Page 45 of Hate Me

She shrugged. “It is what it is. What it needs to be. Now pass that onto Caspian and get gone. I’m not done here.”

She turned to get back to it, but I called out, “Just like that? After years of not laying eyes on one another, darling?”

She stilled.

And then I saw it as she looked out at me, a flicker of sentiment, of care.

Despite her then blinking it away a few moments later and steeling herself, it didn’t matter, I’d seen what I’d needed to.

She was still in there—the Skylar Bennett that we’d known and adored before all of this madness had happened.

I moved further into the room, one cautious step at a time.

Her eyes flicked from me to her target.

She was fighting herself.

“Didn’t you at least miss me? Miss us?”

“What does it matter? What we had is gone and until something changes, that’s the way it will stay.”

“Is that what you’re doing here? Trying to find a viable way to come back to us?”

She flinched.

And then her eyes flashed as she yelled, “He took my mom from me! He destroyed my life!”

“I know and I’m so sorry, Skylar. So fucking sorry. What he did took a lot from all of us. We’re all hurting. And it’s time we did that together, don’t you think?”

She grimaced and broke eye contact. “Nothing can matter until this is done.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way. Don’t let it take you over and poison everything good in you.”

“Stop,” she ground out.

“I can help you, darling.”

“You helping me made me weak last time! If I hadn’t been so concerned about controlling that fucked-up part of me, I could’ve stopped what happened before it had even started! I should’ve gone for the throat back then! I won’t make that mistake again! I won’t!”

In the next second, she bolted toward the guy and slashed her knife across his throat, driving deep, blood spurting all over her face as she severed his artery and had him gurgling.

She looked out at me, seething, “Still think you can help me now?” She narrowed her eyes. “Give it up and don’t make the mistake of getting in my way again.”

With that, she turned and bolted.

I burst after her, running past the guy she’d just delivered a fatal wound to.

As I rounded the corner down another corridor, I caught sight of her sprinting toward the back exit.

“Skylar! Stop!”

She didn’t.

Instead, she slammed her hands into the door and pushed on through out of the warehouse.

I was only a few seconds behind her when I made it out there.

A sharp whizzing sound caught my attention a second before she was slapping her hand to her neck.

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