Page 54 of Necessary Cruelty

“She’ll be going out the window right behind you.”

I want to believe he isn’t serious. But staring into his eyes, I don’t see anything aside from dark intent. My lips burn with awareness as his gaze lingers there with hyper-focused attention, a manic twist to his lips.

In a mood like this, Vin is capable of anything.

“You can’t just go around threatening people,” Jake insists, even as his weight shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Just let it go, and we can forget about all this.”

Vin tilts his head to the side, regarding the other guy like a particularly interesting specimen under a microscope. His gaze flicks up and down, assessing even as his body coils with tension like a snake about to strike. “You can’t go around playing with other people’s toys and think something won’t get broken.”

I want to tell Jake that he should leave. I also want to beg him to stay as if he might actually be able to save me from whatever Vin is planning to do. But I don’t say anything at all, because even now I allow Vin to make the rules of this game we’ve been playing since we were kids.

My hands push at Jake’s back, urging him toward the door. He spins to face me with surprise and what almost looks like betrayal in his eyes.

“You want me to leave you with him?” he asks, voice incredulous.

“Maybe not too stupid to live, after all,” Vin murmurs with a sardonic smile. “Run along and leave a girl to fight your battles for you, just like last time. You’ll cover more ground if you split up.”

Because my life is a horror movie, right?

Jake sucks in his breath, obviously preparing to say something scathing. I just shake my head furiously, trying to tell Jake without words that this isn’t his fight. Even if it were, it’s not one he can win. Perversely, I hope he fights me on it. I want him to insist on rescuing me, promise to take me away from this awful place even though you can’t run from what is inside you.

Just because I refuse to be a damsel-in-distress, doesn’t mean I don’t wish there was someone willing to be my knight-in-shining-armor.

But I can’t expect that from Jake, who rode into town in a late-model luxury sedan and not a white horse. His gaze searches mine, looking for something he obviously doesn’t find. Anger twists his features before he turns away and strides toward the door.

“You two deserve each other.”

I wince as the door slams shut behind him.

Vin has the nerve to smirk at me. “My, people do come and go quickly here.”

My heart skips more than a few beats as I glare at him. Silence be damned. Clearly, all of the rules have changed.

“What the hell do you want?”

“You mean, aside from world peace?”

“Aside from torturing me. Aside from making my life a living hell. What. Do. You. Want. Vin?”

He pushes off the wall and takes a step closer to me. I fight the urge to back away, even as every fiber of my being urges me to run. Everybody knows if you run from a predator, it won’t be able to stop itself from chasing you.

“You seem on edge. Must be the sexual frustration. From the looks of it, Jakey-boy has a hard time getting the job done. He seems like the type to ask is this okay about a dozen times before he even gets inside of you.”

God, he is gross. The satisfied smirk he makes says he thinks a few talents in the bedroom make up for the shittiest personality that has ever existed.

“There isn’t anything wrong with affirmative consent,” I snap, wishing I could wipe that mocking smile off his face. Now that the floodgates are open, I feel almost a decade of things left unsaid welling up in me like a rising tide. The people at school call me weak, but they have no idea I’ve just been biding my fucking time. “Although, you are the kind of guy that the #Metoo crowd practically salivates over. Fast forward a few years from now, and you’ll be wondering why nobody cares about your side of the story when all your former secretaries start coming forward.”

He has the nerve to chuckle at that, instead of getting angry. “Rape doesn’t do anything for me, but I think you’ve already figured that out by now.”

I want to strangle him, even as my hands fist uselessly at my sides. “Fuck you.”

His smile widens. “Exactly.”

We never speak to each other like this. We almost never talk at all, haven’t had anything resembling a real conversation in years.

But something has fundamentally changed between us. Part of it is probably the arrival of Jake, a guy at least a little willing to push back against Vin’s bullying. But I didn’t realize until this moment how much his misguided wedding proposal has tipped the scales in my favor.

If not for the undercurrent of violence in the air, you could almost call it bantering.

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