Page 125 of Fall Into Me

“Cali, baby, talk to me.” Fane ignored Declan’s words completely, his voice breaking on my name again. “I’m right here, Rose. You talk to me.” My chest pinched at the way he used my nickname, how he was taking it back as something that would only ever belong to us. It settled over me then that we both knew what was going to happen. I knew it from the moment he pulled me into this room, but I’d been alone then.

I wasn’t alone now.

“Rosie,” Fane said again.

“Remember the night we met?” I whispered, my voice a little raspy, but the words were clear.

“Shutup!”Declan snarled, hands clenched at his sides, his chest starting to rise and fall rapidly. Featured twisted into a grotesque pout.

“I remember.” Fane’s strained voice reached me, and I imagined that string pulling taut again. Over and over, like I could feel his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest.

“I heard your laugh and couldn’t stop looking around until I found you. You were sitting at the bar.” Despite it all, a little humescaped me at the memory of that moment. “I think I knew at that moment I loved you.”

“I said,shut up!”The back of Declan’s hand cracked across my face for the third time, but the skin was so numb that it hardly even registered. I just focused on Fane.

“Sunshine.” My words were a little wobbly, half of my mouth feeling numb and puffy, but I told him anyway. “That’s what your laugh felt like. Being covered in sunshine. I love—”

The sound of my phone hitting the wall cut me off, its screen going black as it clattered to the floor. The call disconnected.

“You’ll learn to listen to me, you fucking cunt!” Declan grabbed both my wrists and pushed me back onto the bed. He held them tight in one hand above my head while his other moved down to hold my face, making sure I was looking at him.

“Say my name,” he demanded.

Over my dead fucking body.

My voice was muffled by the grip he had on my jaw, and he had to loosen it slightly before he repeated the demand. “Again.”

So I did exactly as I was asked. “Fane,” I said.

“Myname.” His face was starting to go red. The loss of control driving him feral. Unraveling him, thread by rotten thread.

“Fane,” I repeated, still seeing that string taut between us despite my phone being destroyed. Despite the distance between us.

“Fane, Fane, Fane,”I chanted quietly, defiantly.

Declan’s head lowered, his face inches from mine, his twisted smile faltering for just a second. That’s all I needed.

I smashed my head into his with every ounce of force I could muster.

The impact sent a shockwave through my skull, and for one paralyzing moment, my entire world went black. My vision flickered in and out, and then–mercifully–it stuck. Declanstumbled back. Eyes unfocused, his blood streaming from his nose and painting his teeth red as it spilled over his lips.

He was stunned. I think I was fucking stunned too, because I wasted precious seconds just watching him come to the realization that I’d just headbutted him.

Our eyes locked, and then he was lunging for me. A rabid, furious growl tore from his throat that reminded me of all the worst things a person was capable of, and I rolled. The move sent my head spinning, and I landed on the floor, the impact causing a shooting pain to ricochet through the spot just under my collarbone, radiating from the spot where he’d sunk his knife, through to my chest and down my arm. But then I saw it—his knife. Right fucking next to me.

I didn’t hesitate. I picked it up, the blade already wet with my blood, held it tight, and started swinging it.

Somehow I managed to stab him in the back of the leg. Well, I thought it was the back of his leg, but when I got to my feet, still stumbling, I saw that I’d embedded the blade in the middle of his ass cheek.

His roar of pain was probably the best sound I’d ever heard in my life. I didn’t waste time then, I was moving. Bolting out of the bedroom door, knowing I needed to keep him away from Jerry. If he couldn’t get to me I was sure he’d try and hurt him more than he already had.

I headed right for the living room, and just like when he’d chased me on my run, I felt the breeze of phantom fingers reaching for me, but this time they were tangible things. They were real, and I hadn’t been fast enough.

Declan caught me and threw me to the floor of the living room before his body came down on top of mine with so much force it winded me.

The blood from his nose covered the bottom half of his face. His lips and teeth. When he smiled, he looked insane with theway his blood had settled into the dry, cracked skin of his lips. His tongue darted out, licking the blood like it was the best fucking thing he’d ever tasted.

“Oh, Rose!” he crooned with a deranged sort of laugh, his hands scrabbling to pin my arms as I fought like hell to keep them free. “You know exactly what I like.”

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