Page 164 of Boy of Ruin
“Ignis will help him,” she says quietly, glancing down at her bare feet, flexing her toes. They’re painted in the color of a fucking rainbow.
I swallow down the water, plastic crinkling beneath my fingers. Then I screw the cap back on, smack the bottle against my opposite hand, over my useless scar. I don’t say anything, because I don’t have anything fucking nice to say.
“You could help him.” Her voice is stronger now, like she’s just grown some fucking balls or something while she picks her head up and looks me in the eye.
I arch a brow, feeling white-hot rage course through me. “How’s that? Because one of the last nights I spent with my husband, he held a knife to my face.” Seems to be his thing. “And maybe he’s having some kind of delusions. Maybe he’s hurting. But the eight ball he did before bed that night probably didn’t help either, right?” Everyone feels sorry for him.
I do too.
But no one seems to get that I did not ask for any of this.
I take a deep breath in, glance at my reflection in the mirror at my side. My cheeks are flushed from my workout, but I see something else, too. The bump in my belly, straining against my black tank. More prominent now. Still, if someone didn’t know me, they might think I’d had a huge meal, but the irony in that is no one ever saw me that didn’t know me.
Dates? Hanging out outside of our house? Spending time together that wasn’t running or screaming and yelling inside the walls of our home?
That didn’t exist between Lucifer and me.
“He messed up,” Ella whispers, and I stare at myself in the mirror taking in my gray eyes. The scar over my brow. My hollow cheekbones. I haven’t eaten much of Ella’s food on principle.
She fucked my husband.
“But he’s…he’s really hurting. With his dad, and you know, you leaving, and—”
“You don’t fucking know him.” I stand, too fast, the room spinning as I close my eyes, bring the side of the cold water bottle up to my brow, waiting a moment to steady myself. Trying not to see him destroying our room in my head. Him cutting himself, for me.
“Are you okay—”
“You don’t fucking know him,” I say again, lowering the bottle by my side and glaring across the gym floor at Ella. “And you don’t know me. Don’t try to play some type of armchair fucking psychiatrist, okay, Ella? You have no idea what we’ve been through—”
“But you’ve been through something, haven’t you?” Her question is quiet, but her tone is strong. She lifts her chin, takes a few steps toward me until we’re only a couple of feet apart.
I grit my teeth, try to breathe evenly so I don’t attack her like I did Mayhem. She’s a lot taller than me, a lot sturdier. But I’ve been training, and I don’t know where Mayhem met her, but she’s seemed to be happy here locked away in this castle.
I’ve got a lot of anger at having my freedom taken from me.
I think anger can beat size any day.
“You’ve been through it, together,” she keeps talking, holding my gaze. “And when you weren’t together…” She runs her tongue over her teeth, glancing down, then back up. “He’s been falling apart without you, Sid. And I know I don’t know you. Or him, really. But it’s easy to see when someone is hurting. And it’s easy to see when it’s from a loss. And when he lost you, he couldn’t feel anything but that pain.”
I don’t know if she’s trying to guilt trip me, but I think of Jeremiah. Of how he was falling apart without me. All those years. All those fucking years.
But before I can say anything, Ella keeps talking.
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad. And I don’t know what Jeremiah Rain feels for you.” She stumbles over his name like he’s a god that she doesn’t want to summon to this house. I think about his mouth on her, then Lucifer’s dick inside of her.
Which one hurt worse?
“I’m sure he loves you too. But…” She trails off, chewing on her bottom lip. I realize I’m hanging onto her words.
That maybe I don’t have this right.
That maybe I did the wrong thing. That maybe my husband has problems, like I do, like J does, and when I ran to J for shelter, I took away Lucifer’s.
My throat feels tight as I wait for Ella to finish. I hate her for fucking my husband, but I think, if I feel this way about him with her…how does Lucifer feel? About me, willingly sleeping with the man he watched hurt me?
If Ella had hurt my husband, then he fucked her…
My stomach twists up into knots.
