Page 231 of Pretty Little Lies

“And how did I fuckin’ do that?” he solicits, pressing his body and crotch deeper into me and the gun. “Would you make it hurt, baby? Wouldn’t it be fuckin’ something if you took out every single one of the Wildes men? That victim card you’re playing doesn’t fool me. I just had to dig up my brother. I had to watch you kill him.”

“I’m not explaining this again.”

“Then tell me how much it didn’t hurt you losing me. Did it break you like it did me?”

Yes.

As much as I loathe it, Torin isalwayson my fucking mind. I want to console him and comfort him. Stupidly, I want to be there for him.

I want him to be here for me.

“You don’t break,” I retort. “You don’t have an ounce of pity in your soul. Those words that you said to me about falling in love with me were pure bullshit. You don’t and didn’t love me. You lusted after me. Just like Matteo—” Torin’s hand snatches up to my jaw and clenches ithard,boring that famous glower into my head like a blazing fire.

“I loved you alright,” he claims confidently and with steel to his tone. “Because I haven’t fuckin’killedyou yet.”

“Then why don’t you?” My body leans closer, unable to help itself to feel his warmth. But it looks as though I’m challenging him above all else. “You’d be doing me a favor. Yeah, Mae and Ellie would have lost two people to them this week, but what am I to them but useless at this point?”

Torin frowns, face twisting a bit in confusion. “You think losin’ Wallace is that big of a fuckin’ dealbreaker for them?”

“No,” I recite calmly, surprising even me with the sound of my voice. “My fuckin’ Dad is, though. He’s dead.”

And then I pull away from his grip easily enough because Torin loosens it, gaping at me as his brain picks up the words I just said and pieces them together.

But, before he can gather his thoughts, I leave the house and focus on the shit that needs to be done.

And this dumb-ass paper in my hand that I need to sign.

SIXTY-TWO

bay

A warm barriercovers my mouth, cutting off my sleep and breathing and prompting my eyes to fly open to meet a shadowy figure hovering over me.

I jolt upward, solid weight pinning my body to the mattress just to be shoved back down by another strong set of fingers and into my springy bed.

Panic surges through every inch of my frame as my mind flies to Mae and Ellie in the other room before it crashes back into me with the reality I’m currently held prisoner to.

They’re not here. They’re gone.

“I told you this wasn’t done, Wildfire.”

Torin.

With a clenched fist of unadulterated fury, I ram it into his ribcage, not getting the momentum I would’ve wanted in my position, but I still hear him grunt.

It’s enough.

Releasing my mouth, he captures my hand and pins it over my head. I fight him with the other, not allowing him an easy fight or the power to hurt me.

He’s done that already.

He captured the only things left in my world that he could’ve fucked with. He meddled with my family and left me behind to allow loneliness and despair to creep laggardly through my veins.

“Get the fuckoffme,” I scream in his face, struggling with him to give up on seeking my other hand. He finally latches onto my wrist, and we arm wrestle with each other to keep the othernotwithout the upper hand here.

“Holler all you want,” he taunts me. “No one is going to hear you. No one’s here.”

I thrust my knee upward to slam it in his balls, but only hit his ass. “Fuckyou.”

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