Page 60 of Wreck Me

“So, you can openly admit that’s who you are now?”

She nodded, giving me what we’d wanted since she’d first stepped foot back into Rossun. “Onyx is a part of me. A part I tried to kill. Yet, a part you and certain others won’t allow to rest in peace after all.”

“You’ve made quite a name for yourself—well, your alter ego has. You were fast approaching legend status in fact. We know about the fighting circuits, what you were able to accomplish there as a masked unknown, using the moniker of Onyx to maintain your anonymity. We also know that was only your training ground for the real purpose of taking on that mantle. We know of your vigilante activities, how you operated as a guardian angel in and around that college town.”

“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath. “It’s true what they say about King then. His resources are extensive and insanely invasive. I covered my tracks. Very well.” She stared at me for a moment. “Was it the slipup? Is that what had you catching on? Near the end of my time there?”

“The thing your dad covered up for you, you mean?”

She winced. “So you know.”

“I also know it was an accident.”

“It doesn’t matter. It still happened.”

“And that’s why you stopped?”

“It was a wakeup call, that it was taking me over. That justice had become muddied with bloodlust and vengeance.”

“Yeah, it’s a fine line to walk. But, like I said, I can help you. If you’ll let me.”

“To what end? You want something from that version of me. What is it?”

“We do want something, yes. I meant it when I said you’re not ready to know, though. Not until you’re stabilized and until we can be sure we can trust you.”

“Trust you? Shouldn’t I be the one calling you on that after Sebastian came at me, you violated my phone and hell knows what else?”

“Then I guess it needs to be worked on from all sides then.” I took her hand in mine and she let me, breathing out peacefully as I stroked my thumb over the back. “Let’s start with this, with me helping you to walk the line with Onyx. You’re right on the edge, it can’t wait. So either you go to your father—who I’m betting you don’t want to for fear that he’ll see all that darkness in you and be disgusted and never see his baby girl the same way again—or you give me a chance.”

Her eyes narrowed at my reference to her dad and his possible reaction.

I had to.

I couldn’t risk her going that route, to him. It would cut her off from us right when she was on the verge and in need, and open to us getting our claws into her and pulling her in.

That was my role in this after all.

To play with that dark in her and cultivate it, then weaponize it for our own purposes.

But witnessing what I had last night from her and interacting with her here and now… it pulled me up short. Also seeing the impact she’d had on Bastian—actually making him feel and break from that whole robotic thing of his, as worrying as it was, it was also a big fucking deal for him to go there, and it could be a positive thing as long as the rest was kept in check.

All of that, it had me actually wanting to help her too. Not just for our own purposes.

Not just for her to be something to be used.

Her struggle, seeing the humanity in it, in her, and the way she wanted to do things for the right reasons, the way she’d put down Carl Vicars for more than violent need and power, but because he was a perverted bastard who needed taking out… it affected me.

Caspian’s part in this to then wreck her and shatter her into pieces so he could use her like a puppet to do what we needed her to… it wasn’t as thrilling as it had been when we’d talked about it, or when he’d initially laid out the plan.

Because back then we’d thought she’d been heartless, almost a machine really using the alias of Onyx to carry out a dark reckoning and just choosing sickos to punish without much thought into it, her intent to just hurt and dominate, regardless.

But now I was seeing that it wasn’t the case with her.

She’d been acting like a guardian angel, but she’d just lost control, was all.

Besides, wrecking her was just Caspian going the automatic heavy-handed approach because it was known to achieve results faster.

But that might not even be needed here with Skylar.

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