Page 105 of Consume Me

“And he did that a lot.”

I turn around, another sob wrenching from me. “You wanted to die, didn’t you? That’s why you kept doing that shit—drinking, racing, fighting—and you wouldn’t stop.”

“That’s what happens when you don’t have hope anymore, but it wasn’t just that. Keeping it from my friends, trying to help Cassandra while playing my father and Felix—I needed a damn outlet.”

He wraps me in his arms, and I place my palm on his chest. Feeling the steady beat calms me, assuring me he’s here and alive with me.

“I was a test subject. It wasn’t like he injected something into me, and it was done. He would get me drunk, then inject me with a different dose to test the serum. The same went for pain. He even had to resuscitate me a few times during some of the experiments.”

My hands roam over his body just for my brain to compute that he’s alive and not a figment of my imagination.

“I’m okay, Silver.”

He’s not okay. And he hasn’t been for a while now.

“But I knew that if I acted like it worked, he’d move on to turning off my emotions, and then to my friends. So I would drink, call him, and slur my words, or drink too much when I was with Grandmother.” Something dark passes through his eyes, and he sighs but quickly adds, “If they were busy thinking that didn’t work, they wouldn’t move on to the others.”

He shoots up. The guilt he carries is like an invisible cloak pressing down on his shoulders, but he continues.

“Meanwhile, I had to sabotage the escape plan. I had to find someone trustworthy to help us disappear—everything from passports to a pilot. In theory, it was an okay plan. Our plane would have justmysteriouslycrashed while we were on vacation. But no matter what I did, my father wouldn’t tell mewhere the tracking chips were. Without that information, we were doomed to fail. Both Kaden and Abigail had a tracking chip implanted during their initiations, just like I did—they’ve been removed. Felix and Caleb were determined to take over and would have done it by any means necessary. My father, in one of his rare good moods, told me that as long as I am still alive, the others didn’t matter.”

“You kept your friends safe.”

“That’s one way of putting it. And then you came along.”

“I came…”

“I was so close to telling my father that his fucking serums work and that he should just inject me with the one to stop feeling…”

“But you didn’t. Why?”

“Because then I would be erased. I wanted to feel and never forget… you.”

What do you say to something like that? I am speechless, hurting so badly for him; my heart is a bruised and battered organ. I never felt hate until this moment. I want to make his father and the other asshole pay.

“I am going to kill him for doing that to you.”

“I would never allow you to taint your soul like that, Silver.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

He nods, and his chest heaves with a deep sigh. “That’s not the worst of it. I am a bad guy, and I did something unforgivable. But don’t make me tell you that. Not yet, because I want to preserve what we have for a bit longer.”

My breath catches in my throat. I will do everything I can to show him that I will stand by his side, no matter what he’s done. Nothing he did will ever change my mind or alter my feelings for him. That would be impossible.

I don’t tell him that, though, because he’s so damn stubborn and convinced it will happen. Words won’t help, but when he confesses the biggest burden he carries, I will listen and then show him it changes nothing. It’s not a promise—it’s a fact.

I swing my leg over his thighs. Straddling him, I palm his face and lean in to kiss him, long and passionate, pouring every terrifying and amazing feeling into his mouth.

He gets hard, and his palms splay over my hips, holding me in place.

“How sore are you?”

I am very sore because he fucked me so many times that I think I blacked out the last time. But he doesn’t need to know that.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

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