Page 11 of Bend Him, Break Him
“No, I didn’t mean—”
“You think I just walked off the idea of my first lo…crush, lustful whatever, dude I was sucking off’s betrayal?” Isaac tilted his head, locking his icy blue eyes onto Colton’s. “That fucked my head beyond repair. I don’t do relationships—not even many hookups—because all I think about is how you took my trust and spit it back into my face, how you shattered my fucking identity so a couple of homophobes could have a laugh at my expense.”
Colton remained silent as Isaac’s speech turned more into profane comments than a list of all the horrors he endured.
“What do you want?” Colton asked, voice cracking and eyes glossy. There had to be something he could offer, something Isaac craved more than his suffering. After all, he brought him here.
“Personally, I would love to slit your fucking throat, but I’ll settle for burning your future to the ground.”
Colton took a deep breath, biting back the building fury inside him. Isaac’s nonchalant and brutal sarcasm wasn’t helping to keep him in check. In this instance, Colton was as angry as he was frightened, and when he found himself feeling this way, it usually helped to punch something…or someone.
It quickly occurred to Colton that Isaac intended to use this as blackmail. He hadn’t disclosed that part yet, but it was obvious enough.
“Besides ruining me, what do you want?”
“Want? I want to see you broken.” Isaac grinned. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Colton’s nostrils flared, and the building tears illuminated the fury in his green eyes.
“There it is,” Isaac said with this sadistic smugness, a voice which grated on Colton’s ears. “The fractured realization of defeat. The entitled ego still desperately searching for an answer. But I broke you. I broke the arrogant alphahole who thinks he runs everything just because—”
“You wanna see something broken?” Colton bolted toward Isaac and went to punch him.
But then Isaac did the impossible; he weaved around Colton, caught his arm, and hurled him over his shoulder.
Colton stared at the ceiling in bewilderment. The shine of the lights bearing down stung his eyes, but Isaac’s head helped block the inferno of brightness when he leaned over.
“I’m not the punching bag you and your friends had in high school,” Isaac explained. “If you think I’ll just take an ass kicking like back then, you’re even dumber than I thought.”
Colton swallowed his rage and sat up. “You can’t do this.”
“Really?” Isaac posed, practically prancing back to the podium. “Pretty sure I can. Pretty sure I did.”
“You sent it already?” Colton asked, unable to hide the quiver in his voice as he scrambled to his feet.
“All in good time.” Isaac grinned. “It’s not like I can barge into Howard’s office and demand she meet me now. I planned on telling her in person—better than an email—but I also know how to cover my bases.”
Colton still had a chance. A chance to stop this. He couldn’t grasp why Isaac would confront him, though. It was foolish and arrogant and cocky in a way Isaac professed to be so above.
“Why bring me here? If not to blackmail me, what the hell do you have to gain by confronting me?”
“Blackmail you?” Isaac chuckled. “How retro.”
“Why bring me here?” Colton asked again. He wanted to add the risk Isaac took in doing so, but he’d realized the skinny guy did a lot better defending himself now than he ever had before.
“I thought about waiting, lighting the match and savoring the look of defeat on your face after the fire burned down your life.” Isaac slinked toward Colton again, a serpent’s gaze as he circled the jock. “Then I thought how delectable it would be to show you the matchstick before I ignited everything. To watch you scramble and struggle and try to blow out the fire to no avail.”
“You’re a fucking psycho.”
“How would you know?” Isaac gestured dramatically, wiggling his fingers with flair. The black polish glistened under the lights and swift movement. “It’s not like you paid attention in your Psych 101 course. I can almost guarantee you cheated your way through that one, too.”
Colton’s face burned, the shame of Isaac’s spot-on accuracy. He’d never done well in classes, struggling a bit more every single year. The more his athleticism improved, the worse his academic performance became.
By the time he reached freshman year and made the varsity team of three sports, he’d learned charm and confidence were the only things he needed to pass a class. Either he would sweet talk a teacher into altering a score, find an eager ‘friend’ willing to help him study by which they’d finish the work, or complain to a coach until they put a bit of school spirit weight on the back of the reluctant teacher’s neck. In any case, that was really the only thing Colton ever had to learn in high school.
“You’re a lazy, entitled, hot-headed, smug piece of shit,” Isaac said. “You get all the accolades. Brave queer athlete. Trailblazer. The world wouldn’t think you were so amazing if they knew how awful you were while hiding in the closet.”
“If you do this, I will fucking kill you.”
