Page 184 of Vile Boys

I narrow my eyes. “You think I didn’t know what you two were up to?” I eye one of the cameras in the corner, pointed directly at her guest room door.

She shivers. “You were watching me.”

A smile tips up my lips. “There has never been a time when I haven’t, little rose.”

I hold out my hand.

Finally, she surrenders the card along with the phone.

“Good girl.”

Her face contorts with both a hint of pleasure and hostility. “You’re a menace.”

I corner her against the wall, planting my hands beside her head so she can’t escape me again. “Try to run away again, and I will break every bone in your mother’s body.”

She grimaces. “You’re a monster.”

“Call me what you want. It doesn’t change anything.” I turnaround and waltz off.

“You had no right to take us away from there.”

I pause without looking at her. I fucking can’t.

“Caleb needed to see his mother,” she adds. “And you forced him to leave.”

My teeth grind together, and I ball my fists.

“Why?” she asks.

“You have no idea what I do for that boy …” I growl. “No idea what it’s been like to have to watch the one person you need fall slowly into death’s claws.”

I can hear her gulp. “What?”

I turn to face her. “If I hadn’t told him to drop those knives, he would’ve ended himself up there in his room.”

Her pupils dilate. “No.”

“Don’t you understand? He’s in agony. And you almost pushed him over that edge again.”

She shakes her head, tears welling up. “I didn’t. It wasn’t on purpose.”

“There’s a reason he doesn’t fucking tell people the truth. Every time he revisits the trauma, he gets worse.”

“Wait, we shouldn’t leave him alone then,” she mutters.

“Blaine will watch over him.”

“That’s not enough.”

“He won’t allow either of us in his room, trust me,” I grit. “Why do you even care?”

“Am I not allowed?” she growls back.

My jaw tenses. I don’t understand how she went from hating his guts to wanting to console him … unless …

“Grief. It’s a fickle thing, isn’t it?” I say. “So volatile …” I step closer to her again and grab a strand of her hair, curling it around my finger. “So vivid it controls your every waking thought.”

My eyes home in on her from under my lashes, and her green irises are barely able to rip away from mine. “It almost makes you believe you’d want to die too.”

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