Page 134 of You Were Always Mine
The rest of his sentence never sees daylight because my fist does. The crunch of knuckles to jaw reverberates up my arm—pure satisfaction. Tyler stumbles, coughs blood into the gutter, still laughing.
“Jesus, Kai. That temper of yours—always knew it’d get you locked up.” He spits red, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, grinning like a lunatic.
I don’t answer. My answer is another punch—sharper, deliberate—splitting his lip wider. He slams into the wall, head snapping back. The cigarette skitters across the concrete, ember dying.
“Keeptalking,” I rasp, chest heaving, every nerve on fire. “I want to hear you choke on it.”
And he does. He chuckles, wheezing. “She—she liked it.”
My boot connects with his ribs. Once. Twice. Three times. Slow. Methodical. Each kick wrings a grunt, a cough, another stain on the pavement. I don’t stop. Not yet. I savour it—the way his body folds, the way he still tries to grin through the blood slicking his teeth.
“You think you’re a man?” I crouch, fist in his collar, yanking him upright so I can spit the words into his swollen face. “A man doesn’t need to hide in the dark to touch what isn’t his.”
He groans, breath rattling—and still he smirks. “Guess that makes you worse than me.”
The smirk doesn’t last. I knock his skull against the brick, slow and steady—once, twice—until the sound changes from arrogance to panic. Until his laugh curdles into a scream.
And still—it isn’t enough.
Because I need him to feel every second of this.
His laugh is a splinter under my skin. He spits blood on the ground, a crooked grin flashing in the dark like he doesn’t understand what he’s just signed.
“You think she loves you? She told me things. Cried in my arms. Begged me to stop—oh wait, you like it when she begs, don’t you?”
I drive my boot into his ribs, slow, measured. The crack echoes—a wet sound swallowed by the night. He wheezes and still smiles.
I crouch low, fist tangled in his hair, dragging his head back so he has to look at me. His pupils swim with pain,his lip split open, and still he doesn’t shut up. “She’ll always remember me touching her first.”
I slam his skull against the wall. Not enough to end him—enough to remind him he’s breakable. He groans, spits a tooth onto the pavement.
“Keep talking,” I rasp, voice steady even as my hands shake with the need to finish him. “Every word out of your mouth makes it easier for me.”
His grin falters. Just for a second.
I lean in, forehead to his, the stink of blood and beer between us. “You marked her, Tyler. So I’m going to mark you back. Slow. So you’ll never forget me every time you try to breathe.”
I grind his face into the brick until the skin peels raw. My knuckles are already split, blood slick between my fingers, but I don’t stop. I want him in pieces. I want him to remember this beating more than he remembers touching her.
He coughs and laughs again—weak, wet. “She screamed, Kai. Screamed for me.”
My fist hammers into him. Over and over. My vision tunnels red.
And still I don’t kill him. Not yet.
Killing him would be mercy.
My knuckles are split wide open, skin hanging, blood soaking into Tyler’s shirt with every blow. I barely feel the sting anymore; all I hear is the crunch of cartilage, the wet choke of his breath as I slam his head against the gravel again and again.
“You think you can touch her?” My voice is shredded, a growl ripped from somewhere deeper than my chest. “You think you can crawl into her phone, into her fucking head, and I wouldn’t find out?”
He laughs—or maybe it’s a cough—but it’s enough to make me drive my fist into his jaw until his body jerks like a puppet.
“Kai!”
Her voice. Splintered. Breaking.
It rips straight through me.
