Page 2 of Consume Me

I pack a duffel bag inside my room, which resembles a large suite with an adjoined bathroom and walk-in closet. I don’t need much—I never have.

I’m ready to leave, but once I’m in the hallway, I come to an abrupt halt. My desire to see Mia one more time overrides my rationality. Tiptoeing inside her room, I notice she’s asleep. The lamp on her nightstand is still lit, with one of her romance books placed upside down on it.

Her black shoulder-length hair covers half her face,her dainty hand resting on the pillow. She’s small, delicate, and feminine—everything in me screams to protect her. I swallow the urge, and my eyes catch her jewelry box where she keeps all her hair clips. A smile arches in the corner of my mouth when I see the majority contain the same color: purple. Even her roomis painted in a light lavender. Her favorite color is just like her: all sweet and vivid. In my black and toneless life, she has been a burst of color.

With my refusal to stay, I ended everything we could have been. Remorse sticks to every fiber of my being, but it has to be this way.

From the first moment I laid eyes on Mia, my comatose heart began to pulse. Nothing in my life has felt better than the game we played, discovering each other’s secrets. But it turned into something more—something I could not have anticipated. Never just friends or actual lovers. I balanced on a thin line because I could never let her see the real me. Promises are made to be broken, and hers would have shattered me. I knew right then and there we’d never happen.

But that’s okay.

Let her believe I am a coward. Let her believe I am afraid to see what could have happened between us.

Sheer willpower carries me away. I close her door. Bracing my palms on the frame, my head drops. A small voice tells me to stay. She is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, someone who could make it all better. I know she could. But the other side always wins. Strangely, because I care about her, I must leave. If I indulged in what she kept offering me, I would have consumed her. My darkness would have fed off her light.

I’d rather she opened my chest and ripped my damn heart out than discover the man I truly am––deeply flawed, impossible to fix, and undeniably irredeemable—and loathe me.

I put a stop to us to protect her, yet I can’t make her see that. I wish we would have met before my initiation. Before, I had to pledge my loyalty to the Family. That wasn’t even theworst part. The worst part came after, with all the implications spinning a steel-forged net, shackling me. Before that, I would have gladly taken what she offered. I was a selfish asshole back then. Now, the last strings of my humanity, which I keep hanging on to, stop me.

I move to Bailey’s door. Knocking, I let myself in. She takes one look at me and knows. With her strawberry blond hair and aquamarine eyes, she looks like a fairy princess.

“I can’t make you stay, but I wish you would…”

“I’ll miss you too, Bailey.”

“Kaden’s going to search for you even if he’s mad at you.”

“Do what you have to do.”

“I love Kaden, but I love you more… I’ll have your back. Take as much time as you need.”

What she doesn’t say rings louder. She won’t help him search for me and will let me know when someone gets close.

She stands, opens her desk drawer, and hands me a burner phone.

“But if something happens and you need me, you know how to get in contact.”

She returns to her laptop. Behind the fairy complexion, she’s a computer genius.

I walk away and don’t look back.

There’s nothing here for me any longer.

***

For the last two months, I have lived in shady motel rooms and abandoned buildings where underground fights take place. Cracks mar the walls, a rusty-colored line follows the drain in the small shower, and the light above my head flickers incessantly while a moldy scent surrounds me.

I don’t recognize the man staring back at me in the mirror of this dilapidated bathroom. Stubble grazes my chin, and my layered dark hair has gotten longer, so I slick it back.

The restlessness is still there. There’s no peace. Not that I deserve it, but I went away to search for myself, only to get lost in the haze of violence. I get farther away from my heart with every new place because I left it withher.

Every opponent I knock down in some warehouse in another godforsaken place doesn’t give me the satisfaction I crave. I even let them get a hit in to make the fight more fair. Yet, each one drops like a damn sack.

My image was always that of the easy-going guy in our group of friends. While the others always seemed unapproachable, I quickly learned that people flock to the popular ones. With the charming personality I presented—the funny, party-going heir––it was easy for people to trust me and share information. Since I fought on campus for a while, I knew about most of the big-money fights happening across the country.

My burner phone pings with the location of my next fight. It’s going down in an hour. I can’t stay longer than two days in one place, not only because the Family is searching for me but because my fighting skills attract attention. Both are things I don’t want, yet I can’t do a thing to stop them.

Pulling a hoodie on, I drag it lower to hide my face from prying eyes. Buses and my feet have carried me a thousand miles away from Greenville to the middle of the country. Not enough distance, but not even thousands more would help.

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