Page 132 of You Were Always Mine
If he does this, he won’t come back.
The thought won’t leave me. It circles, digs, hollows me out. It forces me to move.
I grab the first hoodie I see, pull it over my head, shove my bare feet into trainers without socks. My hands shake so hard I can’t tie the laces. Doesn’t matter. I’ll run barefoot through the streets if I have to.
“Please, Kai,” I whisper into the night as I yank the door open, cool air slapping my tear-wet face. “Don’t make me watch you disappear.”
And I chase him. Into the dark. Into whatever this is going to break us into.
Kai
The night splits open beneath the sound of my boots hammering cracked pavement, every step aimed at him.
Tyler.
The name tastes like rust. I see red with every breath, the streets warping under the flicker of dying lamps, damp air clinging to my skin like sweat.
Behind me, I can hear her—Scar—her voice ragged and desperate, my name spilling from her throat as she runs after me.
“Kai—please—stop!”
The echo doesn’t slow me. It fuels me.
We’re not far. I know where he’ll be. He always slithers back to the same corners—the neon-stained strip by the liquor store, the alley where broken bottles glitter like teeth. My fists clench until the bones ache. I’m putting him in the ground tonight.
The storm in my chest is louder than her footsteps. Every inhale is fire. Every exhale, a vow. He touched her. Hetexted her. He laughed about it. And I let it happen—I let all of it happen.
Scar’s voice cracks again behind me, trembling but sharp enough to pierce.
“Kai! Please! Don’t do this!”
But I’m already there in my head. Already got his throat under my hand, knuckles split, blood hot against my skin. I’m not stopping—not until Tyler’s eyes see nothing but me and then nothing at all.
The street narrows into shadow, the neon hum from the liquor store flickering like a dying heartbeat. I slow—not because I want to, but because fury’s strangling me so tight I can barely breathe. My chest heaves, fists flexing, nails cutting into my palms.
He’s close. I can feel it—the air itself curdling when Tyler’s near.
Behind me, Scar stumbles, shoes scraping broken pavement. She’s crying now, but it’s not soft; it’s jagged, desperate.
“Kai, you don’t understand—if you do this?—”
I half turn, eyes burning.
“I understand enough.” My voice comes out low, shaking, glass about to shatter. “He put his fucking hands on you. He kept touching you even after you said no. He laughs about it. He threatens you. And you think I’m just going to let him breathe another night?”
Her lips part, tears cutting clean tracks down her cheeks. She shakes her head like she can force the truth back into me.
“But if you kill him—you’ll be gone. You’ll leave me.”
That stops me for half a second. The drip from a gutter, the buzz of a lamp, the hollow echo of her sob—all of it rushes in. My throat locks.
Because she’s right. And I don’t care.
I turn back, storming forward, fists already curling for his throat.
“Then you’ll visit me in hell,” I mutter, mostly to myself—but she hears.
Her footsteps slap the pavement before I feel her—arms latching round my neck, nails digging into my skin, her whole body pressed desperately against me as if she can anchor me in place. Her sobs shudder into my collar, hot and broken.
