Page 75 of Every Broken Thing

And Eric fell silent, his fingers twitching around my throat. I’d never called him by his first name before, but it made him pause.

So I said, “Eric,” again, and his fingers loosened.

My throat twinged as I gasped for air, leaning my entire body weight on Boyt. He shouldered it, holding me up as I clung to his arm across my chest and sobbed.

“There you go,” he said. “Take a breath.”

It was a mockery of the way Ben helped me calm down and center myself during my panic attacks. Did he know? Or was it simply a cruel coincidence?

Eric patted my chest, fingers still framing my neck. “Have you learned your lesson?”

I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand any of this. My mind was fracturing, and I just wanted to live. I didn’t want to die here in the dark.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, fingernails digging into his wrists. “You can stop this, Eric.”

“Have you learned your lesson?” he said again, and I released an impotent scream through clenched teeth.

“You’re crazy! Fuck you and your fucking lessons, you sociopath.”

He growled and manhandled me until my back met a wall, forcing whatever oxygen I’d managed to inhale out again. We were almost nose-to-nose as he loomed over me.

“Then I’ll teach you again,” he said, eyes black in the darkness.

With his hands on my shoulders, he shoved me down, and my knees buckled. I grabbed his thighs to catch myself, but the landing still jarred me, making my kneecaps ache.

His crotch was in my face, and my stomach clenched. He had to be joking.

“You’ll learn respect,” he mumbled as his fingers dropped to his zipper.

“Anything you put in my mouth, Iwillbite off,” I snarled, shoving away from him. But there was nowhere to go. He had me cornered, and his hand on the nape of my neck was a terrifying reminder of exactly what he was capable of.

“I don’t think Blondie will fare so well if you do that,” he said as he unbuttoned his jeans.

And just like that, everything changed.

“No,” I practically choked on the word.

No, not Ben. Not my Ben. He was innocent in all this. He was everything good and wonderful in this world, and he hadn’t asked for any of this. He’d saved me and protected me, and he would do it again because it was simply who he was.

If Eric went after him, he’d fight for me. But I didn’t think Ben would stand a chance.

He’d caught Eric off guard that day in the bathroom, and Eric had proven himself more than capable of creating the necessary circumstances to win whatever fucked up power struggle we were trapped in right now. He’d followed me here, after all, and waited until I was alone. He’d ensured that we wouldn’t be interrupted this time.

So, no, I wasn’t going to let him hurt Ben. Not if I could stop it. Ben had given enough. It had to be my turn.

“Leave him out of this,” I said, glaring up at Boyt. And just the fact that I was on my fucking knees for him made me want to scream. “This is between me and you. You don’t touch him.”

Apparently that was good enough for him. He smirked, but it was a rotting thing. It didn’t reach his eyes. They were empty, devoid of anything remotely human, and everything in me went ice cold.

I closed my eyes, searching for the anchor in my head tethering me to reality. I’d just unhook it, and I’d float away from here. I would go somewhere different, be someone else, if only for the time it took for this to be over. Ben would be safe, and that was all that mattered.

A zipper rasped.

Far away, I heard the echo of a leaking faucet.Drip. Drip. Drip.

Fingers curled around the back of my neck.

Impossibly, I was surrounded by cucumber fucking melon.

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