Page 120 of Cruel Games

What I didn’t know, though, was that he’d lean over and pull me into his lap like I was a rag doll, his broad chest warm against my palms as I braced myself from falling head-first.

His hands moved to cup the curve of my elbows, holding me in place as he pinned me with a glare. Coyote had always been so unassuming, so calm, I’d never expected him to lose control like this, let alone in front of the others. He moved with a purpose, watching my reactions as he cleared his throat and his lips parted.

“I could start fires with what I feel for you, Ivy. And I didn’t want to see you hurt. We’ve already?—”

“Shut up, Coyote,” Jackal growled, his eyes cutting to his friend over my head. “Don’t say another word.”

Like a firecracker touched by a match, I went off, launching myself off Coyote’s lap to throw a fist square at the side of Jackal’s nose. “You mind your damn business for once,” I spat, shaking out my now-throbbing knuckles as I settled back on my Coyote-shaped chair.

“You’re hurt,” he swore softly, reaching for my injured fist.

“Shouldn’t you be more concerned aboutme?”Jackal spat, cupping his nose as red gushed down the front of his mouth. The effect it had on his mouthful of sharp fangs was interesting, to say the least. “She punchedme,not the other way around.”

It shouldn’t have turned me on as much as it did.

“What are you so afraid of, Jackal?” Coyote said as he leaned over my shoulder and ran his fingertips over my red fingers, checking them for breaks or other damage. Fortunately for me, most of the damage was done to the other party. I escaped rather much unharmed.

Jackal, on the other hand, was beginning to drip all over the floor, and Dingo’s inner neat freak started to twitch at the sight of it staining the rug.

He didn’t even bother to hold his hand over it now, or under it, either. He just stood there, letting blood stream from his nose like he didn’t even notice it, staring at me with hatred in his eyes.

Good. If you hate me, then I don’t have to worry when?—

When I what?

He was right, damn him; I wasn’t going to kill them. I don’t know when the change happened, when the shift fell in place, when I stopped hating him long enough to see the good bits in him. In all of them, really. I’d listened to Dingo as he told me about his siblings in Covenant Hollow, who went to Catholic School while he sent his mother money from his earnings to keep their tuition paid. When Jackal told me about how they found Coyote in the woods like some Jungle Book, Tarzan kindof shit, and how he ran with him on the streets and they banded together, I filed that information away, knowing it was important to them. They knew plenty about me already, but occasionally, they’d ask about my life after the incident, and I’d tell them. Dingo got a kick out of the story about me stabbing a guy in the hand with a fork for grabbing my ass over the bar. Coyote listened like he hung on every boring ass word. And Jackal seemed to open up and let his curiosity out to play when we drank to celebrate a hit.

I’d learned how to work with them, learned how to compliment their patterns and habits, and subconsciously, I’d morphed into a new version of myself.

The problem with that was she wasn’t the Ivy I was used to being. She was a more vulnerable, trusting Ivy. And I knew what happened to people like her. They got hurt.

Over and over again. By the same people she extended her trust to.

She was the part of me who kept feeding that stray even when he clawed me as I pushed a can of food out the window. The part that had extended a deal to the guys when I could have just killed them then and there with no regret, and now I wouldn’t be sitting here with a broken heart and a wounded soul, confused, scared, and sad.

She was the part of me that kept me from carrying out the biggest mistake of my life.

But tough Ivy was the part of me I needed now. She was the part who kept me from getting hurt when I walked away. She kept my back straight and my head held high when I retreated to lick my wounds.

And she was the part of me that would help me close this chapter of my life.

Jackal spit a gob of blood on the floor at his feet, his eyes still cutting to mine as he turned his head slightly. I watched the movement of his brows as he wiped the corner of his mouth andunder his nose with the back of his hand, only succeeding in smearing the bits that hadn’t dried yet.

“You need to come to terms with this shit, Ivy, and fast. I don't want you going batshit every time something makes you doubt yourself.”

He turned his back to the room and stalked off, slamming his bedroom door in his wake as he went to clean himself up, I assumed.

Dingo cleared his throat and ran a hand through his curls, the sigh escaping him so deep and soulful it conjured images of a bottomless pit in my mind. The meaning sat between us, heavy and still, a hurdle I wasn’t sure I could clear.

Could I step across that chasm and venture into the unknown? Was I strong enough to confront their feelings about me? Was I honest enough with myself to admit how I’d begun to feel?

Was I ready to rebuild myself as something new?

Did I even want to?

I curled up on the couch and refused any sort of comfort as I stared at the folder, asking to be left alone for a while. The other two obliged, their doors closing like some ominous ending being declared louder than the winner of a boxing match.

The color manilla burned into my retinas. By the time the sun rose in the kitchen window, I was beginning to nod off, but I had an idea forming in my head.

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