Page 85 of Cruel Cravings

Brontë slams the office door shut and tosses me onto one of Dr. Wolford’s chairs like I’m a doll he’s sick of playing with. I land with limbs draped over the chair, my whole body violently shaking from the emotion that pours out of me.

“This whole time you knew who I was—you knew your father was my doctor! You led me here. You wanted me to be in their clutches again. He sent you, didn’t he? He sent you to come get me!”

Brontë doesn’t deny a single word.

He steps toward me, standing over the chair like the terrifying, hulking mass of muscle that he is. His breathing’s deepened like mine, coming out in ragged drags of air. He stares down at me like I’m some species he doesn’t understand.

More tears roll free. My skin’s hot and flushed, yet I’m shaking. I’m sick with disgust and confusion at the betrayal.

“You’ve been working with him the whole time,” I yell, then a wild laugh bursts out of me. “I should’ve known. I should’veknown! This was never about you helping me find my sister! You were never on my side. You were just leading me back to him… to them…”

My head throbs, deprived of proper oxygen. But it doesn’t even matter anymore as I blearily gaze up at Brontë and hurl accusation after accusation.

“You want me locked up again. You want me to suffer!”

Smack!

Brontë grabs hold of my throat and slaps me across the face. A tap that doesn’t hurt beyond the sudden prickle on my cheek, but that’s enough to make me go still.

Stun me into silence.

“No,” he growls simply. “Never.”

I gulp down air, hiccuping through my tears. “I’m right.”

“You. Are. Wrong.”

I twist desperately in the chair, jerking my head free and glaring some more at him. I’m tempted to give into the madness that’s calling my name, the manic urges that scream at me to attack him and hurt him anyway I can.

He must sense this. I see it in his eyes.

Yet he doesn’t budge. He hovers over the chair and returns my glare, as if waiting for my next move.

“I trusted you,” I whisper feebly.

“Jael.”

He speaks my name like it’s enough to communicate everything he wants to say. It tells me all I need to know.

Maybe it does.

“I want nothing to do with you,” I mumble, turning my head away. “Just do it already… just call him… take me back.”

“No,” he answers, then he grips my chin to turn my head back toward him. “You want to find your sister. You want to make the people who hurt her—and you—suffer. I will make it happen.”

“But… your father… why wouldn’t?—?”

“I detest him,” he grunts. “I want him to pay.”

I stiffen, studying him more closely. “You’re… you’re telling the truth.”

He nods. “We will do it together.”

His words unravel me the way my suspicions of him did. Except instead of making me cry and shake and spiral into hysterics, it knocks down my defenses and makes me acutely aware of how exhausted I am.

I’ve been alone for so long that the idea of having someone else… feels so immediately comforting.

My breath shudders out of me, along with my murky thoughts on Dr. Wolford and the endless confusion he’s made me feel over the years. Constantly making me question reality. Always making me doubt myself while he…

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