Page 12 of Falling in Reverse

And that’s when Torin takes the golden opportunity to hurl me up in the air like a rag doll, wrapping his forearm tightly around my waist and guiding me to the front of the green van.

“Looks like I finally found you, Astor,” he sneers, as I begin kicking vigorously at his shins.

I jab my elbow back and hit his ear, listening to the hiss of pain escape through his teeth as he drops me ungracefully to my feet and replaces his grip around my body with a fistful of my raven hair.

He yanks hard, issuing a small whimper to crawl from my throat, and that only upsets me more.

I mercilessly twist around, feeling the roots of my scalp being ripped from my head as I deliver a gut punch to Torin’s stomach.

I connect, but he doesn’t let go.

In fact, he shoves me backward and into the bend of the hood, our chests smashing into each other as he sandwiches me to his hard body.

“I’m not in the fucking mood to fight you,” he grounds out, those untainted features twisted into a pissed-off scowl. “Knock it off, or I’m going to knock you out.”

I scoff, my confidence in that scenario soaring pretty high right now. And I make sure to deliver that message clearly when I thrust my forehead into his square, shaven chin, receiving the aftermath of my horrible decision-making.

“Motherfucker!” he roars before my skull is promptly hurled back in response through the handful of locks he has of mine. My whole neck is exposed to him, and if he has a knife, he could easily slit my throat for all the trouble I’m making. “Need some help here, Black. Is it in there or not?”

“Not,” the other dude says with just the same amount of rage as the guy holding me. “Unless we take this whole van apart.”

Which he would have to, because what dumbass would cart around bags of weed in the backseat, out in the open, with a seatbelt around it? The dope I’m carrying is under a toddler’s car seat and the floorboards—watch Borderline Wars on A&E, folks, the show is dope as fuck.

“Get off me, you desperate piece of shit,” I ground out, gaining his immediate scowl and sliding two of my fingers into the pocket of my jeans to gain my own weapon. “If this is your idea of feeling up someone because you can’t get any?—”

“You better shut your fucking mouth while you’re ahead,” he warns me, then gives up some of his grip so I can peer straight up at him. “You think I didn’t remember what you looked like? You gotta give yourself more credit than that, sweetheart.”

“I think you should, asshole.” I meet the force of his glare and flip my knife open, just to reach over and press it into his throat. “I don’t like getting touched, Pretty Boy. Let me go…or you’re going to watch your own blood pour onto this dirty cement.”

He slowly licks his bottom lip in response, and I can see the indent the sharp blade is making against the sun-kissed skin there before his black Glock is introduced to me and my chin. Shoving the cool metal underneath and pushing my head heavenward.

“You think that was a good move?” He presses the weapon deeper into the soft part of my flesh in silent warning that I better let up. “One pull versus one swipe, and you’ll have to make sure you hit the right spot and deep. Which one do you think is faster?”

“Wanna find out?”

You’re so fucking stupid. You and that big-ass mouth.

“Only if you don’t mind having a funeral where your daddy doesn’t find your body,” he returns flatly. “Then, yeah, whenever you are.”

“I’m not some?—”

“Where have you been, Bay?” I’m sticking with my story. There’s no way in hell I’m admitting to my identity, because I neither trust him nor do I want a reunion. “You don’t think I know who you are? That I haven’t kept tabs on you? That I don’t know that wherever Levi Wallace is…that my girl is with him.”

My nostrils flare because I’ve never been his girl. And it’ll be a cold day in hell when that ever comes to fruition.

“You don’t look happy to see me,” he vouches calmly, even with a sharp blade to his throat. “Is it because I didn’t call?”

“Go fuck yourself,” I leer, attempting to calm myself down because I know that Torin loves to taunt and dangle shit in front of his prey.

“Admit it,” he orders gruffly. “I wanna hear you say that you’re the girl I’ve had a hard-on for years over.”

“Sounds like you’re searching for a ghost.”

The click of a hammer warns me of his impatience.

Yet, what’s interesting is that five years ago, Torin would’ve yanked on that trigger rather than asked questions later.

“Those lips,” he mutters, his eyes falling to that exact spot. “You’re built differently, thicker and older, but I’d remember you anywhere.”

---