Page 192 of Kiss the Villain

I wipe it with the back of my sleeve, keeping the gun out of reach.

His eyes stare at nowhere, his pupils are so dark and blown up, he looks like an entirely different person.

My little monster, who often takes pride in his unearthly beauty, is now all bloodied.

Because of me.

“Gareth?”

He pulls from my grip with inhuman strength and bangs his head harder on the wall. It’s so powerful, I think he’ll crack his skull open.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” he mumbles. “Stop laughing, shut up.”

I press my hand against the wall, and he slams against it as I shoot the projector in the ceiling, making the video stop.

Gareth stays still, his bloody forehead resting on my palm. His breathing is so low, it causes my skin to prickle.

“Gareth? Can you hear me?”

No reply.

Goddamn it.

I pull him up straighter and he stands on unsteady feet, swaying as if he can’t feel his legs while still looking at the wall with those blown-up eyes.

Eyes that used to only look at me.

Following me everywhere.

Even when he pretends he doesn’t care.

Now they’re not seeing me.

“Gareth?” I stroke his face, beneath his eyes, his cheek. “Say something.”

The wound in his head is still bleeding. I need to have that looked at?—

“Sir, we’re leaving!” Simone growls from the door. “Now.”

I gather Gareth in my arms, and he’s so stiff, his limbs resemble a rigid cord. I manage to lean his head on my shoulder.

“I’m getting you out of here,” I whisper, but he’s not responding, his lips trembling, his face pale, his eyes still staring nowhere.

Like they’re dead.

No.

Simone covers me as I rush back to the van and then we speed away, Declan’s men still shooting at us. The man himself wasn’t there, but I’ll find him and rip his head off his shoulders for what he did.

I cut through Gareth’s straitjacket with a knife as Simone forms a makeshift bandage for his forehead.

My molars grind when I see the long slashes along his arm, and the sloppy stitches Declan probably did to torture him further are mostly ripped open. Bruises on his torso, his collarbone, his chest.

I’m going to torture that motherfucker Declan before I kill him. A week for every goddamn wound he put on my Gareth’s previously perfect body.

You ruined him, not Declan.

It’s you.

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