Page 11 of Necessary Cruelty

It’s been so many years that the stories people tell are indistinguishable from fantasy. People love to talk, but it’s like the whole town is playing a game of telephone where they all speak different languages.

Everyone knows a piece of it, nobody knows it all.

I never bother to explain myself to anyone, not my friends, not my family, not even Zaya herself. Mostly, because I know I don’t have to.

No matter what people want to think, I didn’t create this particular cluster-fuck of a situation. I just react to it in the only messed up way I know.

Taking control and then burning it all to the ground.

If it’s crazy to punish someone for something they did a decade ago, then I guess we all know what to call me.

But Zaya brought this all on herself. Some people might say that we were just kids, too young to know any better, but no one is ever that young.

She knows exactly what she did.

And what she has to do if she wants the torture to stop.

Sophia is at the sliding door, pulling on the handle that needs to be pushed. I watch her through the glass, trying to see something past the skirt dress barely long enough to cover her uterus and the hair teased up high enough to hide a full-sized raccoon.

Something that might be worth getting out of my chair.

The chick is pretty enough, I guess, but in a way that is generic and uninspired. This is the sort of girl that I’m supposed to be with, especially if you ask my father: lily-white, well-bred, and a perfect addition to the mantle of mediocrity lining the grand stairwell in the main house.

But nothing about Sophia Taylor excites me. And it’s hard to respect someone who can’t figure out how to a work a damn door.

Iain pushes himself off the floor where he’s been playing a bloody first-person shooter on my massive flat-screen TV to let Sophia back in. He moves like a panther stalking its prey, all coiled muscle and barely restrained violence. But he barely spares her a glance as he pulls open the glass and then goes back to his game.

Girls hold no interest for him. Boys don’t either, as far as I can tell. The only thing that keeps his attention for more than a few minutes is something aggressively destructive.

Dude is the only person I know who might be more intense than I am.

Sophia latches back on me as soon as she gets through the door. Her hands are empty, but I can’t remember what nonsense thing I sent her looking for, so I let it go.

She presses her lips to my ear and bites gently on the lobe. “Let’s find a place where we can be alone.”

Her breath is swampy and hot on my skin, and I resist the urge to shove her away in disgust. There is no such thing as privacy in the pool house. It’s basically one large space with a combined kitchen and living room, and a small bedroom area in the back separated from the rest by a thin wall that lets any and all sounds through as if it doesn’t exist at all. Luckily, nobody here gives a shit about privacy. Even if I fucked Sophia up against a wall in the living room, nobody here would see anything they haven’t seen my friends do a dozen times before.

When her hand glides over the soft bulge in my jeans, I realize I’ve had more than enough of this shit.

“Everybody get the fuck out,” I say, coming to my feet. The room falls silent save for the low thrum of sub-bass and electronic rhythm coming from the speakers.

Elliot turns to face with me with a girl under each arm. “C’mon, Vin. The party’s just getting started.”

Except I can’t be here for another minute without killing someone.

“Fine, fuck it. If any of my stuff is missing in the morning, I’m taking it out of your ass.”

I’m out the door before anyone can say anything else. None of them come after me, not that I would have expected it. You don’t get to be the unrepentant asshole one minute and the guy people go chasing after begging him to come back the next.

The party is probably better without my bad mood ruining it, anyway.

There is a decent chance none of them will even notice when I don’t return for the night. Except for Sophia, but only because she’s hoping to screw her way into the most powerful family in town.

Not exactly a compliment.

I don’t let myself think about where I’m going as I get in my car and start the engine. What happens next won’t be about thinking, or really anything requiring brain power.

This is all instinct.

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