Page 35 of Blood Sport

“Don’t worry, little angel, you haven’t seen the last of me.”

Without saying a word, she waves goodbye and turns toward the house. The eyes peeking through the curtains disappear when I meet them, and I bite back a smile. I lean against my bike, watching Evie as she opens the front door and disappears inside.

After what happened today, I need to keep a better eye on her. She is the most precious person in my life and I need to make sure she stays safe.

Before I have the chance to leave, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out to see Evie’s name written across it.

Evie: We can’t keep doing this.

I smirk, my arm resting on top of my helmet on the seat, her scent lingering around me.

Jaylen: We’ll see about that, little angel.

***

I twirl the pocketknife around on the top of my index finger, the beam from the streetlamps outside illuminating half the room, glinting off the blade every time it spins. My eyes stay focused on the blade as I wait patiently. Being a creature of the night, this is my playtime, and I fucking love it. I don’t mind having to sit and wait because I have eternity under my belt, so time means nothing to me.

Muffled voices in the hallway indicate I no longer have to wait. It’s fucking showtime.

“Yeah, man, I’ll see you in class tomorrow. I’ll grab the coffee this time, okay?” the voice says on the other side of the door.

I continue to spin the knife, my eyes now focused on the door as it swings open, the light from the hallway illuminating the other side of the room before it is closed again, plunging the space into darkness. The person shuffles by the door, cursing as they kick their shoes off before they finally switch the main light on.

They don’t notice me at first sitting in the corner of the room, watching them. He walks to his bed, drops a gym bag onto the mattress, and looks down at his phone. With his eyes on the device, he turns in my direction, and this is when he finally notices my presence. When his eyes meet mine, they widen to the point it’s probably painful, the phone slipping from his hands, thudding against the brown-stained carpet.

“W-What are you doing here? How the hell did you even get in?”

I snatch the pocketknife to the palm of my hand and use it to point to the open window, the glass now smashed into pieces on the carpet below. “Anyone can break through a glass window, Roman.”

“But I live ten stories up,” he murmurs, stumbling over his words as he takes a step back. “How the fuck—”

“It doesn’t matter how I got into your dorm room,” I interject, dropping my leg from where my ankle rested on my bent knee. “What does matter is why I’m here.”

Roman’s eyes snap between me and the bedroom door. His accelerated heartbeat tells me exactly what he’s thinking.

“Don’t even try to run. It’ll just make this more painful for you.”

He swallows hard, walking backward until his knees hit the mattress. “What do you want? If this is about what happened earlier with Evie, I-I promise I’ll stay away from her.”

I stand, looking down at the pocketknife with my initials engraved into the side. A gift from my father when I turned eighteen. I slip it into my pocket. “See, I’m hearing the words come from your mouth, but I don’t believe you.” When my eyes meet his, I know he can see that they are red by the way his face pales to almost the same color as his hair. “You thought you could use explicit images to get what you wanted, hmm? You thought you could put your hands on my girl? Well, you’re about to see what happens to someone who touches something of mine that doesn’t belong to them.”

In the blink of an eye, I lunge forward, pulling him toward me. His scream is cut off by my hand over his mouth as I bring his back to my chest, my arm around his neck holding him in place. Roman thrashes against my grip, trying to scratch at my skin with his chewed-down nails, but he’s no match for my strength.

“Now, do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?”

He continues to thrash against me, which tells me his answer.

Tightening my grip around his neck, his body begins to slacken as I cut off some of his airway. This is a lot easier when he’s not trying to struggle in my grip. I don’t want this to be messier than it needs to be.

“Listen here,” I whisper in his ear. “You’re going to repeat after me. Got it?”

He nods, his grip around my forearms loosening.

“Good. Repeat after me: Evie is not my girl. She never was.”

I drop my hand from Roman’s mouth to allow him to speak. He swallows hard against my arm wrapped around his neck.

“E-Evie is not my girl. S-she never was.”

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