Page 40 of Wreck Me

Damien: I thought you hated liars.

“Little fucker,” Caleb muttered.

Caleb: What the shit are you talking about? End this bullshit. Now.

Damien: You’re the ones with the bullshit.

Sebastian: Excuse me?

Damien: This was her response when I told her what you said.

He sent another picture and we both opened it to see him with his arm wrapped around Skylar with her glaring at the camera while smirking devilishly and holding up her middle finger.

“She’s testing you,” Caleb deduced. “Pushing back.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “And, shit, she’s found a hell of a tool in Damien to accomplish that.”

I heard his words, but registering that they’d been spoken was about as far as I got. Interpreting and dissecting them was out of my reach presently.

Because all I could focus on was one fucking thing that was blazing through to me so loudly it was disabling everything else around me.

Why was she allowing his touch?

She didn’t look creeped out by it or ill at ease at all.

He’d threatened her, he’d tried to dominate her… how was this happening?

That middle finger stabbed at me like a bitch of a thing with her allowing him close.

Damien: Wanna tell me what’s really going on? Last chance.

Caleb: Watch yourself with the threats.

Damien: Fuck me, check this out.

He sent another fucking photo and I braced myself before I opened it.

There Skylar was halfway to the ring, blowing a kiss over her shoulder at the phone screen.

Or to him.

She was down to her sports bra now and I could see her hoodie in Damien’s free hand through the angle of the photo too.

What. The. Fuck?

That wasn’t all that I noticed.

As if that wasn’t bad enough.

It was the scars that caught my attention next.

Over her lower back, her left arm.

I’d suspected as much when I’d felt her in the stairwell, but seeing them was a whole other thing. So much damage. So much pain.

It hadn’t been documented in the intel packed Caspian had acquired on her.

Things that ran that deep rarely were.

That was why face-to-face time was required to get a proper and accurate read on somebody, a personal touch.