Page 125 of Unorthodox
“Let me go, Max.”
He keeps staring up at me, not letting go. The circles beneath his eyes are nearly black. With those and the bruises along his face, it’s almost hard to look at him, the dark contrast of that weakness against the pallor of his skin.
He keeps running his thumb over my ankle, and as the seconds tick by, he doesn’t say anything.
I sigh, cover my hands over my face, closing my eyes. He’s not the only one who’s tired. Dante’s body in the woods. The nightmare with Cade. Danik. Max’s finger down my throat. Zeke’s body on mine. Max wrapping his arm around me, pulling the trigger as he shot Zeke.
Then later, his anger. His hands on me.
He’s not the only who wants to escape it all.
“Why were you screaming?” His voice is low, but it sounds loud in the quiet of the house.
I tense, not dropping my hands from my face. That’s the last thing I want to talk about with him. I’m surprised he even heard me.
“I had a nightmare,” I decide on, dropping my hands. Knowing he wouldn’t have let it go unless I told him something.
He doesn’t stop massaging my ankle. “Tell me about it.”
“No.”
He arches a thick brow, then he lets go of me and rises to his feet. I take a step back, his height unnerving when he was just on the floor, beneath me. From this angle, I can clearly see the swelling along this jaw. The tiny stitches above his eye.
“What happened, Max?” I ask him quietly.
He glances down the hallway, as if he’s looking for something, and when his eyes meet mine again, ignoring my question, he asks, “Was it the pine?”
My throat feels tight, my chest heavy. I don’t know what time it is, but I don’t want to talk about this with him right now. Or ever. I wrap my arms around myself again, edging toward my door.
He watches me move but doesn’t stop me, even with his gun in one hand.
When I’m in the doorway, I hang my head, but don’t drop my arms. “Yes,” I answer him, my voice rough. “It was the pine.”
He places his hand on my arm, and I try my best not to flinch. His touch isn’t demanding, or painful, it’s just…there.“What happened, Addison?”
I swallow down a scream of frustration as I pick my head up to stare at him. “You first,” I say sharply.
He just keeps staring.
I sigh. “I don’t want to talk about this, Max.”
He glares at me, and he looks nearly demonic in the soft blue lights of the hallway, with those circles under his eyes, cuts on his face. I think he’s going to hold that gun to my head and force me to tell him anyway, because that’s what Max does.
He controls things.
He doesn’t know the meaning of the word “no”.
In his world, he’s made sure it doesn’t exist.
But instead of forcing me, he jerks his head toward my door. “Can I come in?” He phrases it as a question, but I know there’s only one answer.
I don’t want to fight again. I don’t want to hurt again.
So, I just nod, then I shrug out of his grasp and walk into my room, momentarily thinking of that chocolate wrapper sitting next to him on the floor. I push it from my mind, the way it makes Max seem almost human.
He closes the door behind us, uses a key to lock the door from the inside.
Convenient.
