Page 224 of Ruin My Life
Connor’s grin splits wide, sick satisfaction dripping from every tooth.
“Having flashbacks, Brie?” he whispers, eyes bright with glee.
Then he sets the gun down on the arm of the couch.
I go still—utterly still.
His grip loosens just enough for the edges of my vision to stop blackening. He lifts his other hand to his own face—slow, deliberate—and with casual ease, he peels a contact lens from his left eye.
Sea-green stares back at me.
No.
No. No. No.
The same green from six months ago.
The same shade I burned into my memory.
The same eyes that haunted every nightmare.
I’d guessed he had contacts in, but the sight of his real eyes is enough to put me back on the floor. Carpet against my back. His weight crushing me down. Helplessness curling through my bones like poison.
“How about now?” he taunts, tightening his grip until my windpipe throbs under his palm, more bruises blooming before I can even count them. “Or do you need another reminder?”
His voice slices through me. When he reaches for his belt—when I hear the low hiss of leather sliding free—something inside me triggers like a bomb.
I summon everything I have left. I rake it all to the surface.
The rage. The horror. The grief.
And I spit—straight into his face.
It lands into that green eye.
He reels back with a snarl, stumbling from the chair.
Air floods my lungs so fast it burns. I choke on it, dizzy and shaking, but force my words out, each one coated in venom.
“Over my dead body.”
His face warps with rage. “You fucking bitch,” he snarls, swiping the spit from his eye with the back of his hand.
He grabs the gun. Raises it level with my forehead. Right between my eyes.
“That can be easily arranged,” he says.
He pulls back the hammer—click.
In the silence, it’s louder than a gunshot.
This is it.
I don’t get to fight. I don’t get to win.
But I did buy time.
God, I hope it was enough.
