Page 43 of Beyond Hate

It was getting harder and harder to try to convince myself that everything he’d told me was crazy… I’d seen it with my own eyes when I’d watched Warren change in the facility, butfeelingit now was different. Walking beside him felt like I was walking with a ghost of a memory, something just out of my reach, something I could almost touch.

Or maybe it was just that he sounded sohonestwhen he spoke, and looked so sincere when he called me by a name I didn’t know.

Whatever it was, it made strolling down the street with him feel like some long forgotten memory instead of something we’d never done before.

“I’m pretty sure I don’t want more blood on my hands.” The answer to his question felt all new, though. If we’d walked like this before, if what he’d been saying all along was true, the person that I’d been had so much blood on their hands I was surprised mine weren’t still stained.

If everything he’d told me was true, the only person he should have been worried about killing was me, and I still wasn’t sure why he’d changed his mind about it.

“Oh, London…” He dropped his hand between us before I could react, and threaded our fingers together. When he raised them, that dangerous look was on his face again—the expression that made something in my body tremble, made instinct kick up and tell me I needed to run before it was too late. “You have an entire lifetime of blood on your hands—mine included. What’s one more person?”

I jerked my grip out of his and turned. I’d been planning on milling around until I was sure Hudson was gone so I could go pick up a few things… but now.

Well, shit, now I needed to figure out how to get away from Otto. The look in his eyes made something in my stomach feel uneasy, made something lower feel… hot and hard, and I…

“Leave me alone, Otto.” It was a weak demand, and I already knew he wasn’t going to listen as I turned and made my way toward the little strip mall within walking distance. I wasn’t sure where I was going to go, but I had to do something to try to get away from him. He was fucking with my head.

He was fucking witheverything. I didn’t feel like the same person I’d been before he’d taken me, and it wasn’t because I was admitting to being whoever Nikki was.

I just felt…

Different.

Broken.

Like every part of me had been dipped in fire and now I was covered in the ash of Otto’s destruction. He was in my lungs.

He was all around me, and I couldn’t seem to get away. I couldn’t breathe without tasting him on the back of my tongue. He was the air.

“Oh, little rabbit.” He’d already caught up to me, and the smile on his face seemed so serene in comparison to the fact that he’d just offered to kill someone for me. “You have to know by now that I’m never going to leave you alone. You fell apart for me the last time I touched you… don’t you want to do that again?”

I had to force myself to keep walking, even though I was pretty sure the blush that blossomed and burned across my cheeks spoke louder than whatever denial I was trying to summon up.

Never implied a long time. A long time toneverbe alone again. To feel that overwhelming sensation when he touched me, the loss of control…

No. I wasn’t going to think for even a second that a long time was a good thing. I didn’t want a long time.

I wanted my life back. Maybe I’d told Hudson that Otto wanted me, but that didn’t mean I had to let him have me. I just…

Fuck.

Fuck.

What life did I really have to go back to? There was life before Otto and life after the first time he’d touched me… and somehow, thatbeforefelt like it didn’t exist anymore. It felt like it belonged to another person.

“There really is something wrong with me.” It felt almost painful to say it aloud, and I couldn’t quite drag my eyes up to look at him. “I should have turned you in to the police. I should have kept my apartment door locked… I should be running from you right now. I…”

He took my hand in his again and squeezed, like the thought of me trying to run was enough to make him react. Otto pulled me closer, dragging me against his body, so we stopped walking. It let the heat of him pool just beneath my skin and stole my breath away.

“You should have done a lot of things, but you didn’t. You should have run the first time you saw me, and kept running… but I think a part of you knows you deserve this.” Even with the cruel words on his tongue, he lifted his free hand and carefully threaded his fingers through my hair, tugging lightly on the strands and sending little zips of pleasure and confusion through my body. “You broke me in another life, London. You made me into the monster I am… It’s almost fitting that you take responsibility for it now, don’t you think?”

Otto paused, his eyes searching my face like he was waiting for some kind of recognition, some kind of guilt or apology that I couldn’t give him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. Hearing aboutthe way Warren had hurt him when we were in the facility, I’d felt like I was breaking apart. Knowing that some version of me had done the same?

He was right… If he was a monster because of me, maybe that was why I couldn’t run now. If I’d made him into what he was, it only made sense that I let him punish me until he felt like I’d paid for my sins… And maybe my life had been so fucked up because of everything that Nikki had done…

But I still didn’tunderstand.

“You keep telling me I hurt you, that I killed you… but Otto, I don’t…” My brows snapped together, and I couldn’t keep the pain out of my voice. “I don’t remember it. Tell me what you think I did, because the only thing I know right now is… this…” I looked at our linked fingers and wondered if a glance was enough to convey everything I felt, if it was enough to tell him that I meant every moment he’d slipped into my bed, the way he’d killed for me, because of me. The way I couldn’t seem to stay away anymore.

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