Nightfall (Devil's Night, #4)

by Penelope Douglas

I squeezed my eyes shut, sobbing quietly as I started running. Will.

Shit. What was she doing? But before I could locate the opening she’d slipped through, she’d raised her arm and brought down the candlestick in a hard blow across the back of Taylor’s head. He jerked, froze, and fell over, collapsing onto the floor, and she stood there, breathing hard and staring down at him. In a moment, Will had shot to his feet, wiping the blood from under his nose. “Alex?” He gaped at her. She didn’t look happy, though. “What the hell are you doing?” she snapped, whispering over Taylor’s unconscious body on the floor. “You could’ve handled that guy. I’ve been watching you get your ass kicked for days! What are you doing?” He just stared at her, stunned. “What the fuck are you doing here?” She paused and then said, “That’s it? That’s all you’ve gotta say?” She waved her hand at her head. “Not a word about my hair?”

But before I could locate the opening she’d slipped through, she’d raised her arm and brought down the candlestick in a hard blow across the back of Taylor’s head. He jerked, froze, and fell over, collapsing onto the floor,

I almost snorted, despite my pulse racing. I’d never actually seen them interact together. I met Alex long after Will was sent here. She was so comfortable with him. He blinked at her, wiping his nose as more blood dripped out, and then he grabbed her hand. “Fuck,” he cursed, swinging open the door and yanking her out of the room. “Goddamn, son of a bitch…”

I looked through the thin slit in the bookshelf I knew was on the other side of this wall, watching as she threw her arms around him, nearly knocking him over. I pressed on the wall, about to open it, but…I stayed, watching. His arms hung limply at his sides for a minute, but then he snapped out of it and wrapped them around her, squeezing her tight. She sobbed quietly, pressing her lips to his cheek as he closed his eyes, smiling—really smiling—for the first time since I’d been here. My heart ached. “I missed you, kid,” he said. She nodded, still hugging him. “We’re going home.”

They held each other for another few moments and then pulled away, staring into each other’s eyes. “How’d you figure this out?” he asked, pulling off his shirt to wipe down his face and the remnants of his fight with Taylor. “I didn’t,” she replied. “Rika?” he asked. “Misha and Damon figured it out, actually.” A laugh bubbled out of him, the deep, rich sound like déjà vu. He was a teenager at the Cove all over again. Rika. He meant Erika Fane. I’d heard she was engaged to Michael Crist, one of his best friends. Kai was married and a father, as was fucking Damon Torrance. Shocker. Misha Grayson was his younger cousin. He went to Thunder Bay Prep, too, but that was after my time. Alex knew all of them. She was a part of his life now. Friends with his friends. “Damon and Misha…” Will mused. “Like in the same room?” “There may have been blood,” she joked.

He didn’t move, though. “How did you get here?” he asked. “Can you get back?” “What do you mean?” He wet his lips, finding the words. “I need you out of this house. Now. This minute.” Her brow creased with confusion. “What’s the matter with you?” she whispered, but I could hear the worry in her voice. “I’m taking you home.” “No, you’re leaving,” he said. “And you’re going to tell them I can solve my own problems. I don’t need help.” “And Emory?” He stopped, straightening his spine as he looked down at her. “What do you know? Did you have her brought here? Did Michael?” “She just asked me the same thing,” Alex blurted out. “Why would we do something so dumb? I have no idea who sent her here or why, but it was probably that brother of hers.”

Will regarded her. “You know her?” he asked. She nodded. “We met last spring.” Will’s eyebrow shot up. “Don’t give me that look,” she told him. “She was in Thunder Bay burying her grandmother. We ran into each other. I didn’t seek her out.” “How long have you been here?” he asked. Alex remained quiet, and a look crossed his face that said he knew the answer. “So you arrived on the shipment with her days ago, and you, what?” he continued. “Spotted her and decided to roll the dice and stay hidden to see this play out with her and me?” She folded her arms across her chest, a satisfied smirk on her face. “Get her out of here,” he bit out, “and both of you fuck off.”

just hoping some semblance of his life is back to what it used to be, even if I already knew he has undoubtedly changed. I just hope he’s gone. Traveling, living…loving, and being loved. Tears spring to my eyes again, but I blink them away, nausea rolling through me. I did what I had to do, right? I might’ve even saved him from a worse fate. But no matter how often I tell myself that, I still don’t feel it. I need to face him and come clean. This is eating a hole through me, and if he hasn’t come for me yet, then he doesn’t know, and he should. I can’t do this anymore.

I almost hear the carnival music from that night in my head as I walk closer and closer, seeing where he and I sat. A fist squeezes my heart. I miss him. I didn’t realize back then how much this would hurt and how long it would stay with me.

Will stood in the foyer facing me, his eyes on fire, and I wanted to take him to my room, close the door, and hold him forever, but he knew how this would end tonight. I wouldn’t grovel, and I was leaving. I shoved Alex away and darted for the door, but she caught me and threw me to the floor. I crashed, my body wracking with pain as I caught my breath and glared up at her from the marble floor. I didn’t waste another second. Blasting off the ground, I lunged for her, ready to tear right through her if I had to, because… Because the only person I knew how to fight for was myself.

I folded the tie slowly and stuck it in the Ziploc bag, followed by my Cove Ride-All-Day bracelet from last night, and the collapsed, empty box of Milk Duds he got me at the movie theater. Squishing the air out of the bag, I sealed it, tears hanging at the corner of my eyes as I dropped it into an empty coffee can and capped it, setting the whole thing in the two-foot deep hole. I couldn’t keep him close, but I couldn’t throw him away, either. Maybe someday I’d dig up my little time capsule and be able to laugh at how little any of it meant anymore. I hope. An engine roared to my right, and I looked up from where I knelt on the foundation of the gazebo and saw Damon’s BMW slide into a spot in the alley next to Sticks.

I turned back to my hole, barely able to see the ground in front of me as I grabbed the gardening shovel and started filling it in. I was making the right decision, and thank God he said the awful things he said today, because I was about to break, and I needed the hurt to push through it. I hoped he did replace me. Tonight. He should dance with her and slip his hands inside her clothes and love her crazy, because after that, I wouldn’t be able to look back. It would shatter my heart, so there’d be nothing left to hold him with me anymore.

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.

my phone wasn’t in my pocket. I blinked, feeling the key, but I didn’t have my cell. I searched the other one, coming up empty, as well. Shit. I didn’t know if I wanted to call for help or record this, but either way, I was out of luck. He came back to the grave and started digging up the soil again, and I clutched the sides of the tall headstone, watching him. Who was he? God, was he crazy or just stupid? We lived on the coast. Take a boat out, weight the body down and toss it overboard, for crying out loud. I blinked, remembering myself. It wasn’t like I’d thought about it or anything.

He dug for another minute and then stopped, his shoulders slumped as he stared down at the body, almost in a daze. And all of a sudden, I was him. In his shoes, standing where he was. I’d just killed someone, and I was getting rid of the evidence. Raising his black boot, he slowly lowered it to her neck and pressed down, watching her and baring his teeth. Anger. He was angry. And despite everything in my head telling me this was a horror, I couldn’t run. I couldn’t stop watching. He could be a serial killer. A rapist keeping her quiet forever. A predator of innocents. She might not even be dead yet. I could run, get help, and save her life. At the very least, put him behind bars. But then he started sobbing, shaking and gasping, and I was him. I would be him if I let Martin push me enough. Someday, at some point, it was coming. I’d lose my mind and just fight. Fight until either he or I stopped breathing.

A breeze swept through the trees, his hood blew off his head, and I blinked, seeing Damon Torrance standing there with the shovel in his hand and the body of a dead woman at his feet. I sucked in a breath and his eyes shot up, his whole body freezing as our eyes locked. Shit. My blood drained, and I couldn’t inhale. He dropped the shovel and headed toward me, charging hard and steady down the small hill as I stumbled backward, too scared to take my eyes off him. Something caught my eye, and I looked behind him, seeing the woman’s hand flop over and her head move. “She’s moving,” I choked out, hitting the back of a crypt. He stopped about two feet from me, holding my eyes for a moment. Slowly, he turned, looking over his shoulder at her. Her finger twitched, and I noticed the tears still hanging at the corner of his eyes.

The wind continued to glide over the headstones, the scent of his cigarettes wafting around me, and at this moment, I thought I would’ve liked to be him. He was going to get away with this. What would we all do if we could get away with it? Maybe I was lucky to never have to find out. Maybe he was because he could escape his pain. “Who is it?” I asked softly. I took in their hair. Hers and his. The same jet black, so dark it almost shimmered blue in the moonlight. The same skin, pale and translucent like they were made of marble. I looked at her costume. “Your mother?” I whispered. I’d heard she was a ballerina ...

He just closed the distance and hovered, and I couldn’t move if I tried. My head swam. “Not going to fight me again?” he murmured. It took a moment, but I raised my eyes, meeting his. “It’s easier to pretend that we’re in control of everything that happens to us.” I repeated his words. “It’s almost peaceful. To just let it be.” He stared at me and then… nodded. He touched my face, and I jerked away, but then he brought up his hand, showing me the blood he’d wiped off. I touched my face, too, patting the scratch. Was that from Martin or the escape? “Does Will know?” he asked, rubbing my blood between his fingers. “No.” He lifted his gaze to mine. “Because he’s the one pure, beautiful thing untainted by ugliness,” he repeated his same words from the shower. “And we love him for it.”

Turned out that maybe the Horsemen weren’t what I’d thought, and while money may pay off the consequences, it still didn’t prevent some kinds of pain.

He turned his head, looking at the body again. “She started fucking me when I was twelve,” he whispered. “After a while, you get tired of pretending that you’re in control of everything that happens to you.” He paused, turning to me again. “And you start being what happens to everyone else.” Spinning back around, he walked over to his mother, crouched down next to her body as he faced me, and wrapped his hand around the front of her throat. I watched as his fingers curled, tightening, and the whites of his knuckles flashed in the dark. He lifted his eyes to mine, watching me as I watched him. My toes curled, my reflex to run, but… I felt it. My hand, not his. My fingers hummed, slowly balling into fists, and I breathed heavy, feeling my heart pound and the bile rise up my throat, but… God, I wanted to be him. I wanted to do it. I liked this feeling. I wanted to kill, and I squeezed my fists until they ached, but I didn’t move until she stopped jerking and gasping and shaking, one of her legs dipping over the side of the grave. Damon held my eyes the whole time. The part of me that always gave in to tears was gone. Tears solved nothing.

I didn’t know when I started toward him, but in a moment, I was next to the grave, holding out my foot and helping him push her into the hole. Her body hit the soil, dirt smearing her legs, feet, and arms as he grabbed the shovel. I dropped to my knees, hurriedly helping him push the earth on top of her with my hands. We didn’t talk. I didn’t even think we really realized what was happening or what we were really doing, but it was too late now. Even if I turned him in for murder, I’d helped him dump the body. It was too late to panic. And although I fear...

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.” “You did,” I said, but it came out as a whisper. “You learned how to love from her.” I turned my eyes back out my window, staring at the grave. “This is what it looked like.” My parents raised me, but so did Martin. He shaped me. No wonder I couldn’t give Will what he wanted. Tears finally hit my eyes until everything was so blurry that I couldn’t see.

“Maybe I’ll return the favor someday.” He stood back up. “When you’re ready to deal with him.” His eyes fell down my body, taking in all the bruises he’d already seen. “I’m a loose end,” I pointed out. “Why didn’t you kill me when you saw me see you there tonight?” He looked like he was thinking about it. But instead, he asked, “Why didn’t you run when you saw me?” He was right. I’d willingly inserted myself. And why? To help him? I didn’t even like him, and how did I know what he was telling me was the truth? Maybe his mom was the nicest person in the world. I’d gambled everything on his word. And for what? I shook my head, trying to clear it. “There’s a…” I swallowed, raising my hand to my head. “There’s a tear in the membrane today. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He stared back at me, silent. I dropped my eyes, remembering how it felt. How I watched him and imagined what it would be like to kill someone you hated. “I wanted to see you throw her away,” I whispered.

He stood there, quiet, as if studying me or trying to figure something out, and then he sighed, rubbing the water all over his face. He cleared his throat. “I have a sister,” he told me. “Her name is Nik, but everyone calls her Banks.” He met my eyes again. “If something happens, and I can’t be there for her—if they arrest me for this—you need to go to my house and help her. She doesn’t have anyone else. You understand?” Huh? “You’re asking me?” I looked at him, confused. “Why?” He had tons of people he could count on. But he just turned around, shut off the water, and raised his arms, smoothing his hands over his hair. “I’m not sure anyone else would’ve helped me bury a body,” he murmured. Water poured over me as he stood there, and I looked up, noticing small scars on the underside of his arms. Not even his friends? “She’s your age,” he told me. “No one knows about her, and don’t ask why. She’s doesn’t have anyone but me. Promise me.” It took a moment, but I finally nodded. “A sister. Nik. My age. Got it.” He smiled, small but genuine, and he grabbed the towels, walking over and shutting off my shower, handing me one. “A tear in the membrane…” he mused to himself, putting his arm around me and pulling me out of the shower. “Come on. Let’s go find Will.”

“Didn’t you ever wonder what Damon and I were doing together that night you found us at the school?” My eyes twitched, and she chuckled to herself. “You don’t even want to know what really happened the day you got arrested, either, do you?” “I know what happened,” I growled. She laughed again, but her eyes fell, and I saw tears pooling. “Yes. Everything except my side of the story, and maybe you would’ve done things differently and you would still hate me for what I did even if you knew the whole story, but maybe you’d let me say words that need to be said, but you won’t. You know why?” I heard movement upstairs, and I knew we needed to hide. Right now. “Because you don’t want to deal with things,” she whispered. “Damon knew it. I knew it. Everyone knew it. You didn’t have problems, because you didn’t want problems. You let the current carry you and c’est la vie.”

My fists tightened around her shirt. “You were the child everyone protected,” she went on. “Damon said you were untainted by anything bad, and that’s what made you special to us. That quality needed to be preserved.” They talked about me? Together? Behind my back? “You never thought it was odd?” she pressed. “Damon and I had hated each other. What were we doing that night? How come I was the only person to know about his sister?” I assumed she was talking about Banks and not Rika. None of us found out about Banks until more than a year after we’d gotten out of prison. Emmy knew about her in high school? She held my eyes, the tears in them shaking. “Why did you never ask these questions?” “Because I—” “Because you didn’t want to know the answers,” she told me, cutting me off. “If you didn’t know what was going on, then you didn’t have to deal with it.” “That’s not true.” “Oh, right,” she fired back. “I forgot you had a method of dealing with your problems, after all, unlike the rest of us weaklings.” I flared my eyes. What the fuck? How the hell did she know about me using? Goddammit. Her gaze faltered, and I could tell she saw the look on my face and maybe thought she shouldn’t have said that, but I shoved her away, every muscle on fire with fight.

She was leaving. She was actually walking out of here, to her death, because her pride took up so much room in her head that there was no space for common sense. She’d been fine earlier. Or somewhat fine. She couldn’t stay here with both of us. She was leaving me.

It was easy to dismiss Emmy’s arrival as a lone fluke—or a stroke of luck for some of them—but Alex here, too, meant it wasn’t an accident. We were being infiltrated, and Aydin still liked to behave as if we were here of our free will and this house was his domain. Bending down, he gently lifted Alex up, staring into her eyes and wiping away the blood under her nose with his thumb. She hesitated for a moment, but then…she jerked away, stepping back. He held up his hand, staring at the blood dripping off his thumb. Then he looked at her again and slid it over his tongue, licking it off his finger. “Alex,” he said, swallowing. “Palmer.” “You know each other?” I asked. How the hell did they know each other? I darted my eyes to Alex, but she just stood there, her shoulders squared and her mouth shut.

When she didn’t answer him, he lowered his chin and shot her a small smirk. “You didn’t do this on your own,” he said. “How did you find this place?” Without waiting for an answer, he drifted past her toward Emmy, who remained by the front door. He tilted her face up to look at the bruise forming on her cheek. “Looks like you found your noise in the walls,” he said. She didn’t respond, but she let him turn her face side to side to inspect the damage. I wanted to remove his head.

“How do you know I wasn’t brought here against my will like Emory?” Alex asked. But Aydin ignored her, asking Emmy, “Why are you fighting?” He shot me a glance. “Over him?” Again, Em kept her mouth shut, neither confirming nor denying. “Forced to make a choice, he won’t choose you,” he told her. “You’ll have to look out for yourself. Get used to it.” “There’s nothing I’m more used to,” she said in a quiet but firm tone. He winked at her, signaling his approval of her response. I stared at them. What the hell was he doing? Were they fucking bonding or some shit?

“You want to go home, don’t you?” Alex asked. I shot her a look. “Will…” I paced the room, feeling like I was about to jump out of my skin. “Your parents…” she said, her voice softening. “The way you always talked about them. They love you. Given everything, they adore you.” She approached me. “Why are you still here? Would they really have kept you away so long? It doesn’t make any sense.” I should tell her. I just wasn’t sure I wasn’t going to fail, and I needed to do this on my own. I’d put in too much time and work. I had to go home ten times the man. I needed to see this through. She took my chin and tipped it toward her, stopping me. “Damon, Winter, Michael, Rika, Misha, Kai, Banks…” she said their names as if I’d forgotten them. “You belong home. Don’t you want to leave?” Of course, I did. Why would she think I didn’t want to leave?

Kai and Banks. Winter and Damon. Michael… I knew what I needed to do when I came here, but Alex’s words kept drifting through my head—especially now. Especially when faced with the decision I was going to have to make sooner than I thought. Maybe I was scared. Maybe…just maybe a small part of me didn’t want to ever leave here. There were no drugs here. No women. I’d stayed away from the alcohol fairly easily. I didn’t have to prove my worth with a career, plans, or relationships. I just had to survive. There were no opportunities to face, so nothing to screw up. We were all in the same boat. And maybe I liked that. With sobriety came clarity, and I’d had time to think about my past, and I was embarrassed. I wanted everyone to trust me. To depend on me. But that meant risking failure, and for a few minutes here and there I was content to just stay here forever. Believe it or not, it was easier.

Alex was always easy to disappear into. I didn’t have to talk or put up a front. I didn’t have to seduce her or pretend. She was my port in the storm and I was hers. I watched her form move as she washed her legs and arms. Her hand drifted up the back of her neck, the water from the cloth dripping back into the tub. She was the only person I’d ever felt completely safe with. The only person I never feared disappointing because the only thing she expected of me was to be there. Why couldn’t I love her? She got along with my friends. She made me laugh, and her presence was always a comfort. Always. She fit in my life. 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.

She let out a small cry, and I leaned over the bed, planting my hand on the pillow above her. Her eye had bruised, and I let my gaze fall down her body, seeing more nicks and scrapes on her arms that hadn’t been there before. The tumble in the woods, the small fire, the fight with Taylor, and the fight with Alex… I couldn’t help it. I ran my hand over her hair, smoothing it away from her face as her nightmare played out and her body shook. I’d loved Emory since the moment I laid eyes on her when I was fourteen.

I could still see her—sitting on her bike outside the chain-link fence surrounding the school parking lot as she watched my friends and me on our skateboards that summer. From that moment on, it seemed I was always aware of her, and everything I did, I did it with it in mind that she was watching. Every joke in class. Every strut into the lunchroom. Every new haircut and every new pair of jeans. Even the Raptor. My first thought when my parents bought it was how she’d look in it. This stupid fantasy of her running to my truck after school, smiling and skipping at my side, unable to keep her hands off me because I was her boyfriend and I always took my girl home from school.

I hated that she was alone. She was always alone, and she shouldn’t have been, because she should’ve been with me. But the older she got, the angrier she got, and the more desperate I got in trying to forget her, and I just needed this to be over. Nothing got better with her. It just decayed...

“I love you, Will,” she said in a quiet voice. I froze, my hand paused on her temple as I stared down at her. What? My legs nearly gave out from under me, and I gaped at her, pinching my eyebrows together and trying to see if her eyes were open or if she was still sleeping, but… I knew she was awake. Her breathing had calmed, and her body had relaxed. “Do you remember the night you snuck into my room?” she asked, still facing away from me. “When you’d had it with me and tried to walk out on me?” EverNight. The night I met her grandmother for the first time. She sniffled. “I warned you I wasn’t a happy person, and th...

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.” The backs of my eyes stung, and I clenched my teeth. “You can leave, and I’ll survive. I always do,” she told me. “I just wanted you to know that.” And just like that again, I couldn’t remember why she was bad for me, and I just wanted her where she was supposed to be. With me. All the hate and anger and loss melted away, and I wanted to crawl in behind her and hold her the rest of the night, but I knew my eyes would be open in the morning and the light would hurt. Everything would hurt. I clenched my fist, just wanting to stay, but I couldn’t do this anymore. I was clean of all vices, except one, and I needed to shake her. I needed to shake her, so I could go home.

She loved me. She loved me. The world swayed in front of me. But it was just another example of how everyone did what they wanted to me because they thought I couldn’t stay mad. I mean, Damon almost killed me. Brutally and so badly, I could barely step foot in any body of water that wasn’t a bathtub, and it didn’t take much for me to forgive him. I wasn’t giving anyone else easy chances.

“When you make your escape, do you think Emmy will run with you and your whore?” he asked. I shot up straight, the blade clasped in my hand as I glared down at him. She’s not staying here with you. “I think when I make my escape,” I told him, “I’m taking a lot more than those girls.” He laughed, pulling off the towel around his neck and wiping his face clean. “She is stunning,” he said. “I liked it when she grabbed your throat today. Many men don’t even know how much they’d like being dominated. But it’s such a turn on. She fucked you good. I really think she’s come alive here.” I locked my jaw, using every ounce of restraint to keep my temper in check. He’d seen us in the greenhouse. He’d watched her ride me. I dropped the blade and walked out of the room, every muscle in my body on fire. He didn’t get to have her. I charged back to her room, threw open the door, and walked over to her bed as she shot up and looked at me in the light streaming in from the hallway. “What are you doing?” she asked. But I didn’t say a damn word. I grabbed her glasses off the nightstand, slid my arms under her, sheets and all, and swept her up into my arms, taking her to my room with Alex and me. There was no fucking way I was taking my eyes off her tonight. She wrapped her arms tightly around my neck, her eyes on me the entire way up to the third floor and to my bed. God, who the hell brought her here? She was ruining all my plans.

I closed my eyes, inhaling a breath as their footsteps approached down the hall. They weren’t tough to find. In a school this old—and being nearly empty this time of night—I’d heard the water running as I trailed down the hallway. My legs went weak, my stomach rolled, and I slipped inside the locker room, seeing them as I rounded a row of lockers. Naked in the shower together. My fist tightened around the bottle. There was no way to misunderstand that. That was why he left the hotel early tonight. Why she would never give in with me. No one would choose me over Damon. Or me over Michael or Kai, either. No one thought I was worth a damn next to them.

“Did you fuck her?” I asked. Damon paused, stepping into the dark room and finally spotting me ahead. Emmy followed slowly. “Really?” Damon cocked his head, trying to see me in the dark. “I’m not that boring. Come on.” He approached me, gesturing to her. “Besides, she’s not even pretty.” “Thanks,” Emory mumbled.

She didn’t love me. Damon pulled me away from her, shoving me back. “You’re drunk.” And? “What were you doing together?” I yelled, hooking my arm around his neck and dropping us both to the fucking floor. I swung my fist back and slammed him in the face again, blood dripping from the corner of his eye. Growling, he threw me over, straddled me, and backhanded me across my cheek. The sting spread across my face as I clutched his neck and squeezed his throat. “We weren’t doing that!” he shouted. “I’d rather screw a razor blade.” He threw another fist into my gut, and I shot out my hand, punching his dick. His eyes went wide with fury, but he didn’t keel over like I thought he would. He bared his teeth, slapping me over the head. “You motherfucker. You’re lucky you missed.” He grabbed my wrists and pinned them to my chest, coming down and using his weight to keep them there. “Easy to do,” I bit out. I was much bigger, after all.

He headbutted my nose, and I grunted, tears springing to my eyes. “Goddammit, D!” I growled. “Shit.” I struggled against his hold, trying to check for blood, but he wouldn’t let me go. “You gonna stop now?” he demanded. “I’m not in the fucking mood tonight, and neither is she. We’ve been through hell, and not everything is about you.” “Is it ever?” I opened my eyes, looking at him through the blur. I wasn’t the leader. I wasn’t the brains. I wasn’t the passion. My friends wouldn’t be any less strong without me. I had one thing I really liked. One thing that drove me to try. One thing that made me feel like a man. Damon hovered over me, searching my eyes, and I could see the red in his, too. What the fuck happened tonight? Dropping his forehead to mine, he released my hands, our chests rising and falling in sync. “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.” I bit the corner of my mouth to keep my emotions in check, but my eyes stung.

“Tighter, man,” Damon growled against my mouth. “This is as tight as it gets,” I told him. “You’re not sticking that in my ass.” He snorted. “You’re right. Your dick is smaller. You should top.” “Fuck you.” He laughed, and I smiled, thrusting up into him. Our relationship, strangely, was back to bantering.

Damon stood up and pulled up his jeans. “I’ll be in the showers,” he sighed. “Again.”

Turning my head left, I gazed at Alex curled up on her side, facing me and holding the pillow under her head. She wore one of Will’s T-shirts, and while seeing them together last night and how close they were hurt, I liked Alex. I liked her a lot. She didn’t want to hurt me. I knew that. I couldn’t help but smile a little. Her nose curled up at the end, almost like a Who, and I could see straight up her nostrils. Not a single hair out of place on her entire body. Not a single one.

“And him?” she asked. “Were you going to leave without him?” I inched forward, my legs on both sides of her thigh as I gently patted her face. “The best thing for him is to be as far away from me as possible,” I said. But instead of trying to convince me otherwise, she just scoffed. “You’re such a coward.” I tensed a little, but I kept my mouth shut, moving the hot towel around her face. I wasn’t a coward about everything. “Emmy, I gotta bring him home,” she told me. “Help me. I know you loved him. How can anyone not love him?” A small laugh escaped through the lump lodged in my throat. True. I was glad to hear I wasn’t the only one susceptible to his power. Everyone adored that boy.