as pie for them to judge me, because on the rare occasion they weren’t doing fucked-up shit themselves, they got these splendid little attacks of sanctimony when it came to anyone outside their little group.

you’re so fucking right…please call them out