Page 225 of Like Grim Death: Part One
But if she went with him elsewhere, after what we did… Did he do what he couldn’t when I held the gun to her?
Her pink skin turns red. It feels like an answer enough as a weight presses down on my chest, making it hard to fucking breathe. “No.”
I take a step toward her, and she takes a step back, her bare feet slipping a second and squeaking on the midnight black tile. “When did you start fucking lying to me, pretty girl?”
She hugs herself tighter. “I’m not lying.”
“Where did you go, then?”
“I came up here.”
I smile, but my jaw aches from clamping my teeth together. It takes me a second to get the word out. “Yeah?”
She looks confused, her brows pulling together as she rears back. “Yes,” she says through gritted teeth.
“When was that?”
Her face pales, but she says nothing.
“Where did you go with him? Some place I couldn’t find you two, huh? Did you fuck him again, Ella?”
She shakes her head, her skin ashen.
“Did you ride his dick? Did you want it all over again when I wasn’t watching, huh?”
She’s silent.
My mind spins.
I start to think about whenAtlas began to be late to Council.
Since… since I saw him and Ella in the basement together at Rain’s party. My vision swims, and I have to blink to clear it, anger making it very fucking hard to breathe. A rush of adrenaline floods every cell in my body, and I want to hurt her. I want to fucking scream.
But you forced them to fuck. You made it happen. You orchestrated all of it, then you walked out. What did you think would happen, you fucking idiot?
You can’t save anyone. You only fuck them up.
“Answer me, Ella.” All these thoughts grow louder in my brain. It’s true, I did set it up, but I walked in on them first. And if Ella fucked him without me, if she cheated on me…
She’s shaking her head.
“Answer me, now.”
She swallows hard, but doesn’t speak.
“Fucking answer me, goddammit!”I slam my fist on the counter and she doesn’t even blink.
She straightens, in fact, like my outburst gives her composure in some twisted give and take. And as blood drips across her skin, she says,“You left me.”
Our eyes burn into one another.
I regret it.I regret so much of my entire fucking life.I hate this, feeling like I’m falling apart. This is Lucifer’s thing.I don’t fucking do this.
I can’t.
I cannot be that person. I have to… I have to stay strong.
“Did you know I paybothof our cell phone bills?” I ask her quietly, staring at the tile beneath my feet, because I don’t want to look at her. My jaw ticks, my head screaming at me to fucking destroy something. To slam my fist on the counter again.
